Love: Just a Swipe Away

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven.

Till a year back I had thought that meeting a stranger, whom you had befriended online was the most risky thing I had ever done, little did I know that the stranger would one day change my perspective towards life and risks.

This one stranger who moved my heart in a matter of minutes, who went on to become the man I craved for from being just a stranger in a matter of days and the one who made me go crazy even when I knew he wasn’t worth it. After having become friends on a dating app in the world where hooking up and falling in love at the hit of a button on the phone screen is considered the only option fit for youngsters, we finally decided to meet. We had chosen afternoon as the time and a cafe bustling with people, I was petrified, this being the first time I was meeting someone through an app.

'Hey Rhea,' he said with a huge smile after finding me standing near the entrance.

'Hi Danny. How are you?' I replied.

'I am fine. How about you?'

'I am doing well, thanks.'

'Let’s go in,' he said extending his left arm signalling me to lead the way. In those few seconds he and his twinkling eyes had shooed away all my fear.  His face gave a look so genuine I had hardly seen something like that in the people I met daily at my workplace.

'Please,' he gestured for me to have a seat, pulling the chair out. I almost said wow but stopped myself somehow. I looked at him for a few good seconds till managed to come out of the stupor the chivalry had just caused.

'Thanks.' I muttered.

'You are welcome,' he replied in the most melodious voice, I had ever heard.

'Is he even real?' I pinched myself.

'You seem somewhere else. Are you fine?' He asked

'Oh yes, I get distracted sometimes.'

'Not an issue. I will try to hold your attention.'

For the next few hours as I finally let go of my inhibitions of meeting an unknown entity and realized that it felt a lot different to meet someone who can talk his heart out to you. He not only held my attention, he made me listen, made me speak a lot more than I ever did with any guy and most importantly he made me laugh, cracking jokes at himself. It was his first time as well meeting someone through a dating app and he had been nervous as hell. We discussed about our professional lives and the monotonous lifestyles, while laughing it out about our love lives. It did not exist for both of us. In those few hours of talking I felt that we fit in perfectly like a puzzle.

'If you are free the next weekend, we could hang out. What do you think?'

'I will have to think about it. I don’t think we should rush,' I replied. It wasn't love at first sight but I wanted this to be a whirlwind romance with a fairy tale ending. I was interested but didn’t want to show it to him. Who doesn't like making a man chasing you?

'Sure, let me walk you back to the metro.'

'Thanks. You are really sweet.' I smiled. It had been an evening of smiles for me. Had I found the man I always dream of? I wondered.

We spoke on phone every day for the whole week. I got to know that he had fought all odds at his home to struggle and make a life for himself in Delhi. He had fought with his parents who wanted him to handle the family business while he wanted to help people and make a name for himself. He had done his MBA from a good college and was working in the hospitality segment in a firm. I felt he was totally like me, fighting against the odds, struggling in the life, lonely yet full of dreams. We met many times in the next one month and fell for each other. His charming ways swept me off my feet. I did not see it coming but his words and the way he looked at me hit me somewhere in the corner of the heart. I knew I was vulnerable but I let out my deepest secrets to him and he did the same.

After almost two months of knowing and hanging out with him, I asked him to come over to my place. He came over with a bottle of wine and we had a great time. The first time we kissed it felt eternal and I was left flabbergasted at how good a kiss could be. I had kissed before but none left me as numb as this one. Over the period of next few months we felt deeper in love and ecstasy and made passionate love. Even though I wanted more and more of his love his work commitments always played a hindrance. I had already started dreaming about the future with him as we progressed further in love.

'Can I shift to your place?' He asked me all of a sudden one day while talking on phone. He had gone for an outstation visit for work. It had been three months of us together.

'What happened Danny?'

'There has been some issue at my rented apartment and I need a place to stay. The roommates have shifted today and I somehow convinced the land lord to let my stuff be there till I return.' He sounded distressed.

'Okay, no issues. You can come over. We will search together for a new place for you.'

For five months, we stayed together. I fell more and more in love while he showered me with all the care and love in the world. For some reason he had quit his job and was searching for a job as well. Whatever I earned was spent for both of us as he was struggling to make the ends meet. I was getting frustrated at all this responsibility but the heart wants what it wants.

I felt that if he can get himself a job my life would be all settled and done for good till one fine day a small incident brought me back to reality. In a space of two weeks some currency and some of my precious ornaments went missing from my place. I searched for them everywhere but to no avail. I didn’t even think that Danny could be the one for I was madly in love with him. A week later, one evening while I returned back from work I saw a note on my bed. It was from Danny. It said, "Leaving for hometown due to an urgent family matter, see you soon. Love!"

I tried calling him but his phone wasn’t reachable. I felt a little let down but all hell broke loose an hour later when the society watchman came along with a few policemen to search my place. They had an arrest warrant against Danny for a case of cheating. I didn’t know how to react. He had siphoned off two lakh rupees from the society manager. I cooperated with them and told them everything that I knew about him. They got on my nerves when they hinted that my family would be involved but somehow I managed to douse that fire. They were not able to trace him but I was entrusted with a task to tip them off whenever he contacted me. I tried to reach the bottom of the case with the help of the policemen but all I got was conflicting answers about him being a history sheeter.

