He reads romance, she swears by Mathematics.
He believes in love till infinity, for her it is just a symbol defining something larger than any natural number.
His life has been defined by love stories, she claims to have empirical evidence that he...
"I am sorry, but there is no place available, may I?" and Shaurya seated himself without waiting for an answer. He glanced at her, only to be startled; she had the largest eyes he had ever seen, and even behind the gigantic glasses she wore he could make out that they were icy at him. He lightly bit his tongue and turned on his most endearing smile, he knew how well it charmed women.
It did not work; if anything her expression had gone from cold to frigid. Gathering her books, most of which appeared to be about mathematics and statistics, she started to leave. But when she stood up to leave, she stared out of the window, undecided; it was pouring outside and she appeared as though she did not want to risk getting her books wet. With a resigned shrug, she sank back into her chair and reopening her books, buried herself in them.
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Aabha was not as unaffected by him as she made out to be. If he had observed that she was a regular, she had registered his constant presence too. She could not help noticing him, she thought, 'he had a certain magnetism, with the confident and self-assured air that he possessed. He was always dressed in smart casuals and he walked with a purposeful stride that was neither a boastful swagger nor the gait of an aimless man.'
She had been a tad surprised at her observations, as a matter of a rule, she did not pay attention to people of the opposite sex for she was convinced that they were nothing but trouble, a fact which the attractive stranger who sat opposite her seemed to be reinforcing. He had dark hair, which was thick and lustrous and reminded her of the midnight sky. And he had an attractive face, with strongly arched eyebrows, combined with a well-defined sharp jaw and angular cheekbones that rendered his face perfectly symmetrical. She found his presence to be troublesome and her reactions to him were disturbing. She sighed and risked a glance at the book he was attempting to read and almost choked as she made out the title.
What he asked if anything was the matter with her, she looked at him and gave an inaudible gasp, he had the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen, eyes that were the brown of the earth kissed by warm spring showers, the colour of bronze speckled with gold and in one slant of light, they were no longer brown, they were a warm copper against burnt sienna. They were pools of glowing amber that invited her to lose herself in their fiery depths. She squeezed her eyes shut, chastising herself for her train of thoughts and shook her head, both in answer to his question and as a reprimand to herself.
She had enough problems in her life and family, to go looking for trouble in the outside world.
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From that day onward they shared that table by an unspoken consent and read their respective books in complete silence, which would at times be broken only by the soft crunching of the cookies. It took them another three weeks to start a conversation.
Aabha had reached the coffee shop looking quite harried; she was late and had had a long tiring day when she saw that he was already at their table and was still trying to read the same book. She smiled as she reached the table; apparently, the book was not engrossing enough as he did not seem to have made much progress since the day he had first sat at her table.
"You are late," he said by way of greeting.
She arched an eyebrow and replied, "You were not here for almost a week."
He smiled and answered, "I was away on an unavoidable business trip and it is nice to know that I was missed."
When she did not reply, he closed his book, "We have been here for more than a month and I have never seen you with books other than those that deal with Mathematics. An unusual choice for a woman."
In normal circumstances and if the same had been uttered by anyone else, that sexist generalisation would have had Aabha bristle with rage. But then she had missed his silent company and was a little captivated by the handsome gentleman, 'Oh, so we find him handsome, right?' teased her mind, to which she silently retorted, 'that was a fact, nothing to gloat about.' Glaring at Shaurya, she decided to respond with an equally banal remark, "Well, as unusual as it is for a man to be reading 'The Notebook' ".
Shaurya gave an embarrassed grin and his 'caught with his hand in the cookie jar' look was so cute that Aabha felt a tingle in her toes which passed through her like a warm wave. Ignoring those tingles, she sat down and continued, "So why do you read that romantic tripe?"
"You sound distasteful of romantic books. Do you not believe in love, the forever kind of love, born as soul mates type of love, a love that stays as in happily ever afters?"
Aabha shrugged, "No, love is just a word, love stories are illusions, soul mates are a myth, happily ever afters do not exist and nothing lasts forever."
Shaurya was taken by the acridity of her reply, he had always thought that all women, as a rule, were overzealous romantics who swore by mushy stories, and listening to Aabha denounce the very emotion left him momentarily flustered and speechless.
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So here ends the first chapter, do let me know how you found it. Do remember, all feedback, good or bad, is welcome.
