Her Diary.

She was a girl who wrote everything. How she woke up to how her day ended; she wrote everything. To say that she kept a diary was an understatement. It was less a diary and more of a daily catalog. She had started this as an exercise when she was 12; but as she had progressed well into adulthood, it had become a daily routine. She had written every day without fail about every single thing that had happened throughout the day. And she wrote it down in great detail.

So meeting a boy from her college (who was also cute) would have been the first thing that she should have written, right? Uh huh…. Boy, you were so wrong. He was the first one who had disrupted her whole ‘write everything’ habit.

It was a Sunday evening. She was sitting by the window in her favorite café. ‘What was she doing?’ you may presume. But I guess you would have known that by now. She was writing her daily record.

Suddenly, a deep voice asked if he could sit at the table. “Sure,” she said without looking up. “Hey, you are from my Journalism class!” the voice exclaimed. That made her look up. Sure, he was from her Journalism class. She hadn’t interacted with him before, but she knew who he was. He was the usual social kid, who also for a change was kind and cheerful. He also helped people, she had heard. And his good looks made him 10 times nicer. No wonder so many girls (and guys) crushed on him.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” she said and resumed her writing. She was on an interesting part of her afternoon, when her cat Milo had fallen over and later had demanded belly rubs, when he interrupted her again.

“Are you writing that report for our class?”

“No, I’m done with it.”

“Oh! Then what are you writing? I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but you have this look of concentration. That means you are writing something important but you are not doing any homework, so….,” he rambled on.

“I’m writing my diary,” she said.

“Oh…”

She continued writing in the awkward silence while he drank his coffee. It was a simple latte, she noticed. Usually no one except a few of her friends talked to her. She was a quiet person who kept to herself. So someone who was not one of her friends and who was also very popular in the college talking to her was new. And in all conscience, she was surprised. No one, well no one who wasn’t her friend, had made a polite talk to her. And she liked him for that.

“What?” she asked him all of a sudden.

A “huh?” came as his response.

“What do you want? You left your reply just at a ‘oh…’ so I’m asking what do you want? Obviously you want to ask me something,” she said.

“Um, well, can I read your diary?” he asked with hesitance.

“I guess, yeah…. Just-just don’t laugh,” she said while sliding her journal over to him.

He looked at her once for approval and then started reading. She heard him mutter a ‘why would I laugh?’ under his breath.

“Wow!” he said after just reading 3 pages. “No wonder you are at the top of the class,” he said, while giving the diary back to her. A thank you was all that she could manage. Why was he even talking to her? He surely had other friends he would like to spend the weekend evening with. So why was he talking to someone so ordinary and a simple nerd like her?

“You know, for someone who writes in so much detail you talk a lot less,” he said. She quietly laughed at his response and looked up to see him smiling, too.

“I promise, I talk. Just not to random people…”

“Well, I’m not someone random… we’re in the same class!”

“Yeah, but we have never talked…”

“We’re talking now,” he said while smirking.

‘Cheeky,’ she thought. “So what do you want to talk about?” she asked, while quirking up a brow.

“Well, I know you are an amazing writer as I can see, but I want to know about you…”

“Why?” she was dumbfounded. Why would someone want to talk to her? She was not special. If you looked at her once, you wouldn’t look back twice. She wasn’t beautiful, or she wasn’t witty or funny. She definitely had little confidence. That’s how ordinary she was.

“Cause you are different. Is it so wrong that I want to know my classmate better? The classmate who is extremely talented and writes so well and who happens to also be the talk of the town after her last gender equality report.”

“I’m not the talk of the town. Also that’s extreme.”

“No, it’s not. I read your report. It was to the point and amazing and to be honest, your views were great.” he ended with a smile.

 “Thank you,” she said politely.

They both again fell into a silence again, but it wasn’t as awkward. He drank his coffee while she closed her diary with a promise to herself to write this conversation later. How many times do you find yourself talking to a really handsome guy anyway?

