“If we smoke one more joint, this room will turn into an absolute hot box!”
She paused to look at me, pretending to give it a moment’s thought, her lips struggling to hold back the smile playing at its corners.
“How else will this room ever manage to remember us?”
I heard a grown man giggle. It took me some time to realize the noise was coming from me. I watched Sara stretch across the bed to reach the lighter on the desk. The meagre light from the ceiling bulb mixed with the moonlight to bounce off her skin. The shadows moved lazily with every turn of the barely-functioning fan. Ten years, and they still had the same fan.
I took my time drinking her in. She almost looked the same. Not a day seemed to have passed. Eyes so dark I could swear they were black… crazy hair that could never be tamed… that round dusky face… skin that would melt under my fingers…
But something had changed. I could see it in the lines on her forehead, the dark circles under her eyes. The look in her eyes.
I snapped back to reality as she flicked the lighter open, and bent over the cupped flame, the joint hanging from her lips. Inhaling deeply, she turned to look out of the curtain-less window.
“Do you remember your first day here?”
“Ya.” I smiled. “I was sitting bored in the lecture hall thinking about this hell-hole that I’m going to be stuck in for the next two years. And in walked this beauty with crazy hair, and I told myself, that’s the girl I’ll marry.”
She turned to look at me.
I felt a tingling in my stomach.
She had a way of looking at people. No, it wasn’t about looking at people at all. She had a way of looking right through you, at your inner most thoughts, and pulling out your deepest darkest secrets. Pulling them out and playing with them in the sun till you began to wonder why you had hidden them this entire time to begin with.
She took another drag and passed the joint.
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it isn’t. You had that weird boy cut that first day.”
I caught the pillow she threw at me and stretched out on the bed, resting my head in her lap. The room was getting hazier by the minute. Or maybe it was just me.
I tried to remember what the room used to be like. Ugly white-washed walls covered by black ever-growing vines painted by her. She used to add a few withering leaves whenever she was in the mood. Never green, never alive.
“We had dreams, Jay.”
I looked up at her. That face, lost in a time long gone… that never-ending neck… those breasts… how I loved those breasts…
“Do you remember, Jay?”
I sighed. Sitting up I closed my eyes, willing the haze to disappear. The party outside seemed to be getting louder every second. The massive peepul tree outside the room was doing its best to muffle the sounds, but the drunken revelry seemed to have a mind of its own.
I could feel her eyes boring through my skull. As much as I willed her to look away, I knew she wouldn’t.
I chuckled in response. “CXOs by the time we’re 30. Moguls of the media world. Not something you’re likely to forget.”
She smiled with her eyes. “Power couple of the media world.”
“We’d control the biggest newspapers. Hell, we’d control the news!”
She was laughing now, uncontrollably. It was one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I’d ever heard. I didn’t want her to stop, ever.
Suddenly getting up from the bed, she started walking across the room. I couldn’t help but admire her naked body, just slightly round around the edges. I sucked in my stomach slightly, trying to hide the years of love handles that were more than prominent now. It was amazing how she never bothered covering up after sex. She always stood there, in her full glory. Not that I was complaining.
“You know I loved classes. All those strategy lectures. I could just see myself in that world, in that case study, making those decisions!” she stood at the window looking down at the party in the courtyard. I could hear the drunken screaming, laced with the smashing of glasses. “You’d warned me about the real world… but I didn’t listen.”
I realized the joint in my hand was no longer lit. I wondered how long I’d been smoking it like that. The bed creaked as I suddenly panicked and started to search for the lighter. Was it ever lit? Why couldn’t I remember? Had I been smoking at all?
Sighing, she bent down and pulled the lighter from under my leg. Moving closer, she flicked it open again and lit the joint at my lips. I pulled her closer and planted a kiss on her nose. She turned and plopped down on the bed, resting her head on my chest. Her body had a way of fitting into mine, just molding in, like two Lego pieces meant to be.
I looked up at the ceiling. The blue smoke was starting to form hazy faces over our heads.
I hadn’t been lying to her. I really did remember her from the first day. I mean, the boy cut looked funny as hell. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was an excited kid. Her enthusiasm almost cut through my layers of disillusionment. When I was around her, I almost felt like the world was worth trying in. Almost.
I’d started taking the classes she took. Trying to hang out near the places she went. I even started studying in the library when she did.
And then one day, it happened.
In the library of all the places.
The one time I was actually genuinely staring into my laptop, earphones on, concentrating on my project.
The little messenger window popped up.
It was her.
“Are you seriously listening to Backstreet Boys?”
I stared at the message, not sure how to respond. I considered changing the song to something cooler.
“Don’t bother changing it now. I can hear it across the floor!”
