Love, R

The lake had always been our favorite place and the sunset our favorite time to be there. We never talked much when we were there, we never felt the need to do so; that was the beauty of the place. However, today was different. I couldn't find the peace in the still waters of the lake throwing the reflection of the sun; I looked at him and somehow I knew that his thoughts were just as haywire as mine. I threw a pebble in the water and he waited for the ripples to settle before doing the same.
"My pebble clearly won," he says and I pass him the faintest of smiles. "Oh would you cheer up a bit!! I would be gone just for a year and also you are the one always complaining about how you would be better off without me in your life," he says to tease me but instead of cheering up I hide my face in his arms and start sobbing. "Why do you have to go to Boston? Why couldn't they set you up for an internship here? Do you promise that we'd talk everyday?" the lump in my throat grew heavier so I couldn't ask the remaining million questions.

"Jeez, Kiara. It's just 365 days, you probably won't even miss me for 364 of them so would you stop crying already?!!" he laughed. "Yeah, sure Ridge.You would talk about all the crap in the world but wouldn't promise a tiny lil thing I am asking for," I shrieked. He held up his hands in defeat and laughed while saying, "Okay fine. I promise." and before I could get a peep out of my mouth he looked into my eyes and said, "No, this isn't like one of the times when I promise that I would pick you up and forget or the time when I promise to take you out for a movie but cancel it at the very last moment." This did manage to make me smile in the teeniest bit and that managed to make him smile.

"Are you guys dating? What's so special about him?" I never had answers to these questions nor would I ever have. I never felt that it was a necessity to give our bond a label. We were totally comfortable with what we were and whatever we were not. Everything was perfect but then life happened. I am not disappointed that he chose to leave, I would've done the same; I am just upset about all the times I would have to be here watching the sun as it sets all by myself and about all the times I would sit on the swing in my backyard and he won't be there to push me as I scream "higher" and about all the times when I would be in a crappy mood and he won't be there to crack the lamest jokes one could ever crack.

The sun had set and the water was now reflecting the stars. His flight would leave in the morning and no matter how much I stomped my foot he wasn't going to take me to the airport. "You have to come to receive me after a year," he said. He won't admit but he hated goodbyes. After sharing our last hug which lasted for what seemed to be forever, we walked back to our homes and I went straight to bed; too tired to talk to anyone.

As the sun rays lit my room the next morning, it took me a moment to realize that Ridge's flight had already departed. I didn't feel like getting up, it was just too much to handle. As I was about to close my eyes again I saw a note tucked under my pillow. I unfolded it and was perplexed, for it said,
       See you at our place, our time.
                                               Love,
                                               R.
I didn't have a single clue as to how he was gonna be at two places at once but the prospect of seeing him made me get out of my bed and get dressed. I was so frustrated that it was the sun who gets to decide when we meet that I took a novel and went to the lake. My heart raced as it was about time and my eyes searched frantically for him but all I could see was a tiny girl in blue shorts running towards me. She came to me, handed me a letter and left before I could ask her anything. I am pretty sure my heart did do a somersault as it recognized the scribbled writing on the parched piece of paper. I lay down on my back and crossed my legs and read,

Dear you,
        I knew you were not gonna get out of your bed and be in your pajamas and cry till your eyes turn all red and puffy. I also know how you like reading chits and letters and mails. And I did promise that we're gonna talk every single day. Look at the sun setting and the birds returning to their nests and the still water and listen to silence. Has anything changed? I guess not. I have moved to Boston, it's not like I have abandoned you. You'll still be the first person I call every time I break up or when I want to ask what color suits me better or how does my hair look. That's never gonna change. Also, the tiny girl who gave you this letter, she's a friend of mine. She doesn't talk much but she'll be there everyday at our place, our time."

Love,
R

I couldn't believe he did that for me. I kept reading the letter again and again and again till it started to get dark. That's when I decided to go home and do something which did not involve sleeping or worrying or crying.

