Love Letter Written in Winter

And it goes on....

This new book given by her was also a love poem book. A love beyond time. The author had dedicated the book to his lost lover, whom he should have loved, but he never loved.
Drake completed the book in two days again. He was so restless. Though he thought he was just reading the book, actually, all he was trying to do was understand the owner of the book more and more. Each line, each verse he read, he only thought about her. He tried to mask up his feelings. He thought how nice that he has got back his old habit of reading poetry books. But he didn’t realize he was being drawn to her more and more. This poetic Drake as a whole was born around her. Without her, it didn’t have an individual existence. He somehow felt it a bit but didn’t really pay any heed to it. He pampered himself to be so attached to his newly found happiness.
He carried the book every day to his office, even though he finished reading it. He kept it near his pillow while sleeping. He carried it everywhere. In solitude, he sat, touching the cover of the book with extreme adoration, as if by touching the white pages filled with scattered black letters, he could feel her. Just like any other bookworm, maybe someday, she also fell asleep while reading the book. She hid her face in between the book covers. To think that he was touching the same pages which maybe someday caressed the petal cheeks of his sleeping beauty, he was getting goosebumps.
Since he was carrying the book everywhere, one day, when he was returning home from the office by metro, the book was with him. He didn’t take his car that day, purposefully. Somehow he had started liking to enjoy the city life. He loved gazing at the rhythm of the city from the transparent glass of the metro, that ran meters above the regular chaos of the city. The neon lights, traffic chaos, fast-paced city looked like a still oil painting from far. He was just normally staring at the moon while sitting in the almost empty metro. It was still some more minutes left for his destination. He normally moved a 2B pencil on the book in his hand. That blunt 2B pencil, he had found from the almirah and had kept in his office bag, even though he never needed it in the office. The blunt ends were not good for shading, but he had no mandatory pressure to make it perfect. He started just as doodling. But he never realized when he became so drowned into the art that after boarding off the train, he forgot to go home. He grabbed a chair in the waiting area and kept sketching. Each stroke of the sketch was like a dopamine source. He felt happy for no reason. He was so much into making the detailing of the sketch that by the time he finished it, he saw there was barely anyone in that deserted metro station. He felt a bit ashamed for his irresponsible behavior. But equally, he felt butterflies in his stomach thinking how he had started behaving like those young lovers. Never in his life could he imagine feeling the spring of twenties in early forties.
All week he was mostly waiting for Saturdays, and they met again.
He had sketched her eyes on the last page of the book, which was left blank. She didn’t notice the sketch on the first go. By this time, she had restored some faith in him, so she didn’t check the book thoroughly. In one look, she just noticed there is some sketch, and asking him about that, when she got to know that the sketch was made by Drake, she genuinely praised him. She was a golden-heart; she knew to appreciate artists. She could sense that it was the sketch of some woman’s eyes, so she got a bit shy for no reason and didn’t look at the sketch carefully. Just like the other time, they again exchanged books. Drake borrowed her one of the books from his old collection, and after a round of coffee, they went their way. This day again she was wearing black only.
On the first look, she had complimented his art as a genuine gesture. But at home, when she noticed the art very carefully, she found the very detailing of the sketch. She wanted to think that it was not for her, just any other doodle. But the very small mole near the upper wink of her left eye of the sketch, how could this be a coincidence? That stranger man’s art inspiration has a mole in the exact same place? How was that possible!
But she denied herself the luxury of being liked by someone. Her brain couldn’t approve of the fact. Whenever she had loved, she loved so hard, and in return, had received deep wounds, so she had become extra cautious in nature. She tried her best to stay detached from all those love-related emotions. But this time, it was different. This guy didn’t make her feel like a symbol of lust; he drew her, he made her feel like she was an art. Somewhere she was starting to grow a soft feeling for this stranger.
Usually, she won’t meet any man twice who had looked at her with lust. It was always like she met a man, she talked to him, she could sense their intention, and she just protected herself by distancing herself from them. Any man who wanted to touch her with lust, she simply had banished them. And all her life, she had only met that kind of man, except one. That one, who didn’t look at her with lust, didn’t look at her with love either, even though she had made him her world. All other men… she took their intention as an insult to her womanhood. They wanted her to fulfill their lust only. Even though none of them ever saw the soul under this blood-flesh, she somehow had managed to believe that she was not born to fulfill anyone’s lust, she deserved to be treated as a human. And until she found someone like that, she had distanced herself from the outside world in this house with her only trusted butler, though she didn’t like the word ‘butler’, she called it a family, her only family member.