Searching

He looks at the analog clock on his phone , pacing his steps around. Guess she's running late. From a corner she appears, blonde hair flopping on her shoulders. He smiles halfheartedly.  Tries his best to make it seem genuine knowing very well that he'd fail miserably. A flashback over comes him. He was fine all this while. Or so he thought. Somewhere inside a part of him wanted it to be that girl with red hair.

'Hi,' blonde hair says. ' Hey how are you ? ' He says.

They begin walking. He feels no urge to hold her hand like he had done with Her. They sit. They talk. He doesn't comprehend a thing this one says.  This one flips her hair and rolls her eyes a lot. It doesn't faze him. This one looks straight at him with her green eyes whenever she talks as if she was trying to put a spell on him to control him. Green , not warm chestnut brown like Hers.

This one doesn't talk about her literary adventures with child-like excitement. This one doesn't talk about her love for dark romanticism. This one doesn't look at him with brave innocence. This one wasn't weird. Well , that's a good thing right? Then why was he looking for it ?

They get up and start walking towards his car. This one is tall , not 5 ft 4 inches and petite like Her. 

They drive to his house , walk into his bedroom. He tries to make minimum effort to tidy his room for his new guest. This one kicks her shoes off and climbs into his bed suggestively.  He follows suit. There are no candles lit like he had done for Her. No neatly made bedspreads like he had for Her. No tenderness with this one like he had done for Her.

She takes her clothes off revealing smooth flawless skin. No mole on the right side of her neck and between her breasts like Hers. No tattooed verses on the left side of her ribs like Her. No severe scars slicing the back of her arm , hips , elbow  and shoulder. Like Her.

With mechanical movements he gives into lust . Intimacy was only with Her. They climax , finish up, she turns and falls into deep slumber. He doesn't even try to put an arm under her pillow like he had done with Her. He doesn't moves her hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear like he had done with Her. He doesn't hold this one through the night like he had done with Her. 

He can't sleep. He doesn't even try to fight it. The sun rises , she wakes up and puts on her clothes 'That was fun,' she says ' Should do this again.'  ' Yeah' he murmurs.

She leaves. He closes his eyes and succumbs to his memories.

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Torment

She lies in her bed wide awake. 2:58 am. Tormented by his thoughts. He's 3 hours behind . What would he be doing right now? Out may be , or just getting back home from a night out, tipsy and ready for thoughtless sleep.

She turns to her side , picks her phone from her bedside table and looks at the only picture she has of them together. Her auburn hair looks almost black, his blond hair seems almost platinum. The two evidence of their night starkly visible on his neck.

 That night still vivid in her mind like it happened just yesterday. Every moment stuck to her skin like oil and the undying  tender determination of the candle flame that lasted the night. It would be 8 months since she first met him , 8 months since she was broken. Now she was fixed but still not whole.

From the first glimpse they knew there was no turning back. They just couldn't. The anxious excitement to see each other refused to leave their nerves , the butterflies in their stomachs wouldn't stop fluttering for a moment and in those moments weeks passed by.

Now these memories wipe the smile off her face and inflict heartache. A sweet pain pulsates in her as though a shard of glass is stuck under her skin. Her mind goes back to what he might be doing. May be he is with someone new. Tall , slender , graceful , poised. The kind whose presence exudes radiance. Tangled in her arms , she'd drink up the deep pools of ocean of his eyes and he would let her as though he's at the mercy of a goddess. And here , half a world away , she's still where she was, the very thought of a stranger's touch reaching out to her makes her skin crawl.

She kicks her blanket away and walks to her mirror. She had lost a lot of weight in the past few weeks. Her skin looks dull and grey. Her eyes enveloped in darkness. Her once metallic red hair now lack luster.
 She closes her eyes and prays in her heart ' Ya Allah , What next? How much longer?'

                                                                   

                                                                            *

The day's work is over. He hangs around by the ocean aimlessly , letting his feet control him and take him wherever they wished. He's a wanderer , a nomad. In 8 months, he's gone about 4 or more places. You mustn't get attached. You keep moving. But what happens you lose your heart and mind so quickly it's like sanding slipping from your fingers. You just can't control it , it slips faster. 

The sun is soon to set. The soft breeze whispers ' Kashmiri apple' in his ears. He could almost hear it smile. He looks on , trying to escape the face that haunts his memories. A  sweet lingering aftertaste he's still reeling from. 

He never would have imagined her to be this fragile the first time he saw her, tiny , like a bird with a broken wing. How much he missed her nimble fingers. Even when she casually touched him , it was enough to make him wiggle. When she slipped her hands in his shirt , he'd try his best to stay still. When he kissed her , he caught her fingers and guided them to feel his racing pulse. That morning , when he pulled her palm to his cheek and slept soundly.

He couldn't forget how she would stand on her toes to kiss him and still be unable to reach him, how she snuggled closer to him in the middle of the night and sleepily murmured ' baby , I'm getting bad dreams' , how she would close her eyes and nod her head whenever he asked her something.

The memories overwhelm him , he shakes his head but his ears are still ringing. The sun is setting filling him with gloom. 'I will find my way to you and we will be together I promise you this' he makes a silent vow to no one. 

*

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