Her words still weigh around my neck; I can hear them echo inside my head. Rewinded and replayed again and again with astonishing clarity. It’s been a couple of days and one long night and still the words persist. There was something in those words of hers that made them so heavy, may be it had to do with the way she had put it or may be it’s the simple truth it encompassed. Either be the case (though how much I ever deny it the later is the real truth, I just grow convinced of the fact) her words has stung me good and it still does stings even more.
What have you ever done? She asked
There was a flare in her eyes; it certainly was not pity. I need not see her to know that, her voice was just enough.
What happened?
I coughed up as innocent sounding as possible, but I knew that I was not going to get an answer and it was not going to be ending well. Truth is that I had no idea what was headed my way!
I could start hearing her well hidden sobs grow louder; there was a sense of insecurity mounting in her heavy breaths.
Do you even love me?
She asked through her sobs, breaking the melancholic silence that filled the air.
All i could manage to do was to push out a slight hum through my throat that seemed to have gotten clogged almost instantly. Words were too heavy to push through.
What have you ever done for me? She continued after what seemed like eternity.
You were never there for me whenever I wanted you,
She was no longer waiting for me to answer, as if she already knew that I would not have an answer for any of the questions she had for me.
Do you remember the time I fell down and sprained my ankle? She asked quizingly.
How could I ever forget, it was her twentieth birthday and after all the deliberations of the celebration she was chasing her friend around her hostel veranda when she slipped and fell. Nothing serious ever happened to her. That itself was a great relief to me considering how subtle and sublime in construction she was. But worst was yet to happen, the very next day I was a total JERK, there is no point in hiding it when I myself know what I have done to her. She had a sprained ankle and I didn't even bother to look at it, may be in intoxicated illusions she was healthy as a horse, but then again I was a total 'jerk'. When every one knew she was hurt badly the one person whom she wanted by her side was not with her. And when she wanted to go to a doctor and when she asked to accompany her, I so harmlessly denied. I was an idiot then and I had no idea that I was being one. I so foolishly drew a dagger through the one heart that loved me, cared for me and looked out for me. I am a bastard, am I not?
I knew I could get out of this with some sweet words and a lot of apologizing and some empty promises, but she is not some random fling of mine, she is the one. She deserved better, all I could think of was to let her pour out her heart and I knew that is what she wanted. Hours later we called and she seemed to have had no recollection of her words before. She had forgiven me, she had forgiven me along time ago, but when her heart got burden she just had to let it unload somewhere and I am lucky it’s me. But if that was all to it I wouldn't have been writing this at all.
The truth is when she said those words, it moved me. It moved me because I knew in my heart she deserved better. Upon hearing her soft sob, all those illustrious letters and poems embroidered with colorful words no longer mattered; they have transcended themselves into items of no real value. What value does the word love project when there is no love involved at all? I had to ask myself was I just all words and no real material, were all those speeches of love just Musings of an empty can, was I just one of those many substitutes that inhabit the earth? Had I become what I had set out not to become. Above all this question taunted me most, could I ever love anybody, and the prospects really do scare me now more than ever. I do stare into an abyss and now with trembling fingers and a racing heart I wonder whether i could turn it around or am I weighed down by the chains that's I myself have crafted. The truth is I am a bastard and I know it, if only I could undo my doings.