What IF?

Spending time alone was never a problem for Riya. Her forever multi-tasking brain kept her busy and occupied. Alone in the living room of her friend's house, she found herself wanting to try something new. Bored of work, TV and other forms of entertainment, she decided to venture into a very adventurous space- dating apps. 

Riya was extremely old school when it came to love and relationships. Maybe that made this even more exciting. She had no idea of the rules, how's and why's of this world. With an adrenaline rush, she downloaded one of the apps and created a profile. She thought, "What good can anyways come out of it? It's anyways just time pass for the 2 days I am here. I won't meet anyone, just swipe and see what happens. No harm done". and she swipes.....

Amidst the 20-30 odd swipes, to her surprise, quite a few matched. Usually, a girl would be thrilled but Riya freaked out. She had zero experience of talking to a random person on the net! To make things worse, the first few chats ended up disgusting her. She unmatched most of them within the first 2 minutes. Her long-time belief that these are meant for superficial people looking for sex was proven right. As we can expect, she decided to delete the app and get back to life the way it was. All this is 90 minutes!!

As she decided to delete her account, she gets a message from a guy named Harsh. She looked at his profile once again and something about him said that maybe she can give this one last try. Little did she know what was in store for her....

For the first 3 days, the conversation was just limited to "Hi", "Good morning" and "Good night" as their timings never matched. The day they finally said a word other than that was the day Riya left Delhi to go back to her home in Bombay. Harsh was the first guy yet not to bring up the topic of sex in the first 10 minutes of the conversation. She thought "Let this go on.. What harm can it do right??" 

It took a few days but once Riya and Harsh started chatting, they instantly clicked. Conversations were long, crazy and fun. They were chatting throughout the day in the office, home, while travelling.. always! Just 3 days of conversations and it was like a weird attraction which Riya could just not get her head around. For the first time in years Riya was up until 2am talking to someone. She had forgotten what it feels like to be liked, complimented and flirted with. Harsh was too good to be true.. He behaved every bit of a person in love.. In 5 days!! 

On the 5th day, Riya couldn't hold herself back, she went on and said,

"I am scared, worried and terrified. This isn't right. We have never met and we are getting so used to each other! I refreshed my app a 100 times in the last one hour to see if you have sent me a message. You should get back to swiping and find someone in your city."

Harsh - " It's too early to say it's love.. But I'm not sure and I don't want to take chances of losing it. What do you think?"

Riya- "We've not known each other even for a week.. I'm not sure of anything right now.. and I have this sword on my head that I'm leaving for US in 10 days"

Harsh- "So you don't feel anything??? Just addiction?"

Riya wanted to say so much.. about how she felt.. 

Harsh- "I'm scared too. But I can't take chances..What if?"

Being the closed person that she is, she just said "I'm worried and scared.. Let's not talk about it now..We'll think about it later"

The conversation then changed to colours and holidays and stars... Just remained in the back of their heads that this may never last but it's bliss while it lasts.. Harsh made her laugh and she forgot about all her worries..

Their endless conversations and small gestures made her feel "in love". Just like every other person who has been betrayed in love, she panicked. She knew this was too good to last! 

Harsh surprised Riya with a short visit to Bombay and those two days just confirmed the fact that these two had a chemistry. She would pick him up, travel around the city, go for movies, food, sightseeing and drop him back to his hotel. 

At the end of his visit, she made up her mind. She told him that this can't continue. She was falling in love with this charming and kind-hearted man but her fate and destiny were different. She just couldn't risk this relationship. She thought... "What if we can't handle the distance? What if we start fighting and this magic is lost? What if we find other people in the city we live? What if..What if...What if..."

Against all his wishes, she ended the relationship before dropping him to his bus stop. He stormed out of the car and refused to talk to her. Little did he know that she was heart broken too... 

Riya left for US 10 days after this incident. She thought about him for days and weeks after..cried herself to sleep many a time.. Once again, the threat of distance cost a fairy tale romance.