The old house had many stories. The meadows at the back, stretched over an almost never ending land were my biggest nightmare. A lot of people found it pretty. The golden sunrise kissed it orange and moon sprinkled silver. To me it was a mysterious grave, above the land with bears moving inside and all I could see was some moving stems. The wind made it worse. My childhood had left a scar on my tender heart that could not heal this mystery. Rachelle turned around and asked "will you take me there?" Pointing her finger towards the old tree, through the dense meadows, about a mile and a half from the terrace of the old house, where we were standing now under inquisitive stars. My nightmare was about to come true. "Yeah, tomorrow" I said in a very unconvincing tone. "No, now!" She stumbled me off my ground.
I never said no to her. We made our way through dense meadows, treading carefully on a slim mud path. "Dad never allowed us to come here" I told her. "Your dad was a good man" she looked behind, smiling at me with her curly locks covering half of her face. "What makes you say so?" With this, a very trivial piece of information. "Meadows are dense, scary and like a maze. Just like the big bad world outside. You may keep walking but you never know where. Then you lose your path and succumb yourself to the life of meadows. He knew that it will kill your innocence so he held you. We are a lot about our childhood James." The moonlight showed in her moist eyes. We kept walking. She led the journey.
A bit of my fear had left me already. I was feeling released. "It's still quite far and the night has just begun. You surely want to go today?" My concerned heart couldn't stop asking her this stupid question. When you love someone more than your life you always end up asking such stupid, overtly caring questions, like you own their life. But then that's how it is. She chuckled and turned back " give me your hand" she held my hand, turned around and kept moving ahead, backwards "now that we have set out for this journey there is no stopping. We will halt only near the old tree. I want to sit there and relax. At peace. We can sleep there tonight." Her feet pumped in the air like a little girl going for her birthday party. "Okay. Yeah it's quite peaceful there. Absolutely silent. My grandma use to..." She turned back and interrupted "silence is not peace. It was silent at the terrace but not peaceful. It's silent here but I don't find peace here. Back at home it's really silent. It is so silent there that I am always living with an internal noise. There are millions of Rachelles living inside me that talk to eachother. I crave for a moment of peace but I fail. I fail miserably. That is why I came here, to you. You will find me peace I knew. Will you, James?"
I never said no to her.
We were more than halfway done. The meadows had grew taller than us. We were almost walking to a black hole. All I could see was her moving ahead of me, fearlessly, in her lovely floral skirt and white tunic top that I had gifted to her many years back. "You look lovely in this dress, always" I just said it. I think tonight was the night to say it. Say everything.
"Thank you. How can I not? After all you spent all your savings during college for this lovely dress. I adored it then and so do now" as she held a side of her skirt with her slender fingers, making a lovely pose. "Well you would have bought so many new ones now. You're pretty rich and all that. Rich people can afford designer stuff. This ones just a cheap fabric." I always felt smaller than her. Say I never matched her. In the way she looked, spoke, carried herself and her fat bank accounts. " I could have worn the most expensive dress of mine today. I would have still looked great. Would I have looked happy in it? May be not. Dresses don't buy you happiness. Just like cars or tickets to greatest ever broadway. We find our happiness in emotions. You bought this dress out of emotions for me. James when I see this dress in my wardrobe a whole set of life stories unravel in front of me. I hold this dress in my arms, on my lap, with very soft hands and sit for hours with our memories" she kept moving ahead walking backwards, with her hands on her heart. We were now closer to our destination. Very far from our destiny. "We are almost there, I guess" my fear had eloped on the way. I was feeling lighter. Like a bird. A large lump had drained out of me. I was happy. "Thank you James. Like always you have given me what I held inside my heart. I don't know how you get to know me." She clutched my fist with such firmness that I could sense the warmth inside her heart, her whirlwind of emotions inside her. She was gasping with happiness inside. And it was transmitting to me. We had become one at this point. I picked up a bunch of lovely white flowers from the dark and mystique maze of meadows. "Rachelle you love these flowers. Don't you?" I knew she does. Yet I checked with her to know what she says "what do you think James?" Every time she said something like this with her tilted face jeweled with a childlike smile, I knew it is that ultimate moment of joy for her. "Take these, for you, with love, James" we laughed out loud. My voice echoed. It was when she left town I ran after her bus, breathless with white flowers in my hand, hoping that if she will see me, with them she might stop. Stop for a while and stop forever. The bus never stopped and I couldn't give her, that bunch of white flowers that she loved. "Give it to me when we reach the old tree" her excited voice and sprinting legs were reaching faster than time could.
We made it to the tree. It had a large platform around. The meadows were smiling at us. I had beaten the big, bad world to reach here. Like always I needed Rachelle to do something like this. For the time she wasn't around I lived a timid, surrendered life. She was sitting next to me. And it was the best feeling in the whole world. She looked around and asked me where I was. I said with you. And then looked in her eyes and asked her something that I couldn't have asked her at the terrace "Rachelle, why we never met?" I just felt time had stopped here. I could never tell her my love. That doesn't mean she didn't know. But this love never found its abode. "What would you call as meeting? That we would have exchanged rings and lived under one roof. You drove me to market and I bought groceries. And we may have made kids. And the we would have grown old together. We may have never been able to do that. But we did meet. I met you with your love with those lovely things that you did for me. That you could understand me like nobody else did. That I found my happiness with you. So did you. We met every time you felt life, I felt it. Story books have a definite ending. Mostly perfect ones. Love is imperfect James. So are its stories. We don't write them. We live them. So they happen. Every time we loved it well, we met. We met as we walked through the meadows. You lived in me when I was away. I did in you. We will continue to." She said it. Her eyes looked right through me. Her hand on mine. I had an extremely hazy view of hers now. I could have loved her more. May be I can now.
The first rays of sun struck the gorgeous white flowers in my hand. My eyes were still moist. I looked around. Rachelle was gone. I left her favorite flowers at the tree. She had answered what I could never answer to myself. I had crossed the meadows that I dreaded to cross by myself.
