Gazing out of the window of the coffee shop, I stirred my drink absentmindedly. Paris was beautiful, indeed. More exquisite than beautiful, really. But we all choose to love exquisiteness more than anything else.
Glancing at the watch on my wrist, I realised instantly that fifteen minutes had passed already. I sighed. I knew I had to wait some more. I wouldn't expect her to be on time; that'd be a miracle.
It was the month of November and there was a distinct chill in the air. My wife and I had chosen to visit Paris because of my work as an architect. And like everything else in the city, its architecture was breathtakingly beautiful. When I came to know the whereabouts of my childhood friend, now a bestselling author, I couldn't keep myself from meeting her at least once. I had my secretary trace her down so that we could meet in that quaint café, just for old time's sake.
All of a sudden, a woman slid into the seat opposite to mine. And there she was. She hadn't changed much from when I had last seen her when she was almost nineteen. She had the same wild, brown hair, which seemed to be woven with threads of gold in the sunshine. She was still a little chubby, which was brought to my notice by her full-toothed smile. Of course, she still had overlapping teeth which made her look a lot younger than she really was.
"So, how's it going?" she asked and grinned.
"Good. Really good, I must say. I don't need to ask about you. The whole wide world knows how's it going for you," I replied, cupping my mug of coffee with my hands, warming them a little.
"I heard you put a ring on it?" she asked, with her signature 'I-know-I-am-right' expression, characterised with the raising of an eyebrow and smirking like she knew all the secrets of the person sitting in front of her.
"I won't lie, I did. Quite a bummer that you weren't there to witness the love of your life vowing to spend his life with another woman," I replied.
The reference was to our days in school. She had a huge crush on me. And I knew. Of course, nothing happened and if she was upset, she didn't let it show. She was strange like that.
"Yeah, bummer," she said and laughed, shaking her head.
"Hey, look, you're not allowed to tease me anymore because you got hitched," she added.
"And you didn't?" I asked.
In the answer, she held up her hand to show the lack of any ring. Good.
"Tell me, how is it living in the city of your dreams?" I asked.
"You tell me, how's it living in New York? I love it here as much as you love it there."
"Yeah, a given. Maybe it's because the people here are just like you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, the city is slow, for starters. I mean, you always loved being relaxed."
"True. That explains why you live in New York, Mr Dynamic."
We laughed.
For the next hour, we chatted about our lives. There was a lot to talk about, but not enough time; never enough time. Reminiscing about our school days, nostalgia hit us like a big, yellow school bus. We laughed at our inside jokes, surprising even ourselves by how much we remembered about each other.
Still, good times don't last forever. I had to leave. We glanced outside the cafe to see that it was snowing. There was a thin layer of snow that covered the cobbled street already.
Once outside, we stood by each other, quietly, for a moment. We could see our breaths. However, that peace lasted for not more than a moment. I was hit by a ball of snow, and she was laughing away. In retaliation, I threw one back at her. And there we were again, having a snowball fight in the middle of a street.
And then, I felt it. It was definitely her. Her face was tinged pink from the cold. Her eyes shone like two diamonds, reaching the darkest depths of my soul. She was smiling. She was happy.
It had always been tough for me to acknowledge that I could make certain people happier than they'd ever thought they'd feel. But when I saw her, I knew. I made her happy. Yet, she'd given me up because she wanted to see me happy.
No matter how much she attempted to deceive the world. She couldn't. She fell in love with somebody who couldn't love her back. She fell in love with me, and I fell in love with the way she loved me.
