"Hey, listen, Sarah just broke up with her girlfriend and she wouldn't stop crying, she is going to be staying with me for the night, let me spend some time with her now. Also, isn't it too late for you there? I will talk to you tomorrow, okay?", she said, as he stared at her face on the video call.
'She is so beautiful', Aarush thought, smiling at her face on the phone screen.
It was one of the very few times they had connected on video calls in the last one year that they have been close friends.
"Oh, I'm sorry, yes, please take care of her, and hey you did tell me that you wanted to talk to me about something?", he asked.
"Oh, yeah, hmm, may be tomorrow?"
"Sure, good night, Shruti", he said, as they hung up.
He woke up to the noise of his neighbour's lawn mower.
"Aargh", he moaned as he reached out to his mobile phone to check the time.
"9.32! Damn, I am late!", he exclaimed in whisper.
The big day was here. He had been planning this day for over two months now.
He quickly scrolled through the notifications on his mobile as he checked for messages from her.
Nope, none. Ofcourse, it was only 5am for her, he thought.
"Hey, everything ok?", he messaged her.
He spent the day cleaning his apartment, carefully wrapping the gifts, watched a few episodes of Sienfield as he finished packing his bags and got ready to leave for his flight.
The idea of surprising Shruti in Germany scared him as much as it excited him.
On his way to the airport, he was scrolling through instagram messages and reading some old conversations he had with Shruti.
He was so much in love with her, and of course she had no idea.
Ping.
"Hey Aarush. It has been a long day, but everything is okay. Whats up with you?", her message read.
"Nothing much", he replied, smiling but keeping it casual as he quickly moved through the queue at the arline counter to check-in.
"..but just dreaming about the future may be :)", he typed.
He put on his earphones and scrolled through Spotify for a song to suit his mood, as he waited to board the flight.
Aarush realized he wasn't even hungry, he just had butterflies in his stomach.
He has never done something like this before.
He almost felt like a hero from steretypical indian romantic movies.
"How far in the future? ;)", she replied.
Aarush sat in his seat, and tucked his little backpack under the seat. He was just a few hours (twelve to be precise) away from her and he had many little anxiety pangs as he thought about this.
"I don't know, but may be just far enough to see me happy with someone", he replied, immediately feeling flushed and stupid.
'What if she didn't have feelings for me? What if she was not ready to take this friendship any farther? What if she feels I have made this awkward for us to be good friends?", he thought, as his heartbeat grew louder.
A message from her.
"Wow, that would be someone lucky for sure", she said.
Aarush clutched his heart as he typed this with almost-freezing fingers "Haha, don't live in la-la land. You don't know me offline. I am a very difficult person, you haven't even met me ever".
"Of course, I haven't met you. But fortunately we have enough mutual friends for me to know you are not a robot or a fake account, LOL"
"You would never know, I could still be a smart bot who is a CAPTCHA expert may be", he said.
"Haha, also the fact that I have been talking to you every single day for a year now, and you have been so kind to me, you have always been there to comfort me whenever I felt vulnerable and needed someone", she said.
She was still typing something.
Typing...
Nothing.
Typing...
He stared at the chat screen for the next two minutes until the flight took off and the mobile network wasn't available anymore.
He sighed, put his mobile phone inside his bag and rested his head backwards, putting his hand on his chest and heaving a huge sighing breath as he watched the well lit Delhi city from thousands of miles above.
'When I wake up, I would be in the other side of the world, and the closest I have ever been to Shruti', he thought.
As soon as he got to the conveyor belt at the Berlin airport to pick up his rucksack, he connected to the WiFi to check Shruti's msgs, it had indeed been a long wait.
A hundred notifications from all the social media apps and his mobile almost hung up on vibrating incessantly.
As he sat in the taxi, he opened her message.
"Hey. There is something in my head that I need to tell you, it would be unfair if I didn't let you know this is running in my head. As much as I love the relationship we share, in the world inside my head, it's different. A parallel world, may be. It's a happier place. A world where we wake up next to each other every morning, spend the day smiling and thinking about the kisses, cook together and gossip like high school girls, work out together as our dogs watch us, travel places and while I meet new people in the beaches and make friends, I see you lying down by the sea reading a book and listening to music from the 80's, and we experience life together as we grow old as best friends.
This seems like a perfect picture to me and I don't want to ruin this picture in my head with reality. I know I am jeopardizing our friendship and making things awkward, but I think if I don't tell this to you now, I may never. But I think I am in love with you"
WOW, he thought. His heart now pounded much harder. And louder.
'Well, I thought I was going to surpirse her, but this just put me on the sky', he thought as he smiled so wide with a tear in his eye.
He read and re-read the message a few times, until he believed what he thought was unbelievable.
There were also a few messages from her after that.
"Aarush, I am sorry if this kinda ruined things for us"
"Aarush, is everything okay? Your number has been unreachable since evening"
He clutched his mobile harder as he typed, "Thank you for sharing this with me. I think the picture in your thoughts is very sweet. Beyond words. I know that so far we have lived in a real world, away from this parallel world of yours. But what if both the worlds could meet?"
He read this message about ten times to make sure he phrased every word right.
Two long minutes.
"Omg, Aarush! Are you serious? I mean, am I getting this right? Am I misunderstanding this!! :) :)".
He read the message as he got out of the taxi and walked to her door.
Aarush rang the door bell and waited for the longest 20 seconds in his life ever.
She opened the door.
"Oh my God! AARUSH!! How????" She flung her arms around him and hugged and cried in joy.
"I don't know what to say", she sobbed between smiles, "Did you come all the way here for me?"
He pat her head lightly as she cling to his chests still hugging him.
"Ofcourse. It has been a few months since I realized you are the one"
"Okay, this is another instagram love story, then. Well, I'm not complaining", she giggled, wiping the tears that fell on her cheek.
They stood there hugging, like time had frozen.
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