Free Keeping the Promises by Dhruv Gajjar Page A

the chance to make it tighter, which is exactly what she did. Then he took her in his arms and they embraced each other, still able to hear each other’s heartbeats, still making each other’s clothes wet with tears, still having no intentions to leave each other, ever. That was the embrace of love, the embrace of faith, moreover the embrace of myriad affection. It was still dark; the sun was yet to rise in order to congratulate them. They returned to Dhruv and M, and sat quietly beside them, their mingled hands were enough to let them know what happened and there was no way on earth they could refrain themselves from seeing their heavenly hug.
    “Congratulations buddies! I don’t know if you are aware that I’m the happiest person around. Being a part of this by constantly teasing you and pestering you two was itself like an excursion,” Dhruv said. Then M followed. She was a part of them now. The three musketeers were turned into fantastic four.
    They saw the sun rise holding hands. They saw the darkness fading away and replacing it with light. Slowly…indicating that slowprocesses are more blissful and they had to let their relationship grow slowly, gradually to make it everlasting. With that sunlight, Ansh and Angie saw a dream of growing old together. That was the purpose of Ansh’s life – to stand beside his girl, to make her life as special as fairytales, to grow old with her and then perish with dignity and love. They looked at the water, which was as beautiful, as romantic as it has been. Romance was in the air and completely ignorant of his best friend and newly became friend, an idea struck Ansh’s mind – to kiss Angie. This was their moment.
    ‘
There would never be any better moment than this for our first kiss, ’
he thought.
    He turned towards her and held her cheeks with his hands, just as she wanted. He was just about to touch her soft pink lips with his, when she learned his intentions and gifted a tight slap on his left cheek.
    “Ouch…that was ironic Angie!” Ansh almost screamed.
    “Don’t even think about that Anshu! First kiss is always earned, never borrowed,” she said and winked.
    “You could’ve said it without slapping me, my love!” Ansh chuckled.
    Dhruv and M guffawed on seeing this. It was already seven when they stood up to leave. There was silence on their return journey. This time, Ansh was sitting on the backseat with his girl, with her hand on his. Romantic songs kept amusing them until they fell asleep on each other’s shoulder.
    When they woke up, they had already reached the campus. Angie stepped out, but not before Ansh gave a gentle kiss on her head, the kiss of faith.
    “Do you want to regret that you didn’t ask for my number, or are you willing to live without that?” M chuckled, and smiled at Dhruv. Dhruv had always been a little egoistic when it came to asking forcontact details, whether from a boy or a girl. Nevertheless, he gave her his mobile, so that she could save her number on that. She did it and stepped out, happy and charming.
    I finished and looked up only to see tears dancing on Angie and Ansh’s eyelids – waiting to express their way out.
    “I need to go to the washroom!” Ansh said and ran out.
    “I need to get some water,” Angie too raced out before we could tell her that the water bottle was placed just beside her.
    “Seems like I missed a chaos, M!” I said.
    “Hmm, a lot happened in your absence,” she said.
    “Like?”
    “Against her father’s will, Angie said yes to marry a ‘jain’ guy of her Badepapa’s choice.”
    “What? I cannot believe this…how could she?”
    “She didn’t have any other choice, Mithu! We cannot blame her; she cannot let her father leave his house. I’m not saying what she is doing is perfectly correct, but right now the love for her father is above everything else in this world.”
    I was speechless. I knew how much Angie loved her father. Although I believed that the situation would