Love-Letter (III)

Megha,

How is it that I write to you in spite of all that has been going on between us? I will tell you. I thought, let me embrace that month-long love of ours and not write about all that is going on between us now. The badminton evenings greet us, yet you aren't there on the other side of the net. Is it too much to ask? You, in your sloppy returns and even sloppier giggles one with the dusk that dresses us in its golden delight. 

The death of a parent, Megha, is a strange thing. However prepared one feels one is, one isn't enough. The suddenness of it numbs everything else like a frozen bite. Daddy's death has shocked us in spite of those hospital evenings. Was I too unlike me during that time? Distant relatives and people in general, with their over-reaching condolences, suffocated me. I did not want you to fall in that category of slimy generosity. Perhaps such was a reason that I went silent. The silence, as I return to find, has done more harm than it was ever meant to, yet, funny that life is, all I have is, words today.

I feel strange. I do not want to tear up, but no, I want to. I do not have the courage to do it in front of anyone but me. No, I can't take myself crying too. Can you? The other day, as I was the natural choice to take up Daddy's seat in the front, and enter his office without his permission, all I wanted to do instead was run back to the college and find you lurking in the library. It felt a safer place. 

Language has never been my forte, and Mom's genes in that aspect, haven't exactly come down to me. I am proud of Mom. She even asked after you. We would like you to come visit us sometime. As for me, since I have this urgency to end, fearing I may have been talking all nonsense so long, I sincerely urge you to give us both a hope of revival. 

I look into Dad's watch on my wrist, ticking into time all such moments that are a flurry of memories, only, he isn't around. Anthony has baked his favourite -- apple pie, which I can smell now. I wish you were around to know how it tastes. And this makes me believe, I love you. 

Call me,

Pablo.