They were sitting on the rocks and she was leaning against his back for support. None of them spoke a word for a long time and yet the silence between them was neither intrusive nor awkward. It seemed as if conversation had invented the silence and she thought this was the best conversation they ever had.
The lull slowly pushed her into the deep memories which are rarely unaccompanied by thoughts. She remembered how different she used to be. How she never felt that she belonged to the world she had inhabited for so long. How sarcastic and cynical she was about everything around her and how she particularly ridiculed, mocked and laughed at the notion of love and yet the supreme paradox was that she herself secretly wanted to fall in love. The truth was that her perception of love was very different from those around her and it was this 'other's' notion that she used to ridicule.
She never felt like a part of the world she lived in. She was always an outsider, a stranger. The way people around her thought and talked of love disgusted her. For her love was an eternal virtue. Behind her cynicism and skepticism was a profoundly disappointed idealist. She assumed that her idea of love was just that, an idea. She thought she was chasing a mirage because 'love' as she believed it to be, as she believed it should be, did not exist. This disappointed her and her disappointment was reflected through her mockery of shallow and superficial idea of love that existed around her.
And then one fine day he walked into her life and changed it forever. Faith, trust, hope, belief and love which were nothing more than deceptive fantasy for her became a reality. From a skeptic she became a believer. The way both of them met could have been pure coincidence or destiny but shortly after meeting him she knew they were meant to be. From the very beginning the connection between them had been conspicuous as day or night itself.
She thought if he was a dream and she was living a fairy-tale because things seemed too perfect to be true. The way she lost sense of time with him was always a mystery to her. She was surprised how every moment spent with him had been etched in her life and had become a treasured memory. Was it normal to get so involved with somebody that you forget everything else, she wondered. But he was not just somebody. He was the one she belonged to. She was his Sonia. And she knew she was in love, finally.
As the sun slowly surrendered the summer sky, he lazily put his arms around her waist, interrupting her thoughts and pulling her back to reality. She looked in his eyes and she felt herself slipping again. She wanted to tell him how she loved him, how much he meant to her and the way he made her feel but she couldn't find words that would do justice to her feelings. While she was still looking in his eyes, quietly, hoping that he understood, he pulled her closer and said, "I love you too sweetheart” and smiled. He bent forward to kiss her and as she pretended to be reluctant to kiss him back she wondered and marveled at how he always knows.
P.S: Even fiction needs REAL inspiration. Mind it.
