Mia finally climbed the last step. Her feet were screaming for mercy already. She picked a spot on the railing and leaned her aching back over it. She had reached the top of the 500 m high skyscraper. She had always been a mountain-lover, but this was too much.

'How do people manage to climb a hundred steps without melting?' she thought while her breathing slowly returned to normal.

Her feet were still sore within the sneakers, though the pain was receding. She brushed aside the strand that had gotten loose from her auburn hair clipped behind. She looked around at the horde of tourists. They seemed to have travelled from all parts of the world to be here, just like her.

Mia left the comfort of the railing and moved closer to the glass standing firm between her and the expanse of the city at her feet. The view was exhilarating. Everyone around her was capturing the grandeur in their phones and professional cameras. She didn’t feel the need yet. She first wanted to capture the emotions bubbling within her. After all, she had given up the habit of fiddling with her device after seeing that text from Kevin a month ago.

The wind brushed at her cheek, lifting the thought away. She observed the view minutely. There were nineteen buildings and a harbour with nine boats bobbing in the water. A beautiful yacht was racing towards the queue of other boats. She decided to give the other end of the city a chance to distract her.

She turned around and headed to the other end of the glass tomb. She crossed two Asian tourists chittering away while clicking, an old lady with a Texan accent, and a group of teenagers from Europe talking rapidly in French. She picked up a few words to know they were selecting spots to check out once they returned to the ground.

Seemed like there was someone from almost every part of the world gathered here. She spotted an empty place, next to an Australian couple, to stand and take in the view of the city and the hills beyond.

Mia strolled over callously, thinking of the time she had taken to learn French with a friend in college. She was about to reach the glass window when the man on the right turned and made her stop in her tracks. Sun was setting right behind him, pushing his face in the dark.

But Mia didn’t need any light to recognise that chiselled jawline and deep-set eyes. Ved paused, catching a glimpse of her, but clearly handled it better. He maintained his poker face that used to be Mia’s favourite mystery many years ago. It seemed like another lifetime now.

The silence between them was deafening amidst the noise of the tourists. Someone bumped into Mia and apologised in German before heading to take her chosen spot next to Ved. She returned to her senses but found herself confused about which way to go.

Should she go ahead and ask the German tourist to move aside so she could squeeze in? Or should she sprint back the flight of a hundred stairs and return to a safe place on the ground to catch a breath?

Or should she dash through the glass windows and dive into the ocean to avoid this moment?

Seeing her frozen, Ved came over.

“Coffee?” he asked, skipping the awkward hellos running through Mia’s mind.

Should she accept? Should she decline? Or would that cement the building awkwardness in her chest?

Unsure of what to say, Mia gave a slight nod with a hint of a customary smile. There was a fluttering sensation in her stomach. She’d had the same feeling seventeen years ago on her first date with Ved.

He gestured his usual ‘After you’, and Mia led their way out of the glass tomb.

“So, how have you been?” Ved interrupted her series of thoughts that involved him, Kevin and then him again.

“Good. How about you? What are you doing here?”, she asked, hoping his answer would take her mind off things.

“Just taking a break from…well, work. How about you? What pulled you away from the comfort of your couch?”

“Maybe you did.”

'Why the heck did I just say that?! What’s wrong with me?' Mia mentally kicked herself for letting that thought lose.

He paused to look at her. Their eyes met, and there was an old sense of familiarity telling Mia she was in a safe space. She couldn’t help but smile. He remembered. Her ideal vacation was on her couch next to the window overlooking the mountains with a cup of coffee. Her home was her favourite holiday spot.

They headed down the flight of stairs and out of the building, missing the café that nested in there. It seemed to buzz with people, their chatter in multiple languages pouring out of the doorway that was ajar. Not an ideal place to catch up with someone you would like to talk to.

He was walking half a step behind her, letting her lead but still there in case she needed him. She led them out of the building and realised she knew nothing about the city.

“Hey, do you know a place where we can sit around here?”, she asked him.

“I guess I do. There’s a good pizza place just a few blocks away”, he suggested.

“I thought you wanted to grab a coffee?”

“Yeah, but a pizza would take longer”, he smiled, not looking directly at her but affecting her all the same.

Mia readily agreed, even though she was hungry only to spend time not alone. Solitude had eaten her alive in the past few weeks.

Ved brought them to a pizza place that was half empty, but the aroma was luring enough to pull them in. He led them to two seats by the window, her preferred spot. The moment they settled, a server came over. Ved asked the server for specials and ordered a large pizza extravaganza with lemonade for Mia and a diet coke for himself.

“So what are you really doing here, Mia? I know you don’t like travelling, and you seem alone.”

