Am I imagining it?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. It's been a whule since I last wrote so please help me, all criticism is appreciate. It's a little long but I put in a lot of effort so please consider reading it till the end and gelping me out here. Thank you!

Harshita :)

She ran the brush through her hair for the umpteenth time, and as she put the brush down she realised she was obsessing. A quick glance at the clock told her there was another fifteen minutes to go. Let’s begin obsessing again, she thought to herself. The anticipation and the excitement of the evening had only resulted in her getting ready half an hour early. 

Usually, she was the portrait of nonchalance and punctuality, but today she was completely different. She picked up the gloss and reapplied it, which was followed by another brush of the lip liner over her already perfect lipstick. As she raised her wrist to take a look at the wristwatch, just in case the clock on the wall was behind and she was being stood up, she saw the wristwatch had confirmed what the clock said. 

The slight movement of the wrist reminded her that she’d forgotten to put on perfume. She sighed in relief at the ten minutes she still had and rushed to the cabinet where, opening one drawer, she started picking up various bottles of the perfume, whiffing each one in an attempt to decide which one to use. 

***

He stood outside her door with a bunch of her favourite midnight blur orchids in one hand, and the other raised so he could look at the wristwatch. 3 more minutes, and then he would ring the bell which would mark the beginning of an evening he had been waiting on for as long as he could remember, since he first met her at their ninth class hostel orientation, the day they became friends. 

As he saw the watch finally complete the count of the hour, he took a deep breath to steady himself then, taking one final step towards the door, he rang the bell. 

***

She’d been staring at the clock waiting for it to be 6. Despite that, when the bell rang at 15 seconds past 6, she gasped, and immediately jumped up from the couch she had settled into just two minutes back. She walked to the door, willing the clicking sound of her heels to be unheard through the door. 

Just as she reached for the handle of the door, she froze for a moment. What if this is wrong? What if the evening goes badly? Is the risk worth it to ruin my years of friendship? The thoughts were flitting through her mind faster than the speed of light. Were they right, these thought? Should I really do this? Am I overdressed? Is this too much effort for a date with my best friend?

 But before the question had fully formed in her mind, she knew the answer. Of course she was going to do this. It’s not like he could do anything to harm her. He was the last person who could do anything but good to her.

She took a breath and opened the door.

***

He heard her heels clicking their way to the door and then stopping suddenly on the other side of the door, less than a meter from him. He could even see her shadow through the slight gap between the door and the floor. Is she having second thoughts? Is she regretting it? What if she’s so accustomed to me being her best friend that the thought of a date with him felt inappropriate? 

All the thoughts that had kept him from asking her out over the years, ran to his mind, filling him with apprehension. His heart had always told him that being friends with her was the last thing he wanted, but his mind had always warned him that it was his only shot at getting anywhere near him. He’d always felt that it was a miracle she ever chose him to be her friend.

In the otherwise silent corridor, he heard her take a deep breath just as he did, and then she opened the door. His eyes met a sight that was familiar yet completely unfamiliar. He sucked in a breath and felt his muscles clench.

***

She stood there in silence, waiting for him to say something. Instead she was met with the familiar cinnamon eyes that were just a shade lighter than hers. Those eyes immediately opened wide with eyebrows shooting up, and his mouth opened a little. When she opened the door, she expected to see her best friend who would take a look at her and then laugh at her for all the effort she had put in. But what she did not expect was a paradox. He’s my best friend and still he isn’t.

Black jeans paired with a grey formal shirt, sleeves rolled up, and that bunch of flowers, was it those blue orchids she loved? In that moment whatever reservations she’d had about the evening were gone. This was him, the guy who’s had her back for the last fifteen years. The guy who knew her, and, therefore, the orchids, not roses or tulips as most guys always seemed to think. 

She gave him a bright smile and was relieved to finally see him boggled expression change into a combination of amazement and delight which came along with that half smile she loved. 

***

‘Hey, you look amazing!’ he uttered. The words seemed to tumbled out of his mouth along with the realization of how clichéd his words were. Her red skirt and white shirt combination made her the most striking thing I had seen in a long time. And those heels he had heard clicking earlier made her seem just a head shorter than her actual foot.  

‘Thanks,’ she said with a bright smile, ‘Come on in.’ She stepped aside and made way for him to enter. 

He entered into the house he knew as well, if not better than, as his own. And as always, it was impeccably clean.

‘How do you manage to keep the house so clean?’ he asked her playfully. ‘I know you worked long today, your car was still parked when I left. And even though you girls take way longer than we do, your house looks like your mom was just here, whereas mine constantly looks like a tornado ripped through it.’

