“I miss you. Hope to meet you soon’.

‘We’d meet soon baby, I promise‘. I replied to her text.

It had been more than 3 years now that I know her and her being in my life is no more than a blessing. She’s an angel and such a pure heart, I thought to myself as I saw her picture on my phone.

Remembering the time I first saw her, her beautiful thick black hair flowing down her shoulder until her knee and she wore that angelic smile with those thick bottle glasses on her face. She was so innocent, so pure of heart.

But look at her now, her hair as short, her smile vanished into thin hair, her eyes showing clear signs of dark circles which she had obtained through sleepless nights of constant reading – her only solace.

Reading was the one thing with which she obtained peace of mind and she knew that she had to escape her reality or else it would succumb her sooner than anticipated.

She read about hurt, about love, about patience, about magic as she knew that what she wanted would be found in the books she loved, not in reality. She loved digging her face inside her beloved books as she would in her mother’s lap. Her getaway place.

She even loved to write, she wrote about love, about struggles, about the depths of emotions people seldom would dip in. She wrote about stars and galaxies and the astronomical rigmarole, of which her readers failed understand, they could never read between the lines.

Yet she wrote for herself, to elude from the reality, her bitter reality. She smiled through her pain, she gave hope to those who came to her for comfort, she distributed love, as much as she could. She truly was an angel. She was the wanderer, she was a fighter, she was love.

Around a year back one day she messaged me saying she hoped to meet me soon, she did not want to go away without meeting me. I assured her that she’s not going anywhere, she was just 22 and her whole life was ahead of her.

That day she told me about her health, her pain, her madness and sanity, and that she was fighting with the brutal chemotherapy everyday. She wanted to live the life that she wished in spite of all her suffering and agony, she wanted to smile, give happiness, she wanted to be happy.

I had no words to console her that night, but we spoke for hours, until she went off to sleep, until she could not revert back to my messages. I wish I could hold her tight in my embrace and tell her I was there for her, to tell her everything would be alright.

“When is your next chemo scheduled?”, I asked.

“In January, when are you flying to Mumbai?”, she asked.

“Just in time.” I told her.

Finally after 3 long years of knowing each other we decide to meet.

The thing about meeting someone for the first time is that the happiness of meeting them is beyond words, to finally meet the person who loves you as much as you love them.

In less than 2 months I will finally meet baby, it was a merry moment. I planned to take her out for dinner. She deserved a night she could remember.

Pre- booking the reservations for the night of our meeting to the most classy restaurant in my town. I wanted her to have the best time of her life. Everything was set as planned and I waited for the day to arrive patiently.

7 days to go

My phone buzzed :
“Hello”
Sobbing at the other end, “She left us, She has gone.” Our common friend said.
“Who?”
“Megh”
Baffled I fumbled, “Who megh, which megh?” my thoughts muddled and my words did not make sense. I knew something had gone terribly wrong.
“Megh, She passed this morning K. She is no longer with us.” I heard her voice break as she uttered these words sobbing. My heart sank instantly.
“Who told you this?”, my voice trying to be brave.
“Her mom called me this morning.”
“Ok”, I said and I hung up. I sat down to the cold emotionless feeling I had running through my spine. How could I be so blunt I thought to myself. I sat there, opened her last message, she had replied to a forward I had sent.
‘ True that’ ‘Good morning’ ‘I love you’
I looked at her last words and screamed at the top of my lungs, I wailed and cursed my misfortune of not meeting her even once. I hated my self that day, I felt powerless, weak, helpless. The only thing she had told me every time we would chat ‘I want to meet you one day’ I could not fulfil her wish. Her only wish.
I buried my face in my palms and I cried. That was the only thing I did that day, cried my eyes out.
Epilogue :

I sit her at our reservation table, she isn’t here just her memories, her messages, maybe her invisible structure sitting opposite me, smiling at me, holding my hand and looking into my eyes. Maybe she knows how I feel for her, maybe now she knows how much I truly love her.

We think we have time, to do it tomorrow, later, whenever. But the truth is we don’t know what the next moment would bring and for the rest of our life we are left with regret of not doing what we wanted to.