She looked
at him intently all the while when he was sharing his deepest insecurities with
her. He went on and on about how much he wanted to be all by himself without
any baggage of expectations on his head. He was tired; tired of knowing everything
but not knowing himself. He was done with taking those calculated moves at
every stage of his life. I guess he wanted to be carefree this time but he was
too careful to be careless. He was scared to lose and so scared to even try to
keep what is his. He wanted to break free a little just like the old times but
he just couldn’t. He was chained; chained with people, their thoughts, their
ideologies, their expectations, their hope. The man who loved freedom was so
bounded that all the ideas in his mind to live life in his way automatically
chalked themselves out. He didn’t want anyone and anything but himself.
His powerful
exterior was feeling vulnerable and his soul seemed to be naked in front of
her. Things got that bad that it wasn’t even easy to fake it this time. After
all, one of the most ambitious men of her life was suddenly aimless, under
confident and lost somewhere in his own world where every now and then he gets
a reality check. Maybe that’s why he was fond of ‘escapism’. His hobbies included
escaping to a dream world where he is the superhero setting things right for
everyone. Well, who would ever want to come out from that dream and be
realistic?
She never
really understood him. Since, the day she met him, she is unfolding a new
person every day. She doesn’t really know white charmed him more or black
because BOOM! He always had a thing for grey. He was unexpected; a big time
mystery. That mystery which she tries to solve but fails miserably every time.
She tries new methods but every single time; she finds herself with some new
person. Learning from his always accurate kind of deductions, she also deduced
one thing and it’s for sure that his knight in shining armor likes to keep his
mask on even to his closed ones because he is afraid to open up. He is scared
of sharing emotions; dwelling deep because he thinks that it gives other person
the power to see through him when he is unguarded and this can reveal his
strengths and weaknesses.
When did he
become like this? He admits that he was not the same person earlier. The
circumstances have changed him drastically. Sitting there and looking at him
intently only made her want to bring back the old free version of his new
chained man. She desperately wanted him to relive the beauty of his past. She
wanted to bring back those who left him because only with them he was the
happiest. She knows that he will always counter that his present is better than
any phase of his past but his eyes always scream that a part of him is left
back there. His smile and blush shout that he wants to stay there fixing
everything he did wrong. What made her happy was the fact that if he couldn’t
go back; he had included that beautiful portion of his past in his present life.
That’s alive. That’s what completes him. Sitting there and looking at him
intently, she whispered, “It’s INSIDE YOU”.
