Madness and Magic...❤️

17

Please do not skip Sameera's portion,it is a vital part of this chapter,ignore mistakes and enjoy reading.

Sidharth had parked his car in front of Sameera's house, but he wasn't ready to enter yet. He stared at the house, and thought about Sameera, though about his work, their business but everything seemed pointless, he was training his mind to think about things apart from her but nothing seemed to work.

He took out a cigarette and lit it in the hope that it would help clear his thoughts. The first one did nothing to his restless mind, so he lit another, and then another. The smoke filled the car but helped him little in calming his mind.

"What the hell is happening?" He was puzzled .For the first time in his life, he had met someone who made him feel truly at ease, someone who didn't feel like an outsider,someone with whom even the stupidest of talks seemed interesting. And yet, he had almost lost her because of his carnal greed.

"Am I really a pervert?" he asked himself,It felt as if his entire life had been a lie,the pride he took in his self-control was nothing, even his own belief about his libido seemed to be fake.He couldn't understand from where this sudden, overwhelming urge had surfaced out of the blue.

He replayed the entire scene of the car in his mind, dissecting every moment with utter precision.He realized that initially,she hadn't looked uncomfortable.In fact did feel a mutual pull. But then, something happened, Her expression changed, and he could saw anger and disappointed in her eyes.

"She is so straightforward,agar usko bura lagta, toh woh clearly bolti." He tried to convince himself that she would have told him if she was upset due to the peck on her cheek even though he felt it wasn't a very gentlemanly act.

Impulsively, he took out his phone tried to type a message to her. He wanted to explain, to apologize, to somehow make things right. His tries to form a sentence that could bridge the gap between them.

"Hey Shehnaaz, I am sorry again for tonight. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. It just happened... and i hope...."he wrote and felt it was inadequate to express his feelings and he couldn't think of any sentence which could depict what exactly he felt..He deleted the message out of frustration.

Then randomly, he asked himself ,if something apert from friendship possible between them.Even though the age gap and overall difference in personality made him question whether they would ever be a perfect match yet this whole scenario filled him with a sense of thrill, but it immediately got overshadowed by the realization of his own shortcomings.

He remembered their conversations about so called love, he remembered how she spoke about her dream of a fairy tale romance with stars in her eyes. She deserved that kind of magic,the kind of love that would make her forget all the things missing in her life.

And what did he have to offer? His life had been a series of suppressed emotions. He had been in a relationship with Sameera, a woman who was beautiful, successful, and honest. Yet, he hardly had any feelings for her even after spending 12 years with her. He knew he struggled with the inability to express love,to be Romantic, to open up, and to be vulnerable. How could he, with all his flaws ever provide her with the fairy tale she dreamed of?

He knew he could never be the prince charming from her dreams. He feared that he might only bring her disappointment. It seemed better to remain in her life as a friend or a well-wisher, rather than risk becoming the source of her pain.

"And what about the weird things which I feel for her" he tryed to rationalize the emotions bubbling within him. "It's just hormones," he muttered to himself. "It's dopamine playing its tricks on me, making me think I feel something deeper than I actually do."He tried to convince himself that what he felt for Shehnaaz was a temporary surge of neurotransmitters and hormones which will eventually die down.It was easier to attribute his feelings to biology than to confront the messy reality of his heart.