The shopping mall was nearly closing for the night and a few of its last visitors were finding their way towards the exit. They seemed pretty happy and occupied in each other’s company. He looked extremely cute that day. His burgundy t-shirt perfectly complimented his complexion. His wavy hair sat slightly messy on his head just as she always liked, and his triangular face exuded his ‘zen’ nature. It was one of those many days when she was quietly and pleasantly soaking in his absolute love and undivided attention. Oh, boy! was she not counting her blessings!
The mall looked almost deserted with very few visitors, including the two, who were climbing down the escalators. It was during one of those mundane geeky conversations as they were walking, he asked a naïve “What does that mean?” question. For some reason, she found this overwhelmingly cute. She felt a sudden strong wave of love for him gush out of her heart and reached for his cheek to plant a nice quick kiss. He got conscious and moved his face away when he saw a few visitors walking ahead. As she immediately retracted, he said with a smile, “You can kiss me at home, okay?” She smiled back, nodded, and said, “Okay” and they continued with their regular conversation.
Little did he know that her heart was caught in a tornado by the time he kissed her later that night when they were at home.
This tiny, trivial incident opened a floodgate of repressed memories which were lying in some forgotten, dusty corner of her mind: of how she felt conscious holding hands while she used to walk besides X (her ex-boyfriend) and how she had conveyed it to him in clear words and then how M had reluctantly agreed for no public display of affection on her repeated requests; she was reminded of how X once got upset when she looked around to see if there are any familiar faces so that they won’t get caught watching a movie and how X used to repeatedly ask her if she is embarrassed or ashamed of him. She stumbled upon these and several other memories which she had kept tightly folded and packed in the last 'Do not open' shelf of her past. Of how she realised that she had turned into X for her current beau. Maybe now she would stop embarrassing him.
Not that her current beau doesn’t love her enough, most likely, he loves her more than she loves him – a statement she usually denies. He, however, unintentionally showed her a mirror which relayed her past and reopened an old wound by smashing that mirror into her heart.
It definitely sounds bizarre, but in a way this incident made her understand how “flapping of a wing by a butterfly gives rise to a tornado somewhere else.”
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