I am waiting on the couch, skeptical about the process, looking at the things around, a ridiculous tall green plant kept in the corner, with wooden tiles across the room. The walls are hung with symbolic paintings and the decor is gracious and welcoming. I am not at ease yet.

I look at the table and couch on the other side with notepads and pens on the glass table with mental sickness magazines underneath. A beaming sunlight ray tries to pierce the wooden curtains, shading the hall with beautiful panoramic golden light. I look below the window rim in the flower vase, there are beautiful multicolored gerberas, carnations. They look dewy, yellow, purple, orange, and raspberry.

I am reminded of the flowers you bought me, every day, from the park shop, your evident smile as you get them wrapped in the newspaper, for me, and more than me it was you who I missed. I am in that moment of yours when you gave me the flowers and your eyes would say everything that my soul always wanted to listen to and though I am sitting here in the present, I can’t help but think about you and the past no one knows about.

It has been months and these past months have been excruciatingly painful, with the heavy heart I finally am ready to confess, to confide in someone who knows nothing about me. I look at the card in my hand. The specialist Dr. well, I don’t care reading the name, and I wait for my turn to be called in. Hundreds of dollars for a session, to delete the memories I made with you, in the past 5 years. Is it possible? I just need some pills. I will be on track. I am thinking about you, how are you getting past this heartbreak, do you believe me that I did not love you.

“Saumya Dutt!” calls a weird Alexa-like-looking device in a weird accent. I get up and get hold of the wooden door with the name Dr. S N Verma. I open the door and as I look towards the beautiful lady and before I can recognize her, she is surprised to see me again, nearly a decade later.

“Hi Saumya, How are you?” in the same old surprised tone I hear and I close the door behind me and I am taken back to my first therapy session, I had after a douche dumped me for not having sex and I wanted to drop out of school, wait there was more, more complicated guys and relationships, oh wait hold on, lets deal with this one first and as I turn, I smile and greet her cheerily.

“Hey Doc, I didn’t know it was you.” I shake hands with her trembling and I sit on the comfortable couch with the cushions, I hold one in my lap, withholding all the information I had inside me, that I wanted so desperately to come out.

“Yes it’s me, “ she says nodding her head with her hair reaching the shoulder and glasses over her nose. I look at her table on my right and I see Sunaina Nayak Verma. “Congratulations! I hope you don’t have any problem at all in your life and relationships, “ I say chuckling, but as usual, it is not a joke to her.

“How are you doing Saumya? What brings you here?” She says in her same soothing voice and I am resistant.

“Pretty shocked right now”. I say hiding the sheer disappointment in my voice. Doc looks at me, trying to comprehend my face, my fingers, and my sweaty self sitting in front of her just like the old school days Viva sessions. “Wate..r ” she says and I blurt

“I lied to someone,” I say raising my eyebrows in the nervous possible voice, and there it is, she catches me again, off guard, oh man she hasn’t forgotten anything from the last therapy I took. “Okay, How do you feel about it.” she continues

–“I feel horrible, and that I should face the circumstances and no one can save me from my own self.” I say hurriedly, without taking any gap between the words.

What did you lie about?
– about loving someone, whom I clearly didn’t love, but he was too much in love to understand that.

How did you lie about loving this person?
-I just acted as I loved him, but I didn’t.

Why did you lie about loving this person?
-Cause I was lonely, and He was a good friend, I didn’t want to lose him, plus I was lonely I needed someone.

Why do you feel bad about lying?
-Cause now things are out of hand, and I do not want to be with this person anymore.

What is it, spill?
-I now have found a person I really love, but I can’t tell this person I have lied to because he thinks I am still in love with him when I am not.

What shall we call this person?
-Abhay
So you lied to Abhay and now you feel bad about lying. Why?
– I don’t know cause he is a good friend.

You won’t have lied to him if he was a good friend, and it should not affect you if you are not in love with him.
-What. *I chuckle nervously*
Doc have you gone crazy, it is common human emotion, to feel bad about lying to someone even if you don’t love them.

Not enough to feel bad though, If he doesn’t matter to an extent that it is love, you won’t be sitting here, you would have walked down the aisle with the man you have now fallen in love with, What do we call him?
-Umm, Sharad

Well, are you sure about him, why else would you be here if not to be free of this guilt.
-No doc, I haven’t told him anything about Abhay. Yet!

What’s holding you back? Are you sure you don’t love both of them?
-What no, I love Sharad, and I used to love Abhay.

Well, you clearly have no idea, do you?
-No doc. I was going by the saying if you love two people, choose the second, wait a second, what am I paying you for, you figure it out for me,

Hell yeah, I breathe and throw the cushion away. Doc looks at me the same way when I was a college kid and I used to pitch outbursts in front of her. Well, I wasn’t satisfied with her session, though she helped me not to drop out of graduate school so early.

Tell me about Abhay, whatever comes to your mind. says Doc, looking at her watch, 18 minutes were already up. I hated this time grind of hers, whenever I was about to reach a point of self-realization or to the core of the issues, she would send me away, but I had already paid, and I wanted to make the most out of these 42 minutes.

Well where to start, right from meeting him and spending nearly 46,000 hours together and sum it all up in next 40 minutes, how do I that, and a tear rolled down from my eye, looking back at all the love I had for Abhay in my heart.

I never told anybody about our love story, it was so perfect, I feared I might lose this ideal person, and for days after being with him, it was hard to fathom that I had found someone so immaculate and that he is in love with me, because, I never thought he would fall for someone like me, and I had to pinch myself for days that yes, we are together, we are in love, and this is something I am looking forward to the rest of my life.. and as I speak, I am taken into a flashback of the years we spent together. Lost in love, in his eyes, being with him, the lovely flowers with his imprint of love on the lips, the only wish to leave everything in this world behind, and loving him like nothing matters in this entire world, and coming into his arms, after a long tiring day. Right from the moment, we woke up, to sleeping into the magic of those cold nights, showering, making out after the shower, not been able to keep our hands off each other, working out, doing everything together.

I would gleam in joy as if I would wish for nothing more, and this is it, this is what I wanted, this is more than I ever wished for, I would not trade anything in the world for whatever we had, it was beautiful. We couldn’t live without each other, I would wake up with his voice and he took so generous care of me like each second of him, his skin, his breath is touching me with love, saying I love you even when he didn’t tell me..

(Will Saumya choose Sharad or Abhay?)
TO BE CONTINUED.