Remember Me?

“Yes, what’s the issue here?”

I heard a person and within a second my heart knew who that was. Maybe my blood pressure rose so up due to my rising heartbeat, but after that I could not hear a single thing from my surroundings. All the things were suddenly blur.

“Ma’am, you need to come with me.” The female constable kept a hand on my shoulder and I flinched suddenly waking up from my trance.

For some reason my steps felt a lot heavier than I remember them being, not to forget the sweaty palms. I could hear the indistinct chatter in the background but still the sound of my own heart was clear as day.

My hands flew to my chest and clenched the shirt in a totally pointless attempt to hold the desperation in it.

“Officer Palash” The constable called.

It felt the universe spinned on a very different direction as the person turned to face him. I saw his eyes getting wide. I felt like I could faint, I felt ecstatic, so much that my legs almost gave out. I felt ecstatic however there was a deep pain setting in my heart.

Maybe my happiness was so much to carry that it actually transitioned into tears, as my body could not hold it. I could feel my eyes moistened. And as if everything were in slow motion, I saw a tear drop form in his eyes and roll down.

And it appeared as if he was having trouble breathing. He smiled with all his teeth showing, A smile that could come only from within the heart accompanied by pearl tears.

“It appears you actually know her!”

I saw him flinch suddenly, his mouth agape as he looked back and forth between me and the other officer, who nearly arrested me. He cleared his throat taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his eyes.

“Something just got into my eyes.” He said.

I felt my heart dropping. I discreetly wiped my tears too, with my hand.

“So you know her right?” the other officer asked.

“yes ofcourse,” he said looking directly at the female constable who was beside me and now was standing with the other officer, “she knows her too.”

I saw the constable look at me briefly.

“you crashed into her yesterday right? At the mall?” he asked averting his eyes everywhere but me.

I saw her exchanging glances with the officer beside her, clearly both of them were very confused.

I breathed in “That’s it?” I asked him.

He looked at me and then as quickly lowered his eyes, his red moistened eyes. “I don’t remember otherwise, you can tell me.”

I clenched my hands tightly, my nails almost dug into my palms. I felt as if someone was looking at me, turns out I was right as the constables were, with confusing eyes. The other officer sighed.

“I will leave this case to you for negotiation.” He said to officer Palash before walking away with the female constable.

“yes, so miss-”

“Parul” I replied and watched him helplessly repeat my name soundlessly under his lips.

“Miss Parul” he said sitting on his chair taking a sheet of paper in his hands “this is a very nice drawing of me.”

“Parul” I repeated causing him to look up.

“Call me just Parul”

“Okay...” he breathed slowly looking down “Parul” he whispered to himself and looked up at me.

For almost five minutes he did not say a word and just stared at me.

Why was he even lying if his eyes gave away all the emotions?

“So you are going to pretend you don’t know me?” I asked him and as soon as I asked he looked away.

I sighed “so why did you cry?”

“There was something in my eyes!”

“Your eyes are still red and still brimming with tears!”

“Because it still stings!”

“What stings?” I asked looking straight in his eyes, not letting him look away.

“The… the thing that got into my eyes.”

Then suddenly a thought struck me. There must have been a terrible ending to our story, I remember the pain that I felt for the rest of the day, whenever I had a bad dream. Maybe, we really are ill fated, maybe I should not have come seeking for him after all.

“Parul, look-“he began saying something, but I interrupted him.

“I am sorry.” I clenched the ends of my shirt.

“What?”

“I am sorry for wasting your time, I will never come seeking you again.” I said as I dashed out of the police station and for a brief moment I felt him calling out my name, but I did not dare to look back or stop.

As I kept running farther away I felt a painful tug in my heart. I was hurt really, my eyes were moist and I just wanted to cry right now. After running a good distance and taking a number of turns I stopped when I noticed an auto stand. I somehow managed to reach Miss Subedar’s house and just locked myself in the room. There was a lot of time until she was back, so I let out all my feelings and cried loudly.

After all my tears dried down I was lying there lifelessly, and thinking about all these days the way Anup… Officer Palash was denying knowing me… I should just go home. Anyway we both live in different cities, so there is like no chance we would ever meet in real life. When she comes I would tell her my thoughts and just live on with life. So l got up, had lunch and started on the project that I was using as an excuse for a pointless investigation.

There is this thing about crying, I exhausts you, and shakes your focus for the rest of the day. Although I started the research…I don’t think I will be able to do much today.