I turned around to see her sitting at a desk on the other side of the room.
“I can’t believe you turned to check!”
My palms were suddenly sweaty, my throat unbelievably dry. Think of something witty, Jay.
“Heheh” with a smiley face.
Way to go, Jay.
“A penny for your thoughts?” She was looking up at me, clearly waiting for a response.
“Nobody talks like that, Shakespeare.”
She laughed out loud, “Well, neither did Shakespeare…”
I touched her stomach, tracing circles around her belly button. “You know, we didn’t end up too bad. I mean, you are leading a team now.”
“And you have your own company.” She turned to look at me. “But we don’t own the world yet, Jay.”
“Well, one day.”
She sighed, “Ya, one day.”
By the second year of our MBA we were inseparable. We couldn’t wait for college to get over. There was too much to achieve in life, and too little time. Our world revolved around lectures, case studies, competitions, fests. With each passing day, a restlessness grew inside me, and I could feel it brewing in Sara too. Every second spent sitting in a classroom instead of stepping out into the world seemed like time snatched away from our plans. The future was so close, so clear, we could hardly wait.
And then came the final beast.
Placement week.
What was supposed to be the first step to the rest of our lives turned into our living nightmare. A whirlwind week of back-to-back interviews and rejections.
For her.
I got placed on the first day.
Sara finally did get a job on the fourth day.
It wasn’t Media.
It wasn’t Strategy.
It wasn’t our dream.
Fumbling through my phone, Sara finally found a song she liked and hit the play button. She slowly started dancing around the room.
“You know there’s a dance floor with a hundred dancing souls just under your room, right?”
She smiled and continued dancing, beckoning me to join her. I looked at her swaying to the music.
“You know, I love that you dance like nobody’s watching.”
“Nobody’s watching, Jay.”
“I am.”
“You’re me.”
Getting up from the bed, I took her into my arms and danced once again. Danced like nobody was watching.
As the song changed, I took her face in my hands and looked at her, studying each feature even though it was already etched into my mind.
“What happened to us, Sara?”
Her glassy eyes looked back at me, the smoke giving them a reddish tint. I could see the answer I wanted to hear in her eyes. The one that justified me standing here, holding her, never letting go.
But instead she laughed. That cynical laugh. The one I absolutely hated.
“We grew up, Jay.”
Life after our MBA wasn’t quite how we had imagined. Different cities, crazy jobs… our lives were suddenly picked up by a turbulent wind that blew in very different directions. Each time I seemed closer to our dream, she seemed to be stepping farther and farther away. We tried to reach out to each other, but managed to miss by just a finger or two, each time.
It took a few years for us to accept that we weren’t even trying anymore. Even longer to say it out loud.
She took the first step. I felt it in my bones that day when the phone rang.
“I slept with someone.”
I should have gotten angry. I should’ve shouted. I should’ve asked her who it was and torn his limbs apart. I should’ve caught her lazy lie and told her she couldn’t let go of us that easy. I should’ve fought for her. For us. For our dream.
But instead, I said ok.
Ok?
Ok.
“Are you happy, Jay?”
She was sitting on the window sill, her dress carelessly riding up her legs. I’d almost willed her to not get dressed. I wanted to take in every millimeter of her being for every remaining second of my time with her.
Time that was running out.
“Hmm… Ya, I guess I am. Aren’t you?”
She looked at me and shrugged. “I guess I’m not unhappy.” She seemed to contemplate holding back her next thought, but then changed her mind. “You know, I often wonder…if I was given the chance to live my life all over again, right all my wrongs, would I do it?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“And create a new painful life, with fresher worse mistakes? I’m not sure.”
“Hmm… Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think I could do it either.”
“Why not?”
I looked at her nose, the tip slightly red from the nip in the air. “I’m not sure I could bear to look at you on the first day of college, and know you have no clue who I am.”
I saw the expression on her face change. Just for a fleeting moment. A moment of grief, of hadness, of knowing this moment that we were sharing right now, would soon be over, soon just be something we had. Again.
But for just a moment. And then the mask was back.
“I think I should go join the party now.”
No! I wanted to scream. To hold her back. But I knew I won’t. She knew I won’t.
As she reached the door, I finally blurted out, “Wait!”
She paused, and slowly turned towards me, eyebrows raised. Surprised, almost. As if anything could ever surprise her.
“So do I have to wait another ten years for our next reunion for this?”
She hesitated. I almost wished for her to run into my arms. I thought of walking across the room and turning her around and kissing her, forcefully, one last time. But I stayed where I was, frozen.
“Don’t be silly, Jay.” With that she turned and opening the door stepped out out. “The next reunion is in five years.”