He had never kept a single promise till this day but he did keep the one that mattered to me the most. The lake was still my favorite place and I loved the sunset even more because that's when the tiny girl would come everyday. He did call me once a week if he wasn't too busy and we would talk about anything and everything for a while but nothing in this entire universe made me so happy as lying down on the soft grass and reading his letters.

"365 letters, one for each day," he had scribbled at the bottom of each one of them.

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Normal is too mainstream...

It's been exactly 8 years, 4 months and 15 days since my eyes locked with his and he probably doesn't remember it but I still look at him the exact same way I did then.

I don't knock before entering his room, I am one of the few people who are allowed to do that and although I've been into his room so many times, it's still a lot to take in. The walls of his rooms speak his tongue; all his thoughts and musings intricately carved on wooden frames which are put up on his walls. My eyes rest on his face which looks even more beautiful while he sleeps so peacefully and I sit down on the chair by his bedside picking up his psychiatric report. My parents and the society think that there is something wrong with my baby brother's brain which is why he has to go visit his psychologist and also his speech therapist every week. The doctors call it an anomaly, the society calls it an abnormality; I prefer to call it sheer awesomeness. I don't see what the fuss is all about though; so he doesn't know his multiplication tables and he has a bit of a trouble getting the words out - big deal!! All these weekly appointments aren't doing him any good anyway. 

After going through the report for like 5 minutes, I realized that they were still clueless so I put it back on his desk and got up to leave. However, a hand tugged on my t-shirt and I turned around to find him returning from his dreamland. "Dada," he says softly. Oh how my heart skips a beat every time he says that!! I wait patiently as he tries to say what's going on in his mind. I am the only one with whom he actually talks and sometimes it takes me a while to understand what he is trying to say but I am getting better every single day. So, it doesn't take me much time to figure out that he wants to go to the movies. "Sure, you lil bunny!! We'll go to the movies tomorrow. Make up your mind about which one you wanna see and I'll take a day off work," I winked. His eyes rest on the report I had put on his desk and seeing the confusion clouding his face makes me wanna shred the piece of paper into pieces. Instead, I plant a kiss on his forehead and whisper, "You listen to Dada very carefully and always keep this in mind; there's nothing wrong with you and anyone who thinks otherwise should come see your room and all these walls. People don't like what they don't understand so it's their problem not yours. Okay??" He tickled me in response; he does that when he's really happy and we laughed and talked till he was sleepy again.

The next morning we were all set to have a fun day together when I received a message from my office saying that they needed me to sign some papers. "It wouldn't take more than an hour I promise," I told him after I decided to take him along with me. After reaching there I showed him to the play room and pointed to all the books they had which he seemed to love. Some of the parents took their kids out after seeing him and I pretended not to be bothered by that. I gave him a peck on the cheek before leaving him but when I returned I was awestruck. He had remodeled the doll house we had put on display and the remodeling rendered every person in my office speechless. The dolls were shifted to the offices and the male figurines had been placed in the kitchen, ballet shoes were lying in the boy's room and roller skates in the girl's, the girl's room was no longer pink and the boy's room no longer blue, action figures were all over her bed and figure skaters on his . The icing on the cake was his note tucked on the front door - "Intolerant people are not very welcome."

My boss probably wouldn't be too happy to see the only thing made by his daughter ruined by an 8 year old kid but that didn't seem to matter. I was so full of joy and pride that I ran over to him, picked him up and showed him the dumbstruck faces of all those people who had been coming in to see what the fuss was about. I spoke in a low voice so only he could hear, "You see, this is what I have been meaning to tell you. The way your mind moves in a direction always against the flow is beyond their understanding and so they call your awesomeness an abnormality. I, on the other hand, believe that being normal is too mainstream, so you seem perfectly fine to me." 

I held up my hand and waited for him to give me a hi-fi and then off we went and when he smiled his lil bunny smile, I could feel nothing but glad for the way he was - different.

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