Resigned to destiny contd.

Three hours and many such visits to the washroom later he was finally walking into the bar to drink his way to oblivion without a care for the world. But it was not supposed to be so. His two closest friends walked through the door towards him and gave him knowing smiles. They were the only two people who knew he loved her too much to see her get married to someone else. They didn’t object to his drinking, rather ordered cocktails for themselves too. They had never asked him the story though they did know about his sufferings. Today they asked and he found himself speaking.

“Ironically, I met her the first time when I was introduced to her along with Viplav as her boyfriend,” he laughed at his own stupidity.

“You must be kidding. If you knew she was seeing somebody already, how could you develop tender feelings for her?”

“Even I’d like an answer to that. I knew she had a man in her life. I knew she loved him and Viplav, well, he loves her with his own existence. That is the reason I’m standing in the sideline watching.”

“What happened? She had a fight with Viplav and you felt a need to be around and fell in love?”

He laughed and lifted his glass of scotch to his mouth, immediately wrinkled his nose against the offensive smell of the liquor and left it untouched on the table again. Since the day he found she was averse to alcoholic beverages, he had been as far away as possible from them. His friends had often teased him saying he was getting soft. With a pang of sorrow he tried remembering how he got himself into such an absurd and impossible situation.

“Hey, man, I’m asking you. You won’t evade me tonight.”

“Yeah, I knew she had a boyfriend,” he said with a sigh. “The first time I met her all I saw was a girl who was just out of college and had a lot to learn about the world, yet had a remarkable insight to many things. Sheena, our hostess, also our common friend, had arranged one of those musical parties where you had to shout to converse. We exchanged a few sentences and that was all.

After that I saw her in two more parties Sheena and I both attended. It was a season of achievements of our friends, remember. On both occasions we exchanged a few witty remarks, laughed at them and got along with the rest of the party. And the next thing I know, the very next evening of the second party I bumped into her in my library.”

Both his friends quirked their brows.

“Save your imaginations, you’ll need them tomorrow morning for finding excuses for being late to the office after tonight’s hangover. She had been hiding there behind a book with puffy eyes and red nose. She had been crying...”