Don't Ever Say Goodbye

It was a hot winter morning. Sana stood on the balcony, sipping her cup of tea. She’d been getting nightmares lately, dreams she could not even begin to understand. It was the same vision night after night.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine, baby.” Ishaan purred in her ear, handling the steering wheel a little too fast.
 
She was scared. “Just concentrate on the road, Ish. I’m late. And you’re drunk.” She said anxiously.

“Which doesn’t help.”

He almost laughed. “You’re fine. As long as we’re together, nothing’s going to happen.”

Her heart skipped a beat. What could you say to that?

“I love you.” She simply said.

He stared at her for what seemed like forever. He shifted his eyes from the road and simply looked at her, drinking her in. “I love you.”

There was a loud sound every time and then complete darkness. She’d wake up every night with sweat on her face.
 
It had been more than a year since Ishaan had left her life. From everything to nothing. No calls, no texts, nothing. He just disappeared. And the worst part was, they had it all. They were amazing together. What he did to her, no one else could. And once he left, he left a hole in her heart. She tried dating again, but somehow nothing ever worked out. Nobody was ever good enough. She just wanted him. But she didn’t know where he was. He left without saying goodbye. That’s what hurt the most. More than all the questions in her mind. She kept wondering, ‘Was I that easy to give up?’

Ishaan and Sana had a complicated story of their own. He was the popular jock, she was the debating girl.

And yet they saw in each other, what no one else ever did. He saw her as someone who wasn’t afraid of taking risks, someone who didn’t simply want to accept things as they were, and someone who wanted to leave a little bit of herself in the world. She saw him as someone who was misunderstood, someone with issues, someone damaged who could be saved. And for that, they loved each other.

She would always be hard on herself. She’d always think that she was unworthy of happiness. While all her friends were in relationships, she had accepted the fact that she wasn’t meant for love. But then Ishaan came into her life.

 It wasn’t love at first sight. Actually, it was anything but that. She was asked to write an article on the football match for the team he was captaining. She didn’t like him at first glance. I mean sure, he was good looking, but a guy’s got to be more than that, right? He was cocky, rude and a little too full of himself. It was only later that she realised that that was just pretence.

 He wasn’t cocky; he was just proud. He wasn’t rude; he just wasn’t much of a talker, and he wasn’t too full of himself; he was just awkward during conversations. They never wanted to display their love in public. They thought that would cheapen their love. In fact, love wasn’t the right word. It was too little, too casual and too insufficient to capture what they shared. What they had was way more than that. They discovered so much about each other that sometimes they’d just forget about everything else. When they were together, everything else ceased to matter. She was his. He was hers. And deep inside, they both knew they’d last forever.

It was last New Year’s when it had happened. She had a deadline to reach home and she was already late. She was pulling Ishaan to take her home, but he was already drunk.

He had not shifted his gaze from the road for one minute, when a truck hit their car and changed their lives forever.

Yes. Her worst nightmare occurred one and a half years back, and yet Sana lives the same day on repeat, again and again.