A Stab of Grief

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“Give me the best cake you have.”

I was purchasing some groceries from the hypermarket when a familiar voice from the bakery section caught my attention. I turned at once to see my college friend Daniel. I almost ran to him and surprised him.

“I can’t believe it’s you, Arun!” Daniel said in absolute bewilderment as he turned towards me. “It’s been 10 years.”

We hugged each other tightly and shared the experiences of the last10 years of our lives in the next 10 minutes.

“So…how is Sneha?” After a long battle with myself, I finally dared to ask the question.

“Still married to me!” Daniel said grinning.

“Wow! That’s great,” I said in a desperate attempt to sound funny.

Me, Daniel and Sneha were batch mates and best friend during our college days. Daniel was one of the most famous boys in our college - the ‘hero of the college’ will not be an exaggeration. On the other hand, I was an introvert and a boring bookworm. Our homes were closed to each other and we used to travel on the same route to and from our college every day. That was how the friendship between the two of us, who were poles each other, happened. As for Sneha, she was the dream girl of all the boys from our college. I was immune to things like crush or love until she walked into my life. It was not her looks or the frame that had made me fall for her. It was her gentle and benevolent soul that I fell for. As I was the shy, hesitant and ‘not- much –talkative’ type of guy, I was never involved with any girl until now. But this girl, she was something else. Her spell made me break the cocoon of my coyness and I made a firm decision to open my heart to her before our final year exams. As our study leave was about to begin, I made a perfect plan to propose to her at a local restaurant. After a wait of good one-and-half hours, she landed there with Daniel to break the news of their engagement. I need not say that it broke my hurt. After completion of my studies, I deliberately snapped all ties with them and vanished from their lives so that I could get Sneha off my mind and mend my broken hurt. But what last 10 years had done to heal my heart and scarred soul, was undone by the last 10 minutes.

“Today’s her birthday,” Daniel said, gleaming with joy. “Hey, why don’t you join us? She will be very happy to see you.”

“I would love to,” I said as I wasn’t willing to meet ‘that’ Sneha who was happily married to Daniel. “But I have to attend an urgent meeting today, maybe, some other time.”

After a few more futile attempts to convince me, Daniel gave up and made his way home. I couldn’t rein my craving to meet her and decided to follow Daniel and see her furtively. After driving for 10 minutes, Daniel stopped his car at a graveyard and jumped out of it with the cake and a few candles. I was confused for a second but then realized that maybe Daniel wanted to celebrate Sneha’s birthday at the grave of his parents. As I was dying to have a glimpse of her, I stealthily followed Daniel.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Daniel said as he halted at a grave.

I looked around for Sneha assuming that she must be hiding somewhere to surprise Daniel. As he knelt to place the cake on a grave, I read the inscription on it.

‘Sneha D’Souza’

RIP

The grief of losing her forever stabbed deep into my soul and ripped it apart.

               I'm Writing Bravely for the Write Tribe Festival of Words - 2019.

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