I left the hall, walked down the corridor, entered the lift and pressed the button to the top floor. I intended to go to the roof, to get some fresh air and to be away from the gathering for a while.
As the lift doors opened I found myself in an open space, that was wide enough for a corridor but small enough to be called a lobby. At the end were the glass doors, beyond which the world lay in muffled darkness.
I pushed through them and a jet of cold air hit my face. I walked out and closed the door behind me. The roof was amlost empty. There was a pool, that comprised of the entire open space and surrounding it were some sunloungers. The entire area was dimly lit by a few light bulbs and the environment was that of peaceful solitude. There was a lone figure standing just beside the parapet beyond the pool area and looking out into the night. I never had to guess who that was.
Kavya had her back towards me, as she faced the city below. She had a white shawl wrapped around her body. Apparently she hadn't left and have been there for who knows how long.
I walked upto her and stood beside her, leaning over the parapet. We stood in comfortable silence.
"How long have you been here for?" I asked, just wanting to hear her voice.
"Not long enough," she answered. "I like it better here. Its quiet."
There was silence again for several minutes. Or hours. I had lost all track of time, being there with her. "Those words-," she began, clearly refering to the what I had said about relastionships and birds, as I knew she would.
"They were Sid's. I know," I completed her thought, looking up towards the sky full of glittering stars.
She didn't reply with her words. Her acknowledgement reached me in her very presence. It was calming.
"I miss him Dhruv," she said at length."I miss him so much."
"Me too," I answered, feeling the weight of those words on my lips and on my heart.
Then, for the first time that evening, I really looked at her face. The light from the hoarding, few floors beneath us, illuminated it, setting up a golden glow. Even then, after all those years, she appeared to me as the most wonderful woman in the world I ever had the privilege of knowing. And then the most disturbing thought came to me. Should I tell her? Would it be right? The thought had been tormenting me for some time, and by then it had become intollerable. Afterall, I guessed, she had the right to know. I had been avoiding it, but not anymore. It ends here tonight, I said to myself. No more doubts. No more torments.
And then, in just that instant, as if reeling in the echoes of my thoughts, Kavya looked at me, directly in the eyes. Time seemed to have stopped as I looked back into her depths. And then I knew, like it had been evident all along, what I exactly had to do. What the right thing was. I knew what I had to say.
Then, for the first time in ages, I spoke to her, and she spoke back, without any words, without any visual form of speech. We spoke in a language of emotions and feelings, but it was not of love, or it was and we had never guessed, for it was a much older and deeper one, it was the language of friendship.
The End
