But she's decided...

But she's decided that she doesn't need anyone. So she does everything all by herself.

When she sees a couple at the mall, the man losing his patience as the woman takes forever to decide between two parallel shades of red, she thinks to herself how good it is that she doesn't subject anyone to torture like that. 

So she goes to the doctor's alone, tries out new restaurants all by herself, shops for her groceries alone, buys herself flowers or cute lingerie and spends her weekends all by herself, cooking single serving meals with a lonely glass of wine for company; because she's decided she doesn't need anyone in her life. 

It's the little things like these that he wishes he could share with her. Introduce her to a new food joint he's just found out, take her shopping to a brand new ethnic wear store he knows she'll love, have her help him pick a new shirt to wear to his cousin's wedding or help him buy a gift for his mother. 

He wants to smile like a hopeless romantic as she furrows her brows in confusion between two absolutely non-differentiable shades of purple. He wants to smile at her reassuringly as she tries on a new dress for the first time, her face a thousand insecurities and questions as she steps out of the dressing room. 

He wishes he could just arrive at her doorstep in the middle of the night, take her out for a drive, a midnight snack and some coffee, maybe?

But she doesn't like being so available to anyone like that, being vulnerable and confused and unsure in front of another human being is a sign of weakness, and she does not want her cracks to show. 

So he tries to be careful, tries not to overstep the boundaries she's put around her, tries not to be the wrecking ball that breaks down her fortress, because the last thing he wants to do is to imbalance this delicate dance that has taken months to perfect. 

One evening, they meet for tea, at a roadside shop near their offices, in their wrinkled work clothes, the exhaustion of the day wearing down their bodies and their minds, her hair left open at the mercy of the wind. 

They stand there sipping their tea from the tiny, murky, glasses when a stray gust of wind blows her hair astray. She tries with one hand to tame it back it place, but one strand gets stuck in her earrings. He authoritatively hands her his glass of chai, and gently eases the wayward strand of hair away from the earring, and quietly resumes sipping his tea again. 

And she smiles to herself, thinking,

'But she doesn't need anyone, does she...?'