THE STARE

It was practically impossible for us not to steal a glance at each other, ’twas just impossible.

I broke it. I broke the relationship. I broke her heart.

“Let’s cut ties”, I said.
“What do you mean?” she replied.

Before we parted ways, she told me she had already seen it coming, that my attitude toward her had gradually, unbecomingly become ‘unfathomable’. Yes, unfathomable was the word she used. I said to myself that that was too big a word to use to describe how boring I sounded on the phone when she called, how I stopped making jokes while I walked her towards the school gate, how my chats on WhatsApp turned mind-numbing, how I became too sensitive that her fleeting banter would unassumingly start a quarrel. All these she called unfathomable. I had my mind already made up, and she too said nothing more. I told her that we should begin to see each other as total strangers, if not strange enemies. Her complacency had hitherto been a thing I, too, could not fathom; I could not puzzle out her anxiety at the moment, as in the past. We ended it.

After then, we crossed paths a million times. We could not hold ourselves from looking at each other even for the slightest glimpse. Sometimes, our eyes met but we did not want to see each other the way it used to be. We had let go but did not actually let go.

*Fiction