The brief summary of her current situation caught her off guard. But Ved could always read her like a book.

“Well…running away from my ex…fiancé, I guess.”, she heard herself saying.

'Why am I telling him about this right away?' Mia wondered. She would usually patronise herself in such a situation, but then, a surprising realisation dawned. She felt safe enough around Ved to let the truth out.

He paused to watch her, but she didn’t feel judged. With Kevin, she had fallen in love, for the second time in her life, and came very close to getting married, but just not enough.

“I am sorry. What happened?”, he asked, genuine concern deep in his voice.

“I guess… he realised before me that we had fallen out of love”, she revealed without meeting his eyes. Instead, she felt his gaze on her, listening intently, and wished the pizza was here already.

“Hmm...it’s funny how life shocks and surprises us at times”, she gave him a weak smile, so he continued, “I mean, we wouldn’t be sitting here if you had gotten hitched!”

Mia would usually have been annoyed but wasn’t. She surprised herself with a smile.

“Really? Is that your way of saying me getting dumped through a text a week before marriage was good?”

“What?!”, Ved was speechless. Shock and what seemed like a hint of anger reflected in his eyes. Mia was almost regretting spilling it out so early into the conversation. Pity was the last thing she needed from someone she had dated over a decade ago.

“How can someone do that?”, it was rhetorical, but she decided to answer anyway.

“Well, it was a stupid fight that blew up. His idea of a honeymoon was very different from mine. I wanted to spend time in my home before I left, and…well, he didn’t. Basically, he liked travelling, and I didn’t… History, kinda, repeated itself”,
she took a break from fiddling with the finger that was adorned with a ring a while back and looked at him for a reaction. The wound still stung, but another mix of feelings was bubbling inside her.

“Hmmm…so is that why you are travelling alone all the way from home? Because you think you need to change yourself?”, he asked, point blank as if he could still sense her true emotions.

Scouting for an answer, Mia just looked around, unseeing. Where was that pizza anyway?

Ved moved his hand through his black, silky hair. She could see him annoyed, but a smirk lurked at the corner of his mouth.

“What is it?”, she queried.

He chuckled, “Umm…you know, I quit my job for the same reason.”

“What?!”, it was her turn to be shocked.

There was a twinkle in his eye as he revealed, “Yeah, I got tired of travelling for the wrong reasons. So I….I am writing a book now.”

A whirlpool of emotions flared within her. A book? Now? After all these years, he was pursuing his dream, but something stung her. She confronted him,

“It was a government job, Ved! You had worked so hard for it! How could you just throw it all away? It was the reason why we…”, she flared, but it was more than just anger. That was why they had decided to part ways all those years ago. Well, she had decided. She felt an ache that she couldn’t explain. Was it regret?

He looked at her, sharing the disappointment.

“I guess I realised I was doing what I was expected to do, not what I really wanted to do. Kind of what you are doing right now.”

He had touched a nerve. She got up before he could see the pain unfurl in her eyes and walked out of the table.

He caught her hand just in time,

“Hey, Mia, I am sorry. Don’t go! Please?”

She didn’t want to leave either, so she decided to head to the washroom instead.

“No, I am not leaving…I’ll just be back.”

As she reached the restroom door, a woman in a pink dress opened it to come out. Mia avoided looking at her with moist eyes. She washed her face twice and took deep breaths. She wanted not to break down every time the topic was broached.

She looked at herself for one last time and headed out the doorway. As she approached the seat from behind, she saw Ved picking something from the pizza and dropping it on his plate.

Olives. She never liked them.

Her lemonade was waiting for her too, minus the ice cubes that lay in another glass on the side. Ved had scooped them off her drink so it would not be too cold. Just the way she liked it.

'Why? Why did he remember so much?'

She took her seat, and they started eating.

“Do you like it?”, Ved asked.

'What, you remembering everything about me even after all these years?', Mia thought.

“Sorry, what?”, she blurted.

“The pizza. Is it okay?”

“Oh yeah, it’s good. I see you took away all the olives”, Mia said without meeting his eyes.

“I…I just thought you didn’t like them. Do you now?”, he asked.

“No…not still”

A few moments passed in silence that was turning awkward by the moment. It was time to change the topic.

“So what is your book about?”

“Well…I am weaving a story…a mix of things I have been through”, Ved looked at her with mixed emotions, but there was a mystery there for her to solve.

She couldn’t drift her eyes away this time. That ache was back in her chest, only stronger. Finally, she was beginning to figure out what it was.

