---

We might not meet again –

or so I hope we never will.

Yet if for some reason we will, let it be on one Saturday evening, at the old colonial road, thronged with ancient restaurants, just like we always did.

Please don’t ask where we’ve gone wrong. Do not try to utter words that make your voice crack and make your eyes scream in yearning, failing to bask all that with your laughter. That would be my favourite sound that was muted and lost, along with your favourite song.

And as you might ask for a cup of coffee, I may agree, though I prefer it black and bitter now, much like my present self. You might want to talk about what could have and could have not but I’m over them. I’ve already gone through those thoughts enough that I perfectly know where they lead- to another bucket of tears that should have long dried and another set of wounds to tend.

But I’ll take that sip of bitter coffee quietly with you, staring at how you try to gulp all that longing with your favourite espresso. I’ll try to memorise again how your eyes glimmer as your brows furrow when you think seriously. I’ll stare again, if not for the last time, at how your veins tauntingly wrap around your forearms and hands, reminding me of the empty spaces in mine and the cold spaces left around me when you were gone.

If we ever meet again, please don’t spoil things. Let the awkwardness swallow us in place of the cosy home we built around us when we were once in love. 

Please don’t spoil that moment though we might be deaf by how our hearts beat. Do not tell me words beneath your breath. 

Do not shed even a single tear. I might pull you close again, caressing your greys as I tell you “it’s okay” – when it was not. 

Please just let the silence consume us until it’s time to go.

At that day, I might be draped in your favourite beige saree. You might be wearing glasses with a higher grade, and my dreams might have come true already. Dreams that I had planned to chase with you. 

On that day, I might not yet forget how I tried to held you into my arms against your back as you walk away from that room uptown when we ended. My tears may have dried in your shirt long ago but my heart is still filled with stains of that day.

Years may have passed, and so many things may have changed; but then again, I am still the same girl you met decades ago, on a resplendent spring afternoon, still in love with your eyes, and your soul. And for once, for both of us, I won’t spill the coffee and ask to make things right. 

I will walk away even though I said that day, “I will always love you.” I will walk away though to me, always means a lifetime. 

I’ve made up my mind a long time ago, I will never come back into your arms again. No matter how my heart yearns for you, I will never give us a chance again. No matter how my hands miss yours, I will never touch you again.

So let us never meet again. I hope we never will. But if we ever will, don’t ask where we’ve gone wrong. Don’t ask for a cup of coffee. Do not spill the coffee. Let us walk past each other like strangers do.

---

Pritha is a high school teacher who teaches English Literature. An avid reader she wonders and finds ways to challenge the limitation of her knowledge and understanding of literature and life every time she opens a book. She scribbles to straighten the myriad, incoherent thoughts that do not allow her to rest in peace. She loves to travel and anything musical.