Sitting near the big glass window in a cofee shop Zonia was looking at the mountains and greenery out side but her mind was not there. She was lost in the lanes of memories.
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The scenes were as fresh in her memory as if they happened a few minutes ago.
Ten years ago when she visited this coffee shop she was stressed and tired. She was in dilemma about the most important decision of her life. She was having a battle with her brain and heart.
She was posted to a near by city for her office work. It was the city she spent her childhood and teenage years. It was this city where she attended her secondary school. The time that matters for her a lot. Her family moved on to another city after that period and she had to leave everything she was having there, but some memories never fade. She was also having such memories that never faded and those memories were about a person whom she had no relationship except a formal student teacher relation.
A new teacher, Adeel, came to her school when she was in grade 9. He was handsome, polite and young with a charismatic personality. Zonia was in early teens of her life when the hormones are very active in playing their roles in creating emotions and fantasies. With a deligent young man like Adeel anyone could be impressed, and Zonia was one of them. She had always been an intelligent and well-mannered student, and thus was in good books of many other teachers. She had no difficulty in making her reputable position in Adeel's eyes.
Because of being the monitor of her class, she had the access to staff room where she had the opportunity to have some conversation with her teachers. Those few instance when she had conversation with Adeel were still fresh like the day one. The conversations of a few minutes meant her the life. The topics of these conversation were never he or she. Either it was about a book, a tip to increase vocabulary, the quote of some author or something like that.
And that was it.....
It was the state of her relationship with Adeel, but she was holding some special feelings for him that she never tried to express or portray via her words or actions. She had a strong feeling of such acts being morally wrong. But our heart is never in our control. We can control our actions but not the feelings. The same case was with her. Her feelings were developing over time. She kept those feelings as the treasure secret to her. She never told about anything to anyone. It was not the right time either. A young girl of 14 years with a strong sense of self-respect and morality had no way but to keep things to her.
Then there came the time when Adeel left the school for further studies. All she could do was to give him a best wishes card and take an autograph from him. That was her whole story. No expressions, no promises.
Her feelings for him should have faded with time like the infatuation experiences of this period of life, but they didn't. Her feelings evolved over time. She never felt any thing for anyone else as she felt for him. She always prayed for his well-being and also for being with him. She had also moved to another city with her family and could never see him again, but she often dreamed meeting him again.
Time passed on. She became a software engineer. After some months of her job, she got a chance to post to another branch of her office in the same city she spent initial years of her life. She accepted it with a hope that she would find her love there. She had been there for the last two years but she couldn't see him anywhere. She was still ready to wait but her parents wanted her to get marry now. After the heart attack to her father, he became more worried about her and she understood his stance quite well. Till then, she had been telling her parents that she didn't want to marry until she builds up her career. They gave her the freedom to do whatever she wanted but now she didn't have this excuse either. She had made her way to her dream career. She understood the worries of her parents for a daughter of 28, and when they were receiving suitable proposals for her, they didn't want to delay any more. They had asked her about her choice if she had anyone in her mind, they would give her choice the priority. If not, then it was the time for her to accept the one they chose for her.
She didn't know what she had to do. Her father wanted to see her sooner than later and so on the weekend she was going back to her city via highway when it suddenly started raining heavily. Her head was aching due to sleepless nights she spent on her last project. She wanted to reach home as soon as possible. This sudden rain irritated her. She stopped her car at the nearest coffee shop along side of the highway. While waiting for the rain to stop, she ordered a cup of coffee to help her with the headache.
Taking the sips of coffee, she was continuously thinking about what she would be doing about her marriage decision. "You have been living in a
Mirage. It is an untold one-sided love that is never going to reach its destination. Whom are you waiting for! For the one who knows nothing about your feelings. He would have been living a happy married life with someone he loves," her brain told her heart. This time, she felt her heart to be surrendered.
She finished her coffee and waited for the rain to stop. After a few minutes, when the rain became lighter, she stood up to leave the shop. She was coming down from the stairs when her foot placed wrongly on a stair. She lost her balance and was about to fall to the ground when she saw an arm coming to save her from falling.
"Be careful, ma'am," she heard the voice of her saviour. As soon as she heard this voice, she forgot about everything but the voice grabbed all her attention. It was the voice she had been searching for long. She moved her head up to look towards the face where the voice was coming from. She was not wrong in recognizing the voice. It was her love, Adeel.
"Where are you lost?" Somebody waved his hand in front of her eyes to bring her back to the present. She looked towards him and smiled.
"I love this place so much, you know," she said.
"Who knows more than me?" He responded with a meaningful smile on his face. "After all, it was here I found the one who had enslaved me with her honey-brown eyes at the very first sight."
He bent forward towards the table and held her hands with love.
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"And that is why we always come to this coffee shop to celebrate our wedding anniversary." He continued, "You know, zoni, I still see the same innocence and beauty in you as I saw in zonia of 14 years."
Her smile became deeper. She laughed whole-heartedly. Meanwhile, the waiter served them the cups of coffee with her favorite dark chocolate cake.
"What if it didn't rain that day and I wouldn't stop here.....?" She asked him with a mischievous smile.
"Aaaaaaaah!" Leaning his back on the chair he replied in a pitiful tone, "I wouldn't have to eat this bitter chocolate cake with you. Tsk tsk, poor me..."
She looked at him with an artificial anger in her eyes but then she laughed at once. She knew he didn't like the black chocolate at all but he never refused to eat it whenever she offered a bite with her hands.
Both of them picked up their cups of coffee to celebrate 10th anniversary of their wedding.
"Sometimes the unwanted brings us the most wanted,"
Looking at the rain through the glass window she had thought while taking the first sip from her cup.
This is my entry for the coffee contest organized by @galenkp . If you want to participate here is the link to the contest post.