“Is there a lot that has happened in these eleven years?”, her curiosity piqued. She wanted to know if he had found someone too, but decided against it. That was a conversation for another day, and she had a feeling this was the first of many pizzas to come.

After the meal, they decided to head to the dock area that was just half a mile away. It was Ved’s idea, again. It meant more time to talk.

“So till when are you here?” Ved asked as they crossed a café full of people and clattering noises pouring out the door.

“I am flying tomorrow morning. You?”, she told him.

“Going home later tonight. Guess we have just a couple of hours more”, Ved said with a smile that wasn’t really happy.

And there was that ache again within her. Mere hours wouldn’t do justice to what she wanted to share and gather from him. But was it because she was unsure if these were the aftereffects of a broken engagement? Or was there more to it?

They took turns to come up with topics to fill the silence with, each knowing that wasn’t really what they wanted to talk about. They kept checking for signages to guide them to the dock area until they reached a place at crossroads.

Mia felt they had to go right, but when Ved turned left, she simply followed. Her first thought was to point it out, but she recalled that Ved always knew his way around. It was her who got lost easily.

They took another turn, and the dock emerged like a destination they both had been pining for. It felt like an achievement, a road they had managed to travel together without falling apart.

Ved picked a spot towards the end of the dock, where a few boats bobbed about. There were very few people around, so it added to the silence raging between them. They sat for a few minutes, hardly a foot apart when Ved found voice first.

“You know…you never left my mind…all these years…”

She was out of response at first but then gathered the courage to ask the foreboding question,

“So…does that mean you never gave someone else a chance?”

He chuckled, “Well, at first, I was too busy trying to prove myself, settling down in the job, doing what I was supposed to do for my career. But it wasn’t what I wanted.”, he turned to look at her, “But you know that, right?”

It was her turn to remember. The nights when they argued after he had decided to take the job with the embassy that was bound to take him everywhere. She wasn’t the one to travel so much. She had tried to remind him how badly he wanted to be a writer, even though it didn’t offer as much money and a safety net as the job.

Above all, her parents would not have allowed her to marry a writer. And he knew that.

It had marked the end of their six-year-long relationship.

Reading her mind, he reached out to her but stopped midway, barely brushing her hand. She looked at his fingers next to hers and decided to bridge the rest of the distance. She hooked her little finger with his.

The warmth of his skin against hers silenced the ache in her heart for a few moments. She had a sudden realisation it was the medicine she needed.

“I wish I could rewind the past eleven years… erase the mistakes I made so we could have what we truly deserved…each other”, Mia confessed.

She met his stare, and the pain exploded in her heart. The calmness of the ocean sprawling in front of them was too much noise. He reduced the distance between them and paused inches before her face, seeking permission. She closed her eyes and let his breath pull her closer.

But then she halted, hardly away from his pulsating breath. The excitement of this incomplete moment started to race her pulse. Her heartbeat quickened to match his, and they opened their eyes at the same moment.

A million memories rushed to the surface.

'The promise of a kiss is more passionate than the kiss itself.' Mia had always believed that. And practised it a hundred times. It was their thing. She recalled letting the tension hang like this often when they were together. But that was a lifetime ago.

She had changed since then. He had too.

A sudden urge pushed her to close the distance between them. The moment her lips found his, her heartache disappeared, opening the doors of passion and longing. The sweetness of his breath warmed her cheeks as she realised with a sudden pang that she wanted to make up for the time lost. So she poured all of her in this moment, this kiss. Her regret, her apologies, her rage and her love.

He cradled her face before moving his hands in her hair, holding her firm yet delicately. It was the most precious thing he had ever had. He had dreamt of this moment, longed for it for what seemed like previous lifetimes. He couldn’t let her go this time. He would not make that mistake again. He would spend the rest of his life in this moment, never leaving her if he could.

An abrupt burst of music brought reality crashing upon them. It came from a nearby boat. They were still in this land, far away from home. They pulled apart but only just.

Resting his forehead on hers, he beamed against her warm skin,

“I guess that was overdue. And…it was better than your promise of a kiss!”

She couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yes, it was…I guess it is time I left old notions behind. Travelling miles away from home paid off well.”

He moved away and held her face in his hands.

“Hmmm…We’ve changed, Mia. Both of us have. And I am happy that we did. I guess it is time that we erased the old mistakes. Let’s make new ones!”

“New mistakes? What do you have in mind?”, she couldn’t mask the flirtation in her voice.

Smiling to himself, he lowered his head and, after a few moments of silence, took her hands in his.

“Let’s start where we had left all those years ago. Let’s give us another chance. And this time, let’s settle down not near the mountains, but the ocean”.

***
© Ishita Nigam Garg
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