“Do you want to get out of here? I mean, this place is great, but it’s also kind of stuffy…”

In all honesty, she didn’t want to go out. But turning down his proposition seemed rude. And she also wanted to know about this incredibly kind guy. And so far, he had been nice to her. So she got up, gathered her things, slung her backpack over a shoulder and offered him a hand. She didn’t know from where all of this courage suddenly came by. But she wasn’t complaining. She was going to need all the coolness she could get if she had to keep this conversation going. He gladly took her hand in his and they got out into the evening. The sun was just setting when he asked her yet another question.

“Why write so meticulously? And you are doing it every day, so may I ask you, is it a practice for journalism or is it something else?”

They were now walking towards an enormous statue. “Nah, it’s not for the class or college. It’s just something I’ve been doing since I was 12. It’s fun if you get the hang of it.”

“Is it now?” he asks her while bumping her shoulder playfully. But he was at least a foot taller than her, so it was more like upper arm to shoulder bump.

“Yeah, it is,” she said while laughing.

 To be honest, he really liked her. He had spoken to her just once, but he really liked her. He had read her views, opinions and reports, and he knew she was a headstrong and intelligent person. And he had seen her with her friends and she always seemed so happy. Like seriously happy. But, she intrigued him. She wrote beautifully on serious matters, gave out strong evidences and proofs, yet when he had seen her with her friends she seemed carefree. But in classes she was thoughtful and when he had literally ran into her today while she was writing she had this look of intense concentration and now she was so nonchalant. Plus she first seemed so reserved but now it was like she was being a bit open. That had him surprised. And then he had heard about her infamous diary writing record…and he had just witnessed it first-hand. He didn’t know what to think of her.

While he thought so highly of her, she thought mightily of him. He was a good writer; she knew that. His columns of racism and regionalism had earned high praise. But he always looked so calm, how could he write so cutthroat opinions? He had her intrigued too. He was popular, but he always helped people. He wasn’t in any ways a bully. He was polite and kind. And she had witnessed it after he had generously thanked the waiter and barista at the café. So the same question hovered in her mind. Why did he want to get to even know her?

“But why do you write everything? Like everything? What purpose does it solve?” he asked her out of a sudden. “Why not write just the big parts and when you read the same thing after like even a month or two or probably after even a year, your mind will fill in everything else…”

He left her dumbfounded with his question. Usually she would have said something along the lines that it improves your memory but in the moments that she had known him, she knew that he wouldn’t buy it. So she said what she genuinely felt was the right answer.

“I think that I’m scared that I would forget everything. And I don’t want to. Like the best parts and even the worst ones. I want to look back and know everything that had happened and how it had happened in my life,” she said while looking straight ahead.

He feared that this was coming out from some dark place, so he didn’t push her. But he still had a lot of questions, so he asked her another.

“Did you start this as fun exercise or as something else?”

“What is this, an interrogation?” she asked while laughing.

Her plain brown eyes met his clear emerald ones, but in that moment he thought they were the most beautiful eyes he had seen. The setting sun rays made her eyes look clear and gave a hint of the golden color in them. They had a playful look in them. And she thought that those emerald orbs were the best color she had ever seen. Those eyes looked as if they held every answer to every question in the universe. But their eyes looked away as quickly as they had met.

“Well, we are journalists, that’s what we do,” he said with a hint of a smile.

“We are not yet journalists, we are still in college. And if that’s your logic, why do you only get to ask the questions?”

“I’m open to questions. You can ask as many as you would like. But you aren’t…,” he reasoned.

“Well, why are you asking me all these questions? Especially about my diary writing…and before you say anything, don’t give me the bullshit excuse of ‘I want to get to know my classmate’,” she said. (With a lot of sass, he noted)

“Okay, fine. I am curious. People talk about how you keep a diary and how it is in so much detail and I thought that no one could ever right in that much detail, but then I saw it with my eyes today. And so I am more curious now. Happy with my answer miss?” he quipped back.

“People talk about my diary?” she amused. That was new to her. “Mm hmm,” he hummed back.

