Almost

We were a bunch of almosts and we had almost dated. One fine evening you called me and said let’s go and before I say anything, we are here. Your left hand resting on the mahogany table and right hand giving beat to the song, you’re humming. You asked me if I’d like to order something else. Now, I am dawdling over menu, stealing little glances at that chiselled jaw and the trail of that stubble running down your chin.

Maybe I am wondering if you’d drive me back home, holding my hands, and whispering you don’t want to let go. But I forgot, it’s an almost date and you’ve agreed to DBC and a butterscotch ice cream and we are sitting opposite to each other with your eyes fixated on your phone screen and you seem to be really enjoying the ice cream.

We were a bunch of almosts and we were almost lovers. The night you told me you have a crush on someone at 3am, my heart skipped a bit. And now my fingers are fluttering across the keyboard, not to lose a breath away from our flirting sequels. You told me, lying blatantly, how the very idea of being with each other scares us because we think it’d never workout.

Other side I am silently screaming that it would! (it would work out, why wouldn’t you give it a try dammit!) But I forget again, we are almost lovers, and so every five minutes or so, I break the flow and ask you about the boy you were talking about the other day, and you tease me about the girl who was trying to start a conversation with me in the basketball court. And somewhere in the midst of this, I think I forget to tell you that I kind of like you, and you forget to tell me that too.

We were a bunch of almosts and we were almost happy. Every damn time we entered a restaurant, you clicked pictures of us to update on our status messages just to revel in the delusional conviction that somebody must’ve read it and is happy for us, perhaps to convince ourselves that we are doing something that’d make us happy.

Nobody would ever know the empty nights that follow once the group is spent talking about the latest hangout. AH Shit! I forget it again that we were almost happy, for those few hours atleast, pulling out our phones and clicking fifty off pictures. Forty of which will go straight into the recycle bin because they couldn’t be properly cropped for being display pictures.

We were a bunch of almosts as I think our lives could’ve been pretty much summed up in those almost steps we took towards a puddle, only to retreat, because who does it anyway? I think our lives could’ve been pretty much summed up in the terribly awkward guffaws that were followed by a string of apologies, because who even laughs that way?

We were a bunch of almosts and we were beautiful, because who even wants the entire thing anyway?