Search

"Are you still searching?" he asked. He thought he knew the answer would be yes.

They could meet after years and resume a conversation from where they left last time, not having to remind each other about the context. They probably spent the days alone thinking about those lines.

"No", she said, slightly shaking her head and her eyes firmly fixed on him.

A look of sad surprise flashed across his eyes. He was quick to look down at the coffee mug in an attempt to hide, but she didn't miss noticing it.

"I stopped searching because I realised it is a futile search. I will never find it again", she completed.

This took him by surprise again, even when this was what he would have wanted to hear. Her voice was so earnest and bold that guilt pricked him.

They had parted ways a couple of years ago but had managed to stay in touch as friends with casual meetups and phone calls.

But the casual meetups or phone calls were never casual. They had intense conversations.

Their conversations were like waves in the sea. Waves that draw near the feet in an attempt to touch them but retreat at the last moment.

They keep pushing their conversations as if they were struggling and doing their best to be back like before.

But they always retreat.

The last time they had met, she had said, "I found in you a package of all things I yearned for in life. Care, concern and love. It felt like I found a treasure that everyone else usually found very early in life. But soon, it was taken away from me. And I was left with the void. The bad part is, I forgot how I used to live without the treasure. So, I am left to search for it elsewhere".

"I am learning to live with the void", she said, letting her heart flow. She knew she didn't have to be honest. She could choose to lie. But he had been the only person she had ever been honest with, and she didn't want that to change at the least.

She said it with her eyes on him. He didn't dare to face her and was stirring the coffee that had already turned cold.

Unable to ignore the weight of her eyes on him, he looked up from the coffee to meet her eyes.

Her steady eyes drilled through layers of flesh to the truth inside his heart.

She knew she was making him feel guilty, blamed and uncomfortable with her staring at him like that. But she wanted to see those in his eyes.

He felt accused of breaking things between them and for letting her wander with the void helplessly. The guilt for leaving her in pain and the regret of missing her.

And she saw it in his dull face. His eyes were pleading sorry and crying regret. Tears were starting to gather, and they would flow any moment.

She didn't know if they would be back like before, but she felt a reassurance that their years of love wasn't just her delusion after all.

And a reassurance that he was searching too.