“So yes, I am happy by your answer Mr. and to answer your question, I started writing to cope with my mother’s death. No, no, don’t feel sorry it’s okay, you didn’t know and it is a very valid question. It’s fine, I am being honest…,” she said in a hurry after looking at his shocked and guilty expression.

She knew he was sensitive because once he had stepped on a red m&m and he thought it was ladybug and then he had cried and held the crushed candy in his palms while repeating ‘sorry’ over and over again. When one of his friends finally stopped laughing and mentioned that it was a m&m, he had looked appalled and embarrassed. The story had circulated throughout the college, and everyone had teased him about it for an entire month. But he had taken it all in a stride. So she knew how this recent information would make him feel.

She continued after making sure that he was perfectly okay and it wasn’t his fault. “And when she died, I was so young, I couldn’t remember anything. So I decided I would write everything, so I never forgot everything…,” she finished.

“But by doing that, you were exactly doing what you were avoiding,” he spoke in a quiet voice.

“Huh?” she asked, with a frown on her face.

“When you write something down, you tell your brain that the information is out there somewhere and your brain doesn’t take the efforts to actually remember it. And you write in so much detail… do you recall what you ate yesterday afternoon?”

“Of course! Yesterday for lunch I had…I had-,” she finally sighed and put her hands up in defeat. “You are probably right.”

“See, that’s what I am trying to say. And memories aren’t meant to be written, they are meant to be cherished and remembered. It’s not my place to say really, but you know, your brain remembers all those things. If you try hard enough, the pretty mind of yours will conjure up a lovely memory of your mother’s,” he said in his kind voice.

“I guess you are right,” she smiled softly up to him as realization sunk into her. Even if she wrote everything, and how much ever the beauty of her words might be, they could never replicate those feelings and moments in her memories on the paper. In the end she would remember the events while reading those words on the paper, but in time she would forget the feelings, the joy that those memories brought after being remembered.

“You are right,” she finally said after pondering for a while. “I should stop writing.”

“What?! I didn’t mean it that way. I mean you should keep on writing but maybe not in so much detail. So you remember the events, but you still have the freedom of imagining up your feelings or what you said in the heat of the moment or what you would have done differently or whatever… plus you can’t just give up writing. Then how will you be journalist?” he said with an amused expression.

“Hmm… you seem to be right on a lot of fronts. I wonder why we haven’t talked before. I would love to hang out with you. And how do you know sooo many other things?”

“I am also a Psych major,” he said.

“Well, I don’t believe that, that is the only reason for your wisdom. You also have a pretty brain behind that pretty face…”

“You think I have a pretty face?” he asked cheekily.

“Well, everyone else thinks so…,” she said in an equally cheeky way.

“But honestly. I would like to be your friend. You are nice person to talk to.”

“Yeah, I would love to be friends with you.”

“So, friends?” he asked while extending his hand forward.

“Friends,” she said, while shaking his hand firmly.

“I believe that we have arrived at our destination,” he blurted out. Sure, they had stopped exactly in front of their dorms. “See you tomorrow in class. I bet your report will be the best one yet,” he said.

“Nope, I think yours will be. It’s on social structures and customs, that’s your gig not mine,” she said.

“You read my writings?”

“Of course I do. They are beautiful. Also, thank you for that talk back there. I haven’t talked like this to anyone in a long time. I genuinely am grateful for it,” she said, smiling softly at him.

“It’s my pleasure.”

“But I have to yet have my interrogation with you, so… when can we meet for that?”

“I thought you’ll forget about that… but after we get our last reports checked, can we get back together then?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

The darkness was just setting in when then parted their ways while saying their goodbyes. As she entered her room, for the first time, she broke her promise to herself. She decided to not write about her today’s encounter with her classmate… now friend. Her heart and mind told her that she would like to remember this evening, not read it from a lifeless page. She would rather remember how kind and nice and polite he was than read those qualities from her writing. She would rather remember how striking his looks were and how lovely his laugh was and how beautiful his eyes were, rather than read a few adjectives about them on her paper.

So for the first time she put away her diary without writing about this gorgeous meet and with a promise to remember this night forever.