What Happened Next

"This is how what happened next. How you came into being, Before you were."

I had often rehearsed this line in my mind, and in many intonations, of when I would actually say it to you. Perhaps in one of my letters I have. But I did not go on to tell exactly what. Well, this. This, that when he left, he left behind not one, but the two of us. 

His car had made the same screeching sound when he reversed to park it impeccably outside my gate, and when he had locked it, as he rang the bell on my door. He entered with the same smile he came each night in, his shirts stressed and his shoulders too. It was a daily drive of around two hours. I remember what I had made for dinner -- a simple pasta with chicken and mushroom tossed in olive oil, spiced with herbs and chilled mojitos. We hadn't had the white rum in a long time. It was raining, slowly, constantly. The lights of the roads and on them were blurred and the sight from my balcony of the ninth floor was washed. Like a lullaby.

As we settled on the couch with our second round of mojitos, he locked me with his legs and begun kissing me. As usual, I was perched on the floor and him on the sofa. His stubble caressed my concern and dimming the lights, we made tipsy love. Soft and wild. The sound of rain was persistent, soft and wild. We were happy, like children, and as he spooned around me, I told him. That you had happened.

We slept. We woke up, he made me my favourite breakfast of a mushroom and cheese omlette and apple juice, had his bath and left for work. I received a call from him before lunch where he asked me to abandon you. Because he loved us too much the way we were to have a you around. To Abandon You. Or he would move away. And that, love, is what happened next.

He left with a note on the fridge. He must have come in when I was out for the monthly supplies. I had earlier disagreed to abandon you. The note neatly said, "Meira, It saddens me that we have to end this way. You, us, we will always be special. Do not call me. I will not call too. We will get used to the blank just as we got used to being together. Nikhil." We had bought the violet notepad some months back, and he used one of the sketch pens kept on top of the fridge. He selected the dark blue to write it.

I sat with the note clasped in my hand. Just where we had made love the previous night. Had I known it would be the last time, I would go on endlessly. Soft and wild. But it ended. Restless and cold. I do not remember what I drunk myself to wake up really late the next morning, and I do not remember how I ended up not making a single call to him thereafter. But that afternoon, as I emerged out of the bath, I dried myself with thoughts of you. You -- cocooned within me, settled in my soul and living it all. 

You are a being of love. I embraced the thought and took a step back to looking forward to loving you. Ever since, life has been a series of what-happened-nexts.
Till you are. When you are.