A month passed by without any hint of this man I had been in love with. Multiple calls and texts went unanswered. Love, betrayal, treachery and the ocean of lies all came in front of my eyes when he called me from some unknown number telling me that he will be at my place in an hour. I literally forced my hands to tip off the police. I knew I loved this man but I also knew that it was my life that will be ruined if I didn’t tell them. Two hours later he was arrested from my place. For a month I had cried softly as I missed him but that day I was inconsolable. I wailed, scratched and cut myself. My whole life had been torn apart.

Two months later I gathered courage to go and see him at the jail. I still felt the void without him in my life but I had been told by the policemen about a lot of things that I wanted to hear from him for my heart to actually believe. I saw him through the glass door coming towards the meeting hall.

I could see him clearly as he walked with his eyes towards the floor.

He walked slower than what I had even seen him walk. His face was pale, his shoulders dropping with each step, his eyes moist and his confidence shaken.

He sat in the chair in front of me and did not even meet my eyes. He held my hands softly as if it was the last time he was feeling the touch and began to sob. I had been composed all this while waiting for him but could not control my emotions any longer. More than the hurt and the adversities he had caused for me, I felt broke because I felt his whole persona had come crashing down to ground. I felt his soul had been torn apart being among the other convicts.

'Please get me out of here. I am dying every day.' He wailed holding my hands close to his face.

'Did you do what they have caught you for?' I asked with a straight face.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I couldn’t help it.'

'What do you mean? You are an MBA and you couldn’t resist cheating a poor man of his money.' I was trying to hold my emotions in check and being as kind as possible. He struggled to lift his head up and looked right in my eyes. I felt he was going to shake the roots of my belief in him.

'I am not a MBA. It’s all a lie. Whatever I told you was a lie. But my love for you was real and pure. It still is, I want you to be with me forever Rhea.'

'What do you mean? What are you then?' My innocence did not let me understand his words.

'I am a drop out who makes his living by cheating people. But I did not cheat you, I promise with my head.'
'Shut up.' I cut him off. My temper had been snapped badly.

'You mean everything you told me about you, your background, and your family was a lie.

Was it you who had stolen the cash from my wardrobe and also those bangles, the ones my mother had gifted me?' My eyes went red with anger. He did not reply, he couldn’t see me in the eyes.

'Reply something, god dammit.'

''es,' he said with a lump in his throat.

'I stole your stuff; I stole from a lot of people. I am addicted to stealing things. But Rhea I am not a bad person. I still care for you and I need you.' He was teary eyed again as he said.

'Is Danny your real name?'

'No,' he replied. I slowly withdrew my hands from his, looked at the people sitting on my right. My bubble of innocence and self-composure was about to shatter. I wanted to run away and cry my heart out. I didn’t speak a word for a few seconds and he continued to look at me with dreamy eyes. The same eyes that had made me fall for him in the first place. From the corner of my eye I could see hopelessness on him but I did not want to relent this time.

'Please talk to me,' he pleaded.

'I came here to know the truth. All this time my heart did not let me believe anything they said about you. I had even called a lawyer two days back to help you get out of here but I am not going in that direction again.' I replied and slowly started to get up from the chair.

'Please Rhea, my life will be destroyed.' He wailed.

'What about my life Danny? What about me? What about my emotions? What about my frail vulnerabilities that you crushed with all your might?'

'Please. I still love you. My love for you was pure, trust me.' He tried to hold on to my hand.

'Trust you? Are you serious? With what all you have done and told me in the past one year and one fine day you tell me that all of that was a blatant lie, you tell me to trust you. The man I knew, the man I fell in love with, the man I let in my house, in my heart, in my pants and my soul is not the one I am talking to right now. You are not the same man. You aren’t even Danny. I am sorry. I can’t do anything for you. Not anymore.'

'You mean the world to me. He cried with hands folded.'

'You meant the universe to me till you shattered my belief in love and trust. I opened my heart to you and all you opened was your pants and a shit full of lies and garbage. I don’t want to see your filthy face again, lest you try to convince me with some other lie. I am done forever.'

I could not control my emotions anymore as I started crying and rushed out of the hall. I could hear him shouting and pleading as I closed the door behind me and set foot outside. The chill around the jail campus hit me hard as I tried to walk a few steps towards the exit. My legs could not take it anymore and I went down on the knees and held my face in my palms and wailed. I felt my world had come crashing down.

A few minutes later when I noticed the people in the jail campus looking at me awkwardly, I quickly gathered myself up and hurriedly walked out of the main gate. I took a deep breath and did not even look back once. I knew it was up to me to take control of my life. I also knew that turning to alcohol would ruin my health and my mind, so I turned to the most positive yet the worst thing that one can turn to in those times.

Upon reaching back home, I reinstalled the dating apps and began swiping again. I hope, Love is just a swipe away.