When the Light Changed

Waiting Until the Light Changes Maya waited at the corner of Pine and Third until 8.12 every morning to cross the street when the light turned green.

And daily at half-minute past 8, so did Liam.

This is a man forever carrying a book under his arm, with a slightly disarranged hair, an askew tie, and a coffee cup in his hands with a sleeve marked “Jake 1s Caf’. Maya, on the other hand, always kept it together as usual- Pony tail knotted, blazer straight and earbuds on, so that he might have pretended not to see how his eyes sometimes strayed that way.

They had never said a word of it. Never during six months. but the routine was divine.

It was raining outside on a humid and rainy Tuesday in the month of March, the signal turned on, and Maya set her foot on the road, but instead of landing on the shoe, her footing slipped away from her heel. She was seized by the elbow by a hand in time--firm, as it always had been, and familiar.

“You okay?” Liam eyed it with perplexity and some anxiety in his voice, and raindrops in his eyelashes.

Fine--fine, she answered, with a brush on her coat. “Thanks.”

and then, with a smile at him, she crossed on to the other side.

Since that time things changed. The following day, Liam gave her a coffee Jake. “No sugar. I fancied

She laughed a little as she answered, Yes you were right.

They started walking the three blocks together then separated. They chatted of trifles--of the weather, of music, of the book he was reading, of her favorite late-night restaurant.

He one morning was not there. The pedestrian light was blinking and she took a little more time, looking at her phone. The following day he did not turn up. There was a weird sense of desertion in those three blocks, on which she had to walk alone.

The following week he came back with a broken wrist and limp.

Crashed bicycle, he sheepishly apologized. Was after trying to shun a squirrel.”

She flushed, and said, almost in a whisper, I missed you.

He gazed at her in amazement, and smiled so crookedly and quietly. I was pinching myself because I had missed, too.

Since that time they saw each other early. Being there in the cafe. Did not share small talk only.

Maya got to know of how Liam had a younger sister that he raised practically. That a three years novel was really writing, that he despised every word of it. He found out that Maya feared deep water, could not whistle and had once dreamt of opening her own flower shop but then it had been shattered by reality.

Spring time passed to summer time. It was the first, warm evening of June, and they spent the evening, losing themselves in the streets of the city, and having the bustle and chat of others about them like an overture.

When they got to her apartment, they did not say goodbye.

I ought to go, said Liam, and tried to move away.

You ought, she said gently.

He kissed her in spite of it.

It was hesitating and gentle, as though both of them had waited too long, and wished it to be slow. Maya did not want to move in when it was over. Liam did not feel like leaving.

They did not tell each other, that night, that they loved each other. That was afterwards, on a Sunday morning, over pancakes, when Liam stated it as he grinned, with his mouth still glimmering with syrup.

Maya was motionless with fork half way to her mouth.

Oh, I know, he said hastily. “It’s early. Or perhaps not so. I simply... do.”

She put down her fork, leaned across the table and said “I love you too.”

It did not get perfect then. There were fights, days they did not feel so at home, nights when the city was too noisy, and all things started to be too hard. But ever and again they returned to one another.

Back to where it started at Pine and Third.

Two years after that Liam brought her again to the same corner. The snow was falling quite lightly and the traffic was light. As the light changed he turned on her, drawing a small box of velvet out of his coat pocket.

Here it began, he said. Will ye leave it on--with me?

Maya was getting all full of tears.

Yes, she said and cars stopped and the world paused to see two people who by chance had met and by choice had lingered.