Small Things Do Matter In Love

“Was I desperate?” She nearly whispered.
“A bit of like that.”
“What does that mean, a bit of like that?”
“Means, you looked as if you were…but I’m not sure.”
Both of them remain silent. They were lying on bed, side by side, hand in hand, facing the fan. Moments later, she started laughing.
He looked at her, “What happened?”
She didn’t answer, just continued laughing. He was surprised and tried to ascertain out the reason on his own but he couldn’t. He kept staring at her and soon he didn’t care to ask further. He just wanted to look at her that way, laughing. She looked beautiful and immaculate.
She noticed him staring at her, “Why are you staring…this way?”
“You’re beautiful.” She ceased laughing. He continued speaking with a wonder face, “I can’t believe…I’m in love.” He said as if wondering what he was saying.
She was left transfixed. She looked at him, unable to find words. She didn’t believe he had said that. At times he had been so inexpressive and now! She had waited for any such words from him for all these thirteen months.”I told you…one day you will. Remember?”
He nodded and moved to her side, looking into her eyes,”Thank You.”
They kissed.
“I can’t believe I was desperate.”And she fell into laughter again but this time not alone.


When he was gone, she came back again on bed and lied down there trying to feel his presence. She thought he had changed. May be their short span of separation has brought that change in him. At times, love cannot be expressed tacitly. Verbal expressions are indeed potent and indispensable.
Since the first day she had met him in college, she knew he liked her but he never had guts to say it to her. In fact she liked him too but he was so dumb to her that she never could invoke in herself a real sense of likeness for him in her heart. But deep inside, she knew that she liked him. It was the last day of their college, when he finally gathered up all his guts to say”hi”to her. Probably, it was ‘now or never’ for him, she had thought. ‘Now or never’ was for her too. Although, she had initiated the conversation but he was the one who spoke all the time. Being a psychology student, she understood that all these three years he had been fighting with the fear of initiation. People are like that sometimes. It was normal, she thought.
They met several times later and all those times she had waited for him to be a little bit more expressive. She always thought that the way he is, he’ll only be able to propose to her when she’d be walking down the aisle to marry someone else. But still she waited.
When he had said for the first time that he liked her, she thought that it was said in a very trained manner. May be someone was pushing him to say it to her or someone had taught him the way of saying that. She smiled. He is so innocent sometimes! She thought. But she liked him because he was different; he was the most humane, descent and humble person she had ever encountered in her life. And he was a great listener. She loved that.


“Do you believe places invoke memories?”he asked.
“Ya, I do. In fact, I know, why have you brought me here today.”
He came closer to her, held her hand. She thought, at last he is going to ask her for marriage, but he didn’t. But whatever he said, wasn’t bad either. He made a big speech, looking into her eyes, holding her hands,”I know, I can’t do it the way it should be done but…I’ve tried a lot…it doesn’t come to me. Since you came into my life, I had just been waiting to be…to be with you…always.”He stopped. She hugged him. She was happy because he was on his own today.
He said,”Yesterday I said I can’t believe I’m in love…but actually I had known it for a long time. It was just I couldn’t find out the way to express it. This whole month, while I was away from you, I realized that I was curbing my feeling, doing prejudice not just to myself but to you too because I know you also love me equally…I’ve seen it in you eyes.”It was like being in state of euphoria for her. She felt she won’t be able to fight back her tears, tears of happiness, but she did.
He continued, “I have lot of memories of this place. This is the very place where I first said”hi”to you. You remember.”He smiled.”I was so foolish.”
“No you weren’t.”She said. This time she couldn’t hold back her tears.
He wiped them for her with his thumbs.”You are not desperate today?”
That was enough to efface her tears. She just smiled and shook her head.
Whole way back home, both of them kept laughing.


While he was returning back home, after dropping her, he was thinking that she was so happy with the change in him. Although, it was not like being him but still it was worth doing it to make the person you love, feel so special and good.
For one whole month he had been away from her. His father had an open-heart surgery, so he had to be with him. When his father was brought back home from the hospital, then he expressed his gratitude and love for his son. He said to him that he felt so ashamed of never expressing his love for his children and that was the reason why he had been left alone.
He knew his father was right. At times, he himself had called him ‘ruthless’ but now he felt sorry for him. When his father has told him that expressing your love is really important in a relationship, his mind had drifted back to her.
Being honest in love makes you feel honest. Relationships are really tender and we ought to express our true feelings in love. Such small things do matter in love.”Getting his father’s love and advice, he felt that all that time he had been so foolish to not to express his love for her. An idea just stuck his mind. He girded himself for the action. He applied brakes, smiled and turned his car back.


She was tying her hair back before going to the kitchen for preparing dinner. Her heart pounded at the unusual time for the doorbell. She opened the door. He was standing there.
“What happened?”
“I love you, Reet.” She was surprised. “Will you marry me?” She became expressionless. She stood where she was. Minutes before she had been wondering when and how will this happen.
He stepped further, held her shoulders and asked again, “Will you marry me?”
There was no need for the answer. She went straight into his arms. Her eyes were wet. So were his’.