Turnaround

He turned around and left….

It seemed like the perfect setting. They had been talking to each other for an unusually high amount of time every day for the last 3 months. He was was everything for her. Everything except that one thing she yearned for him to be. They both knew it. They both knew that it could not come to be. Yet they prolonged their agony. The perfect sunset had a dark spot.

He used to wait for her outside her office. Drop her home. Talk to her for hours standing next to the ice cream trolley. Every day, the cellphone would ring. Every day, he said bye. Every day, he turned around and left.

Both of them wanted to end this. The suffering, the pain, the longing. They both knew it was not right. Yet, they continued fooling themselves. The temptation to give in was strong. The pragmatism to hold back, was equally compelling. Who would blink first? While cracking jokes, sharing anecdotes, till the wee hours of the night, thinking about all this, he would turn around and leave.

That day was the same. Yet, it wasn’t. That day, they both decided to end it. They agreed that it was not what they ever wanted. That day also, he waited for her outside her office. She finished work, came down, and sat next to him in the car. He drove back silently. After stopping at her home, he did not say anything. She kept looking at him. With hope, a silent prayer going up in the air, she clinged on to the belief that this was also not something that they ever wanted. He still did not say anything. She wanted to cry. It was over. He turned around and left.

The next evening, he said I Love You. It was a Saturday, one of the best weekends of his life…