Cliché

"Sorry", I say abruptly interrupting him in between.

"I know I don't own you but....... Wait, what? Did you say sorry?", he asks sitting on the floor just beside the table while rearranging the bandage that was wrapped around my ankle carefully.

"yeah, sorry", I quickly nod my head continuously trying to bear with the pain.

"oh", he says. He opens his mouth to say something but I think he notices the pain on my face so he does not say anything. Instead, he places my foot gently on the table so that there is less pressure on my ankle, which for your information is a shade of bluish purple.

He continues to press the frozen peas packet against my ankle. Both of us sit there in silence for five minutes, with him gently caressing my ankle to ensure that it does not turn any more sore than it already is and with me trying to bear with the pain. But then he breaks the silence and asks tenderly, "Is it better now?"

"Ya, atleast I don't feel the pain anymore. You can stop pressing the frozen peas against my ankle now. You must be tired of doing that, right?", I ask with returning the same tenderness.

"A little, but I don't mind."

"Can you sit by my side for a second?"

He nods. He keeps the frozen peas packet on the table and stands up. He slowly walks over to the couch and sits next to me.

"I am really sorry. I did not mean hurt you or anything. And I am sorry that I assumed that you would leave me alone. You proved to be of great help today and I really owe you big time. You're really sweet and I guess I was aloof of that fact. But you proved me wrong and to be honest , I could not be any more happier to be proven wrong.", I say.

This time he really looks at me. As in he looks deeply into my eyes as if to see if I really mean all of this and I make sure that he finds the affirmation that he is looking for in my eyes. And then his lips move into the most beautiful smile that I have ever seen.

He abruptly stops looking into my eyes and turns his face so that he is facing forward towards the TV that is placed directly in front of us on the wall. We both don't say anything but this time it is not an uncomfortable silence, it is peaceful, an assuring one. This silence assures me that he isn't sad or hurt anymore. Isn't it weird that sometimes silence comforts you more than words ever could?

I ask a question that has been lingering in my mind for a very long time now.

"By the way, what were you doing here?"

He looks over at me and says, "Well, Jen and Jace were at my place and they were getting all corny and gooey. For three hours I was able to put up with it but then it was just beyond my limit. Like for the love of god, cant they just get a room?"

I laugh a small laugh and say sarcastically, "Wow, looks like you are a die hard romantic"

"Ya sure.", he replies back sarcastically.

"But they are a really cute couple. Like by just looking at them, anyone can figure out that they are deeply in love", I say defending their cheesiness. I mean ya, they both are really cheesy but it goes with their personalities. So, I don't really mind it.

"Umm.... Sure, whatever", he says nonchalantly.

"Wow you seem really interested in this conversation."

"I guess, I am just not into this 'love' shit ", he says and shrugs.

"What?", I say in disbelief.

"Was that a reaction or you seriously did not listen?"

"No, that was a reaction. By the way, what do you mean by 'love shit'", I say with quoting love shit with my fingers.

"Love shit as in falling in love, breaking up, crying over each other, being jealous. All of this."

"You know that all love stories don't end that way, right. Most of them have happy endings"

"Nahhah....most of them end that way because there is no such thing as a happy ending. You really do live in your fantasy world."

"Not gonna lie but I am more happy to live in my fantasy world where there is love and happy endings than to live in your world where you don't believe in love. There is literally no meaning to life without love", I say defending myself.

"Well, I think you need to accept the fact that not every one feels that way. And anyways I never said I don't believe in love."

"Oh, I am so sorry. What exactly did you say sir?", I say in a mock courteous tone.

"Wow, respect, I like that.", he says and for your information I rolled my eyes. But then he continues, "I believe in love but I don't believe that the exact concept of love is made for me."

"And why do you feel that ?"

He says, "Because I think that neither will anyone love me nor will I ever be able to love anyone else". Oh, I did not expect him to say that. I am honestly a little taken aback by his currently made statement. No one should feel that way.

"That is not true", I say. I continue, "Everyone gets a chance at love".

"And how do you know that", he asks challengingly.

"I just know. You're absolutely lovable and to be very honest there would be thousands of girls who you never noticed who would be madly in love with you."

"Ya, I guess that's true. I mean who would not love a hot shot like me right?", he says and winks.

Nahhah…..I know that he is being all cocky to deviate me from this topic but it ain't gonna work. So I just ignore that and continue with this conversation by saying, "See first of all you should never think that no one will ever love you. I know that someday some girl will fall in love with you so madly that you'll be her everything. Her heart will beat faster everytime you are around."

"Cliché"

I again ignore him and continue, "And someday you will fall in love with someone so deeply that even when you're at your rock bottom but if you have her by your side, you will feel that it is exactly where you want to be."

"First of all, I don't want anyone to fall in love with me because I know somehow I'll end up hurting her. And second of all, I don't want to fall in love anyways. I don't want to be that guy who cries all day or feels that his world has come to an end just because his girlfriend dumped him."

"So you're scared of getting hurt?"

"No, see it's just that I have been around so many failed marriages and toxic relationships that I feel that this love thing is bullshit."

"But Jen and Jace's relationship isn't toxic."

"See I feel that my family is cursed in the case of relationships. There is no such thing as 'happily ever after' in my family. Every relationship breaks and not only does it break the people who were in that relationship but everyone around them. So, I don't want to add on my name in that list, it's as simple as that." Oh, I did not know that he felt this way.

He looks like he does not want to talk about this anymore. So I decide to let this topic go by saying, "I know that someday you'll fall for a girl very hard and it would be the best day of your life."

"I thought that you didn't know me well. So how can you say that with so surety.", he asks me challengingly

"See there are some things that you just know. You don't know how or why you know that, but you just do. I guess this is one of those things.", I say and just like this we both drop this topic.