She didn’t deserve Gods break her smile

She was supposed to leave that evening. He was a little rude to her a day before. He didn’t do anything but get drunk and watch a football game rather than spending time with her. Somewhere on a bloody Sunday morning he felt wrong, he felt void, empty. Suddenly, he realized, this was it. Her bags must have been packed by now and perhaps all he could manage is to catch up with her over a lunch.

He has known all out that he is no good at saying byes and that is why he avoids airports, bus stops and train stations as much as he can. So much so that a convenient phone call is all that he has boiled it down to.

Scared bloody coward peace of shit, ain’t he?

Or perhaps antisocial, emotionless, heartless, outright practical

Or maybe an emotional fool who finds it hard to let go and knows that it is not the letting go that hurts but the other.

He waited in the lobby of the complex until she came. He was wondering…just wondering.

And then she came and the smile was all that was needed to make him feel at peace.

He has heard about her family a lot. Her ma, big brother, uncles, aunts, grand-parents and so on. And then she asked if it annoys him when she goes on and on about her family. In fact, he was annoyed but not because she talks about her family. It always reminded him of how far he had come from his family. How there are weeks when he doesn’t bother calling up home, when he doesn’t pick up the phone and sends a sms, of how he has been home just three times in last year. Where is he stood is what annoyed him.

She mentioned her Ma but somehow not a lot about her dad. And that day when she talked about her grandparents from her dad’s side. He just asked her, “What’s with your dad? Where is he? Why you never talk about him?”

He had never reacted this way ever. He never asked anyone about the things they didn’t want to talk about. He has had friends and acquaintances from all walks of life and he never asked anything but today, don’t know how words just fell out of his mouth.

She answered, “He passed away.”

Normally, he would keep shut, but idiot asked, How?

“I don’t know exactly. He was working in Middle East. He was driving to office one day and got caught in the middle of something he wasn’t supposed to him. And they shot him.”

He almost dropped the spoon. Breath seemed to have got stuck somewhere in the lungs and throat soaked up and eyes didn’t know where to look and face didn’t know how to react.

“We had been there for holidays that summer. After ten days from coming back this happened. I was hardly fourteen.”

Emmm….

“I don’t know though, if that is what it really was. There are million versions to the story.”

He just closed his eyes and wished all this didn’t happen. More so cowardly, he wished he didn’t ask that question.

Her eyes shrunk a bit but she still had that smile. He wished he could hug her but he just felt glued to his seat.

An hour later she left - with a tiny chit in his hand and ever lasting smile through the rear glass-pane of her cab.

Neo