Love in the Air

Trudging down the road back to the hostel, Zara wondered whether she would ever be able to prove him wrong. To him, it was she who had her hands in too many jars, but for her: her mistakes started off by befriending an individual who she thought to be nice and would not become the cause for her relationship continuing to drown in everything negative.

Things had taken the steep road downhill, plunging into further chaos. Days were dark for the couple, as all that happened were fights, tears, and in the middle of all of that, some bit of love. The only positive part was that the love showcased by both of them were unconditional, just like that from the start. Abhay refused to see her love as equal to his, and claimed his to be greater. Zara didn't take much part in all that fuss, for she knew the magnitude of her love, and the extent she would go to protect it. She spent countless disturbed nights, and knew he was going through the same; but when the problems increased due to the increase in the weight of the each individual problem, her head would pound. "How will I get over this.. will there ever be light at the end of a tunnel?" Occasionally finding herself in places like the temple, her bed, the college canteen and her friends shoulder, she came to realise that her situation was only getting worse. She was drowning in her own thoughts, her own negativity, and it had to end somehow.

The stage of depression that she was in was severe: the bruises in her memory were deep, the scars by loved ones dug right into the center, and deeper and darker circles covered the mess that she soon became. Her friends stood by her; she knew they had her back if she ever slipped back into that pit of near death. But she slipped too often, falling a few stages deeper, just short of the very end. Frequent flashbacks into the past only threw her into different mood swings, causing her friends to distance themselves from her. She couldn't help it, all that she ever wanted to do was sit in a padded room, away from all that noise and suffering, and scream her head out. Throw things, break any sort of object present in that room... and in all that frustration, cry. Many times was this pointed out to her and this feeling dug deep into her heart. Darkness had taken over her, and it felt like there was no escape. 

She had reached her room, and sat on her bed, wondering if she ever wanted to live life this way. There were many mistakes that she made, but all that she tried to do and constantly failed at was show Abhay that she loved him, right from the moment they shared their first glances. These flashbacks killed her, for those times were golden and filled with nothing but love. She was too open from the start, and learnt to control on all of that because she understood that he didn't like her way of expression. She stood her ground just for him, so that he would fall back on her, and still not hurt himself. Even though she barely reached his shoulders, she was his support, and laid him down on her lap every time they experienced storms. She knew she only wanted to protect him, not knowing what they were going to face, but trouble managed to sneak right under her nose into their harmony, successfully managing to kill their fictional child, Hope. She stood out in the balcony, listening to the song that helped her relieve herself mentally, wiping her now swollen eyes, wondering what tomorrow would hold. "Dear God, if you're up there and you think it's ok to listen to me, please grant me one wish. If he is not happy with me, and permanently decides to leave me, then please don't leave me here, take me with you. That way, wherever he goes, I will always be with him. And if he ever breaks down, or faces any difficulty, I'll leave hints for him to get him through it. He will know it's me, and that in itself is more than just a gift. I really hope you listen to this at least, if not for the help I've been asking of you from time to time.." She looked at their star, a dot that gleamed brightly among all the other stars in the vast, dark sky, and imagined both of them, standing at the balcony, sipping on a hot cup of chai, taking in that moment. She took out her phone, went on to the compass to verify the position of the star. "OK, 225 SW, just a bit of a change..." The mobile soon grabbed her attention, as he finally messaged her. With that prayer in mind, she went back into her room, wondering when the end to all their problems would come..