love until eternity

chapter 20

It was 12 in the afternoon, the sun was blazing the sky red, and the ocean waves were calm with only hot winds blowing in the air. Everyone had stepped down from the cruise ship, picking up their luggage, ready to move. 
Ishita put her sunglasses on, after she wiped the last traces of any tear droplets left around her eyelids that could signal to the fact that she had just cried an hour ago.

She grabbed her suitcase, facing front to walk away now. Only for a strange feeling to make her turn back for a second, and her sight ended up meeting dushyant's, his eyes were fixed on her for a while, and they clearly were slightly red, some moistness still left from some tears that might have been shed by him not too long ago. 

She took this to be their last glances exchanged, and turned his back on him and leaving for what seemed like forever for her. He took every last glance he could get of her walk away, as if that's all he could ever have. 

 But when she disappeared from his sight, he had nothing to look on for, only for him to turn away and see the cruise ship that brought them here too, sail away, and just like that, went any hopes he had of getting her back. 

                                                                 ***

Ishita entered the empty hotel room with the white halls again, it seemed like life had not moved forward at all for her from when she left. She threw the bags away, leaning against the door as she closed her eyes, and slided down the door, only to end up on the floor, hugging her knees and burying her head onto them. 

She stayed like that for a while, only to life her head up, and let go of her knees and stretched them such that they lied on the floor, before taking a deep sigh, and getting up. 

She placed her suitcase on the bed, unzipped it, only to find the never ending pile of clothes that were yet to be washed, as she grabbed a basket and placed all of them onto that. 

Then she proceeded to grab the landline of the hotel room, and dialed for room service. 

"hello, could i please get my clothes picked up for the laundry service? thanks." requested ishita, as she hung up on the call, only for her glance to fall on the menu placed beside her of all the meals hotel provided for. 

She swallowed a lump down her throat, resisting the urge to order, only for to be unable to and grab it, along with dialing for the reception again. 

"hi, i actually wanted to get some food items to sent to room 197. If you could please send two large extra cheese corn pizzas, 3 mini choco lava cakes, please? thank you." hung up ishita on the call, facepalming herself through it, and immediate regret to come when she ended the call. 

It was only a while though, before the room service arrived with her order. She was quick to sit down and take out a slice to chew down her throat.  Only for tears to flow down, as she still continued to eat, her bites still big but slower. She tried to feel better, but there was just no way the empty hollowness seemed to leave her. 

                                                                       ***

Dushyant just ended up throwing his bags and shows away immediately after entering the room, only to crash on the bed. He ended up lying on his back, with his arms behind his head, as he stared emptily at the oscillating ceiling fan in front of his sight. 

He turned to his right, his head now resting on his elbow, as he closed his eyes, only for him to lay on his back again, his eyes immediately resisting his attempt to just take a quiet nap. 

He grabbed his phone, ended up clicking on his gallery immediately after it was unlocked. He seemed to have not kept a lot of photos of this year, just some of work parties, one of him gleefully popping up the champagne bottle in a circle of his colleagues, everyone seemed to be in the mood to celebrate that day. All of them seemed to be of him among a group of people, with him at the centre, everyone seemed to be either laughing along with him, or him making them laugh. But he seemed to not pay much attention to these. 

His glance immediately went to the photo of march of last year, he and ishita seemed to be at a party, slow dancing to the music playing. They seemed to be just lost in each other's eyes, oblivious to the world around them. 

He swiped right through many of them in march like these, only to land after 10+ plus photos on one of February, she was posing for him in a cute short sky blue dress on the beach, he scrolled through many of them only to find a selfie by a beach shack, where they both had gotten watermelon mojitos, and were seated by a table, and she ended up surprising him with a kiss on the cheek, the next one had them sharing a lip lock. 

He ended up stumbling upon one of them in january, playing with snow, as he just smiled through the memories, vicariously living through them, like they were just happening right now. 

He was swiping quite fast, when he straight up landed on one of october. Ishita seemed to be wearing a loosely fitted white shirt, with folded sleeves, as it ended up reaching her just three inches above her knees, with no bottoms. It was clearly not hers, but dushyants. She was working on making the morning coffee by the coffee machine, only for her to realise finally in an unwanted photo, that had her husband has been sneaking some photos of her for a while. She attempted to hide her face from the camera, but all in vain, as he ended up instead with a bunch of photos, with her just giggling trying to hide from the camera, only for the series to end with the last photo, of him wrapping his arms around her, as they shared a kiss. 

The visceral memory of her touch still remained with him, as he ended up exiting from the gallery, the memory becoming painful to revisit for him now. Only for a floating notification to pop up on the top of his phone screen, it seemed to be of kavin and read: 

'bachelor party @symposium today at 6!' 

It was only this when he actually looked at the time flashing on his screen, it had already struck 4. He was forced to realise that he had just spent hours in memories of his broken relationship, which did not help the melancholy he was feeling already. 

                                                                       ***