Does Time Really Heal?

It had almost been eight months since I'd seen her last. I thought of the last conversation we’d had. It had ended with a mighty ‘fuck you’. Those were the last words I'd heard her lips say. By this time, the two of us had already reduced to nothing more than abusive fights; it had become too much of a mess to clean up. There was nothing left to salvage.

My decision to move to Mumbai from Delhi was not a calculated one but it had come at a time when I needed it the most. The days after she walked out of my life had been painful and gruesome. I was on the verge of suicide. Somehow Delhi had become too painful for me to handle. Every place I went to reminded me of her. The songs on the radio, the panawadi near Panchsheel Flyover. Everything. It had become impossible for me to live as a functioning being. But I had made deliberate efforts to stay away from her. It took every fibre in my body to stop myself from messaging her and telling her that it’s ok and that I love her. ..

Standing outside Hauz Khas metro station, I was in two minds if I should meet her after so much time at all. There were instances where I even thought of calling her up and feign a headache and cancel our meeting.  But I didn’t.

My heart skipped a beat as I saw the familiar gray Maruti Zen pull up.  She rolled down the car window. I bent down and said hello. The smiles were genuine but had traces of heartbreak.

I got in. The seat was as comfortable as I had remembered it last. The radios dial at an arm’s length. The initial awkwardness ebbed away as with each passing moment, stories of days gone by gave way to shy smiles and finally hearty laughter. This is the thing. This is it. The two of us share this nameless connection that cannot be of this worldly place. We loved with a love that was more than love.

As we took the familiar road towards her house, I realized how every place in the city was in some way or the other associated with her. With us. There, we’d had momos for the first time together; there, we’d gone to watch a play; there, on that road, we were caught by the traffic police because we were driving on the wrong side because we had too little petrol to take a U-turn for the Petrol Pump. The entire city screamed of memories too loud for my head to suppress.

When we reached her house, no sooner had we entered her room when she switched the stereo on; a ritual that hadn’t changed I observed. And then I noticed something else. I noticed every small detail about her that I realized I had missed for the last eight months. The way her kajal always smudged and seemed to run from underneath her eyes. The peculiar way she lit the cigarette with her lips pursed so dangerously inside her mouth. Her cravings for ice. They way she gesticulated with her long hands flying all over the place. The way her face contorted with worry when she was past her curfew time and the way she called home and lied that she would reach within five minutes even though she was a good forty minutes away from her place.

Yes I had missed her terribly

But things were different now. Seeing her in front of my eyes at that moment, after almost eight months of separation made me realize that despite the nights filled with tears and hatred, despite the unbearable pain I sometimes thought would end only with my life, I was just glad she was in  my life again. What I have is too important to lose.

So that night, we took out the bottle of Goan tequila, and drank to the days gone by, to memories that would last lifetimes and the beginning of an everlasting friendship.

We cuddled and slept.

Still the same.