A lot like love- Part 2

"Iris, where are you?? I have called like a zillion times and you haven't returned my calls. All okay? It's not fun talking to your answering machine all the time you see. It was fun when we did it for the first time but not anymore. Call me sweet heart." Click. Clint had kept the phone. The other end went silent, just like this end of the phone where I sit, staring at one of the greatest inventions of human being. Oh! Did I introduce myself? I am Iris and Clint is my boyfriend. We were in the same college. He proposed to me once but I had declined, like I have declined all the boys who came to me. But when i was leaving college, no infact when i was leaving Illinois, I said yes to him. He was moving to Ohio and so was I. It's been a year since i left Illinois. I have taken up a job here as an assistant in an advertising firm. Colors, creativity, nature they all make me go berserk. I am a mad person by the way. Noone can make out what would be my next step. But then that's what i like about life- its unpredictability. And I have the best job in the world.

And here I am sitting by my window, after having ignored the 40th call from Clint in the day. Outside i can hear the pit patting of rain drops that strike my window sill and have made me a bit wet. I love rains. My mind shifts from the smell of the wet soil to the perpetual question of my life lately...Why have i ignored calls from Clint? I don't know. But i just don't wanna pick it. Clint- cool, handsome, suave, sophisticated. He could easily be the prince charming of any girl's dream. I still remember how he proposed to me. To be honest i was a bit floored. Then what is the problem now? Strange!

The phone rings again. Ahhhh!!! not again...I hate doing this to him. But it is not him this time. It is Sam. I was up on my feet in a split second and pounced on the phone like a hungry cat. Sam had called me after a year. I had been calling him for six months after which i had stopped cause he never called me back. "Sammyyyyy!!!!!!! You dawwggg!! I missed you soooo much...When i needed my friend the most, he was not there..ugghhh!!" and then I kept talking to him for eight straight hours, he just listened. It was as if a volcano was waiting inside me to erupt. And by the time I kept my banana shaped phone down, my mind was lighter. Or was it? I know this might have made me feel good for sometime, the bigger problem is still unsolved and only I can solve it. The easiest way to solve any problem is to understand the problem completely, that's like half the job done. If we keep asking wrong questions then how will we get the right answers so one should start by asking the right question first. But when it comes to heart do we really know what is right and what is wrong. We just know what we know and no amount of rocket science can solve the problem of a thing that weighs as light as 10 ounces.

Oh! I forgot to tell you about Sam or Sammy as i fondly call him. He is my best friend, no infact he is my bestest friend. I met him for the first time in 3rd grade. He was a shy guy, sitting on the cornermost seat of the first bench. I happened to be the most talkative girl in class. So one day, this teacher got really pissed at me and made me sit on the first bench beside Sam. On the very first day, I hid his books in the closet. He had seen me doing that but didn't complain to the teacher. A week after that I was going home when few dogs ran after my bicycle. Sammy was going from the same way. That day he saved me from those wretched animals and we became best friends since then, unseparable.

We went to same college. We used to share each and everything with each other. When i used to go nuts about anything he used to bring my sanity back. When i used to find myself messed up from all directions he used to find a way out for me. I am careless partly cause of him. I did not have to care for anything when he was around. We fought innumerable times, mostly my fault, in fact always my fault, but it was Sam who used to come up and resolve things always, without fail. He taught me how to be patient, how to be forgiving, how to be me all the time. When there were people all around who were critcizing me, hating me, finding me to be arrogant and a narcississtic bitch he was the one who brought my confidence back in me and made me realize how special I am and encouraged me to be me no matter what anyone said. He's like the one person in my life who was sent to me by God. My best friend.

But wait, there is one thing and only one thing ever that I haven't even told Sam, my only secret. That underneath all this friendship, sharing, caring, there is a heart of a little girl who remembers vividly the face of a brave, undaunted and formidable figure of a 8 year old boy. That one day, when she was surrounded by those ravine dogs and her bicycle was broken and her knees were bleeding profusely, her knight in shining armor came and saved her from

those beasts. My mother used to read fairy tales to me during bedtime. At that time I had pictured scenes for my classic fairy tale that i am in distress captivated by a beast and a prince came from nowhere, kills the beast and sweeps me off the ground to the back of his horse and rides away to the moon.. It seemed my prince was standing right in front of me. I fell in love at that moment, whatever the word love could mean to an 8 year old then.

All this while several boys came upto me, said the most romantic and the cheesiest lines they could come up with but I always declined. Because I knew where my heart was. And the heart wants what the heart wants. But at times there are a few things which go on perfectly fine all the way but if it is not meant to be, it won't be, no matter how much the universe conspires. This is one of those things i guess. I could never tell Sam about how i felt, he was too precious a person to be lost. I could not imagine my life without him. I still remember when my parents got divorced when i was 15, he was the one who was there for me all the time. How can I forget those breakfasts and lunch boxes he used to bring me from his home cause he knew i hadn't eaten last night. That was the most painful time of my life second only to separating from Sam last year. I stayed with my mother who remarried and I could never look at her again in the same way I used to. We grew distant and more distant in our relationship. At that time Sam was like a father, a mother, a sibling, a friend, everything. He could don the robe of any relationship so easily. After this how could i ever accept the proposal from another guy!

College finished and feeling were getting more and more intense for Sam. I knew what i had to do then. I had to part from him for sometime if at all I wanted to maintain my relation with Sam. I made the excuse of my parents getting transferred to Ohio and of taking admission to Ohio State university and came here. My parents are in the same city but I don't live them, neither did I join the master's course. Clint was just a way to distract myself from Sam. I know I used him but I had to, to get back to my normal self. In fact i thought may be things would work out between us someday, but that some day never came, not even after a year. I still remember the day when I called Sam at 2 am in the morning. That was the last time i saw him. I had to tell him about Clint and moving to Ohio. I had a feeling that he wasn't even listening to what I was saying that day but then may be he was busy with his stuff as he was taking admissions for his MS in Illinois(that's one of the best in the country). When I had finished telling him the whole thing, he just smiled and went away without saying much, just a good bye. It hurt me then. It is hurting me now. I just wish he had said something to me then, a few words, those three words, any words. I wished he had just stopped me from going and asked me to stay..If only he had said Iris, don't go...If only....but he didn't. and I went away.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because it was he, because it was I.