2.1.53

Chapter Twenty-five: Falling

The coffee maker did its job, a low soft whirring noise filled the empty kitchen. I checked the time, almost 1 am. The event ended at midnight and the maintenance crew left a few minutes ago. I wanted to leave but then decided against it. Sharan was enjoying his evening with Katie and I didn't want to ruin it for him by giving him the duties of staying back and closing up the café. So, I stayed back, hoping I would finally be able to decide what I wanted to do next.

The rest of the evening, after the launch, I spent in the kitchen. Sometimes I went out to check if anything was needed and sometimes to check if she left. She did on my 4th try. The author and she was not there in their seat.

I wondered if she told me the truth. There was no reason not to but again she was the one deceiving me and telling me that forever was finite and she was sure that she wanted to spent that finite time with me. Do people change or people just act like they did?

I finished putting a fresh batch of dough in the freezer when I heard Katie on the door.

"Hey old man. I have to ask something?" She asked.

"Yes, go on" I said as I wiped my hand in a towel.

"Are you staying to close up?" She asked.

I nodded. She said, "Okay so do you need Sharan or can I steal him?"

"All yours" I waved at her and tried to smile.

She went away and I went out a few minutes after. There weren't much people after the author and the members of the publishing house left. The media followed the author and so the only people left were the café crew.

It was a room full of people who were in love with each other or at least pretended to be in love for that night. The DJ left with the author and the speakers just played a mixtape of old romantic songs. I wondered how many of them are promising each other a false forever tonight, I wondered how many of them are going to keep it, I wondered how many of them will be strangers in a few years.

I sat on the reception, enjoying the fair lights and a cupcake, watching the couples getting ready to call it a night. Some of them started to leave, said bye. I knew some of them are surely going to be late tomorrow, or perhaps skip. The last to leave was Sharan and Katie, they stayed until the maintenance crew arrived and I brushed the couple off.

The maintenance crew started their work when I went straight to the room in the back. I didn't know what I was doing but I was trying to find out anything she left behind. Anything that would remind me of her. There was nothing on the room. I swept the table she was sitting after, but I found anything.

But then one person from the crew noticed me looking frantically around the table and for a moment I felt embarrassed but then I started to think what I was actually doing, so I silently towards the bathroom and locked myself inside.

"Holding on, letting go?" "Why after all these years?", "Why did she left me?", "Why am I bothered if she is unhappy in her marriage?" -The questions started to haunt me from the time I saw her and then talked with her. Along with them were the ones that kept me awake most nights that lead to today's event. Each night I went home and cried for my heart knew it was going to see the one who broke it into a million little pieces. Each night I regretted, repented and tagged myself as a failure. I knew she would change, I knew she had a different life, I knew she was the wife of someone else yet it felt just like the day after she left me years back. Each night I peeled the band aid off from the wound that I was hiding for the last 32 years. It's like the wound never healed, the band aid just concealed it all these years, perhaps making it an infection because I didn't let the air to clot my blood and when I finally opened it all the pain came back, only difference is that it came back more.