For the longest time Suman Tiwari hated going to parties. She was sixteen years old when she attended her first. And she had hated it. Eight years later and her opinion hadn't wavered since then. There was something obnoxious about these kind of gatherings, the gossip, the alcohol, and the pretence - it made her sick.
Over the years, she had grown into a confident and strong woman who had her walls high up, she had learnt to hide herself under layers of perfectionism, success and outward calm but one look at the man in front of her and she feels her fortress crumbling down.
This was becoming a tendency for her, she found herself staring at him longer than permissible. And often she had to tears her gaze away because realization hit her like a punch in the gut.
Shravan Malhotra was no longer the bespectacled boy she had known. He was a stranger. A stranger she had made the mistake of falling in love with. A stranger, she had shared her first kiss with. And yet sometimes when he thinks that she isn't looking, he gazes at her with warmth and a hint of longing, she had seen in those very orbs as she walked away from him, five years ago.
"Let's play a game, guys!" Riya, a friend and fellow lawyer exclaims, holding an empty bottle of champagne in her hand.
She turns the bottle on the table with a quick movement of her hand and they all look on as the bottle spins and spins until the neck of it stops towards the beautiful devil.
"Shravan, my friend! Truth or dare?" She asks with a sweet saccharine smile.
"Truth." He replies, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a devious smirk.
"When was the last time you kissed someone?" She asks, her tone laced with mirth. Her question earns gasps and giggles from the rest of the crowd, you see Shravan Malhotra was quite a phenomena among women.
"You wouldn't believe me, if I told you." He shrugs, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Come on, don't be a spoilsport!
"Some people just love attention. Can we move past this?" She asks exasperated and somewhat angry at herself for being so affected by him and at the same time afraid of his answer. He was a man and a good-looking one for the record, not the one to pin over a college romance when he could have so much better.
"Five years ago." He murmurs, holding her eyes in an unblinking way. Her eyes widen with stupor and all of a sudden she becomes intensely aware of her heart thumping furiously in his presence.
"Who was the lucky girl?"
"The only girl I ever loved."
She feels anger flare up in her, so much that it overwhelms her. He had no right to talk about her in that way. Laughing and clapping loudly as if it was his best performance, she says with dark amusement, "Come on Mr. Malhotra, no one is going to judge if you turned out to be a womanizer. It wouldn't surprise me if your list of women was as tall as you are.
"That sounds dangerously close to an accusation, Miss Tiwari." He emphasizes on her name.
"Unlike some, people wait for the one and only." He gazes up at her from behind a glass he brings to his parched lips. If he hadn't been looking so intently, he would have missed the tremble of her chin, the way her lips pursued into a thin line because the next second, he was met by a look that was indecipherable.
"Excuse me." She walked away from the party in the dark night.
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She walked through the empty roads, unaffected by the grumbling of the blueish sky and unfazed by the slight drizzle that seeped through her clothes.
"Where do you think you are going?" He takes long strides, trying to match up to her speed.
"None of your business." She retorts back.
"Miss Tiwari."
"Sumo!" He pulls her towards him as a car comes to a halt right in front of her, missing her from few seconds. The slight drizzle that had started now poured heavily on them. They look up at each other with raging breaths, the rain soaking their clothes and clinging to their bodies as a second skin.
"I didn't know that we were on first names basis, Mr. Malhotra." She never fails to remind him of his nonexistent position in her life.
"Some things will never change isn't it? You running away, me chasing you down." His voice was devoid of any emotion and yet she could decipher the hint of dark humor.
In spite of her distraught state, a humorless chuckle leaves her mouth. "Of course you have to act like my knight in shining armor." His breath hitches in his throat as he peers down at her, the raindrops cling to her eyelashes before making their way down to the hollows of her neck. His hold on her tightens unaware to himself as the front of his body molds against hers.
"Let me be." She struggles against his vice like grip.
"So you are found dead?"
"Stop acting like you care!" She spats defensively.
"Rishta khatam hone se parwa khatam nahi hojati." He says, his voice above than a whisper.
"This isn't what you used to say back then. You left without saying a word. You ended three years of relationship within a blink of an eye!" Her jaw is clenched tight in order to prevent the shattering of her teeth as a gust of wind hits her with fervor.
"You never asked me to stay." His voice grows angry.
"I couldn't possible ask you to stay for me, I am not that selfish. I waited in front of your house so we could talk... and you just left." She swallows the lump in her throat as the memory hit her.
"I never wanted to leave you." Her chest tightens with sudden realization as she looks up at him - drenched form head to toe and shivering from the kisses of ice shredding his skin - he was it for her, she would never love another man the way she loved him.
"Why don't you ever let me be?" She asks looking at him through wet lashes, her tears flowing down her cheeks, mingling with the rain and yet warm in contrast to it.
"Because there was a time you meant the world to me." He confesses to her. The past tense mends and breaks a part of her at the same time. At least he had it in him to acknowledge what they meant to each other, what they had been once upon a time.
He reaches out and softly touches her face, his eyes straying at her lips. As they continue to gaze at each other, they remember with a bitter sweet feeling, their first kiss under the rain. The clumsiness and the spontaneity of the act.
They had jumped amidst puddles of water like children, soaking their prom clothes without a care in the world. They had swayed and danced in the middle of the road with huge smiles on their faces till the moment the distance between their faces diminished and their lips met.
He still remembers the way she had smiled against his mouth, the way he had linked their foreheads together, her giggles resonating through the pitter-patter of the rain against the pavement.
In that moment as she lets his knuckles caress the skin of her cheek, thousands of memories are made.
"You have to let me go." She gives him a sad, close-lipped smile.
And like always he complies with her wishes and as he let her go, he realizes that he would never feel her fingers intertwined with his. He would never feel her soft pillowy lips brush against his in a peck of warmth. He would never be able to engulf her in his arms. That night Shravan Malhotra bowed down to destiny, some things were just not meant to be.
