The Art Of Loving: That First Time Or That Single Side

 

That last moment of imagination:

Still riding. Still romanticising. Still rewriting scenes in my head…

But stop! stop! Let's take a halt….

 

🎬 Scene V: The Garage Silence – When the Ride Ends, But Thoughts Don’t

Parked my beauty, my Royal Enfield, in the garage, engine off, but the heart still rumbling with echoes.
The ride had ended, but the scenes? They were still rolling.
I sat there on the seat for a moment longer. A pack with few in it….
Still smelling the wind.
Still holding onto her,
Even though she was never really there.

This wasn’t love in its traditional sense.
It wasn’t a relationship.
There were no texts, no memories, no first fights, no anniversaries.
But god, the feelings? They were cinematic. They were mine.

 

💭 Scene VI: That First Time (That Never Happened)

You know that cliché?
"Love at first sight." That the fault in our star-like experience…
Yeah… I never believed in it until my mind invented it.

It wasn’t the day we met.
It was the day I imagined us meeting.
At the University, I was attending the lecture, she was there
All fiction, but emotionally truer than most of my truths.

I imagined her smile before I ever saw it.
I imagined her voice, her sarcasm, her playlist.
I even imagined her favourite tea order, elaichi chai, that she really loved
We sat across from each other, but with the obstacle of reality
But I built a world where we did, often.

 

💔 Scene VII: That Single Side — The Solo Script

Unrequited? Maybe.
But more than that, it was unsaid, unseen, untouched.

We romanticize beginnings.
But sometimes, the purest form of love is the one that never begins.

Something that never ends..
The one that just stays
Something inside your head,
Something perfect,
Something unspoiled,
Something that has never tested by reality’s noise.

You see, I didn’t fall in love with her.
I fell in love with how I felt around the idea of her, “The Thought of having her.”

 

🎧 Scene VIII: Love in Lo-fi

It’s not heartbreak.
It’s heart quiet.

The kind of silence where your mind plays lo-fi tracks on loop. How can you misplace Arijit in this, his sad song, lo-fi’s?
And every lyric fits her.
Even though she’s never heard them.
You look out of windows, walk through crowds,
And she’s there,
not physically, but deeply, profoundly present in every vacant space your heart offers.

 

🪞 Scene IX: Was She Real?

I don’t know.
Maybe she was someone I passed once.
Or someone I’ll meet ten years later.
Or maybe… that not to reveal
She was just a fragment,
of what I wished to feel,
of who I wished to be with,
of the version of me that only exists when I’m loving silently.

 

🎬 Scene X: She Touched My Back — And Everything Froze

I met her.
Not in my head.
Not in some Parisian bookstore or a Himachali sunset.
This time, in the real world.

I was standing at the café counter, waiting for chai, headphones in, zoning out (as usual, as always).
Then,
A light touch on my back.
Fingertips that carried electricity, or maybe just caffeine.
I turned around.

And there she was.
Not imagined.
Not dreamy.
Just there
messy hair, awkward smile, a bit lost, shy, just like me.

She said, “Hi…”

I laughed. Nervously.
“Uh… hi?”
Then silence.
That very Bollywood kind of silence where both people don’t know what to say,
but everything’s screaming inside.

She spoke about the classes and me...
I replied and asked the same.
She pointed out my appearance, not the look but the presence…
I mentioned the same

It was shy
It was a bit awkward.
It was… perfectly imperfect. And she was… perfectly perfect.

And as she picked up her cup, turning to leave,
I don’t know what made me say it,
Maybe the hundreds of mental rehearsals.
Maybe the universe, finally letting me unscript the script.

I said it.
Plain. Quiet. Honest.

“I think… I’ve loved you for a long time. Just… didn’t know you were real.”

She paused.
Smiled.
Sipped.
And whispered back:

“Let’s start with chai. The love can wait.”

And just like that, the dream wasn’t over,
It had just stepped out of my head,
and walked beside me.

 

☕ Final Thought: I Loved. Alone. And That Was Enough.

Love doesn’t need reciprocation to be real, it exist in our inner self.
It needs depth.
It needs surrender.
And imagination?
It offers both in abundance.

So, if you ask me:
Was it love?
Yes.
A one-sided, unreal, unreturned, unforgettable kind of love.
The kind that exists without ever being confessed.
The kind that doesn’t break you, but becomes a beautiful weight you carry quietly.

 

🎤 Epilogue (again, because every love story deserves a second ending):

I switched off the lights in the garage.
Locked the gate.
But the ride,
The one in my head,
With her behind me,
Hair dancing in the wind,
Eyes closed, heart open —
That ride?
It still continues.

- Raj Patel Signing off!!

Still writing. Still feeling. Still in love - with the thought, the maybe, the moment.💔