She chuckled and then said, ‘probably because I clean up whenever you possible, and you clean up, well, never. The only time I’ve seen any part of your house clean is when aunty comes to visit or when you call me up hysterically to clean up behind you because you’re bringing a girl home to cook her dinner.’ 

This cracked the both of us up. The familiarity of the entire situation was so strong that I felt stupid for feeling nervous. This is my closest friend, what could possibly go wrong with her? 

***

Fifteen minutes and a comfortable silence later, she was sitting in his car, breathing in the fragrance of musk melon car freshener she had picked out.

Recognising the streets she asked, ‘Are we going to your place?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘The people from the company finally came yesterday and set up the home theatre at my place. I already have a billion of your favourite movie and both of us know how much you love the pasta I make. So I thought we’d watch a movie and have dinner at my place and then do something afterwards.’ He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow and saw her corners of her lips lift into a smile.

‘I just hope there isn’t a tornado in your house,’ she said with a cheeky grin sending them both into laughter again.

***

Two ours had gone by. Movie accompanied by one of her favourite foods, and good chat with him left her in good spirits. Once her initial hesitation had gone, she’d expected it to be a pleasant evening. What she hadn’t expected was that t would go so well. They’d caught six back to back episodes of Big Bang Theory. They had done many Big Bang Theory marathons through college and even after they began working.

 One of the advantages of the both of them working in the same place was that they’d spent plenty time together, at work and at home. Others would often be surprised at how much time they’d spent together. Many relationships had ended due to this closeness between the two friends. Parents had often confronted them, expecting the revelation of some romantic bond, but nothing had ever really happened. 

Until now.

***

She sat on the couch in his house. He had gone to the kitchen to get her another glass of the cranberry juice she preferred to any other drink so much. She sat there with a pillow in her lap on top of which were crumbs left over from the chocolate pastry he had gotten from her favourite bakery. She looked down at the plate, trying to decide whether or not to quickly pick those crumbs and have them too before he returned. 

‘Just have them already, you know you want to,’ he said from behind her. So suddenly that she nearly jumped. He laughed at her shock and then came and sat down next to her, putting two glasses of cranberry juice on the table in front of them. 

The clinking of glass against glass was the only sound in the room over the next few moments as she stared at him, her eyebrows pulling towards each other a little, so that there was a slight creasing on her forehead. Her eyes, which were the colour of syrup, had a look in them which he read to be of contemplation. In the silence of the room, as he stared into the depths of the eyes that had always been so beloved to him, he thought, Does it even matter, how well I may know her, if I can’t figure out what’s going on inside the head.

***

Am I imagining all of this? She thought to herself as they held the eye-contact. For the first time it seemed to mean as much to him as it always had to her. She’d always been very guarded around him. She’d always wanted him, but years of rejection from all forms of relationships had made her put up her walls pretty high. But that orientation day, he’d cracked through them, first becoming a friend and then something more.

But afraid as she had been, she kept it within. Sometimes, she thought she saw him look at her the way she’d always thought him to, but then he’d look away or smile at her crushing any hopes she had for a future that she so desperately wanted with him.

But today, at that moment, something was different. It was as if she was seeing someone else. For the first time she saw her desire for him glistening in his eyes. Or am I imagining it? She echoed her previous thought. 

***

This is crazy, I need to know what she’s thinking before I go insane! He thought.

‘Hey,’ he said gently, putting his hand on hers, ‘are you okay? You’re awfully quite.’ 

She looked down at where his hand rested on hers and an eyebrow shot up, as if in surprise. He began to withdraw it but as he saw her lips curve into that slight smile he’d loved, he decide to let his hands be. With her other hand she put the plate away and onto the table next to the glasses of the juice, and then she moved closer to him.

When her face was just a hair breadth away from his, she whispered, ‘I’m going on an impulse here.’

The next thing he knew was the feeling of her lips against his. His body went all numb and it took him a moment to realise what was actually happening. 

***

When he didn’t respond to her kiss, she began to panic. She pulled away from him and looked at him. But I thought he felt it too, she thought to herself. 

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking down into her lap. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I guess I’m just tired from the office. I should go.’

When he didn’t say anything, she looked up at him. He had a ghost of a smile on his face. And when his eyes met hers, it turned into a full smile.

‘Sometimes everything I write

With the threadbare art if my eye

Seems a snapshot,

Lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,

Heightened from life,

Yet paralyzed by fact.’ **

And in that moment, she knew she hadn’t imagined any of it. 

** This is an extract from Robert Lowell's Epilogue