Bend

I saw her again after ten years. She looked more mature with age, learn-ed about the world, 'worn' as though the years that tolled by, had taken from her more than she had given. She had wrinkles on the sides of her eyes when she laughed. A good sign that she has been laughing throughout. She had cut her hair short, almost like a boy. I missed her hair on my face. Her shoulders seemed broader, and it made her hips stand out in perfect symmetry.  Beautiful. Just as I imagined her at thirty one. Her eyes widened when she saw me, and she smiled and her hand gestured a hello. Does she remember? I wondered if she remembered the glass window blocks that she loved so much because it made slivers of sunlight dance across my room. She seems cheerful. She always did.

***

“Did you find happiness?” I asked him when it was time to leave. His shoulders were hunched, as though trying to shield away the rest of us, and his eyes looked more towards the floor as if he was searching for some obscure thing on the ground. He didn’t look at me, but smiled and nodded in agreement. That same look he had when I met him for the second time, long ago. Flustered and distracted. We embraced. I inhaled his neck. He still smells the same. even after all these years. More calmer, I think. And experienced. He has seen the world. Maybe much more than I. I wish he could teach me what he saw like he used to.

“Did you find peace?” He asked in my right ear, mid embrace.  “In you, yes” I said.  We had both been looking for something, wondering among the others in the middle of all the chaos, rolling and tumbling with the tide with so many distractions sweeping us off our feet in this direction and that. He found it in me once. And I found it in him too. Long ago. The peace that comes with finally stumbling upon the thing you have been looking for oh so desperately. There is no pink cloud anymore. We’ve grown out of our own silly teenage selves and life has been its usual harsh self to us. We've battled it the way we usually do, aggressively and analytically. This is reality. I feel peaceful. I am past that stage where I want everything to be perfect. It never was and it never will be. I didn’t want anything in return. Neither did he. And in it, I found freedom.