"This year's love" - My Entry for the Get Published Contest

A lot of us have spent our lives trying to decipher the actual meaning of this four letter word and somehow always fallen short, which used to make me wonder if it even exists, if it's real or just a myth. That feeling within, which can send you reeling in a spin of blissful delusion - was it for me or did I sidestep it as I hurried through life ?

The story, This Year's Love, is the narrator's tale of meeting her soulmate by sheer accident and how one night changed both of their lives forever. The narrator flies across miles to visit her childhood friend and boyfriend at the time, Sameer and ends up engaged in conversation with one of his acquaintances instead. As alcohol and words flow freely between them, it's hard to decide when exactly they realize that their chemistry is more than just a coincidence, it is fate. The boy who claims to be her soulmate, Anirudh, is also dating his long time friend at the time, Arya. The story unfolds and as these two people decide to give this divine intervention a chance, love triangles are formed and age old bonds severed for what they both believe is a once in a lifetime love.

This story deals with not just the rainbows and butterflies of when they decide to take on the world together for it feels so right but also what follows once the narrator heads back across all those oceans to pursue her education. It's about how those few days become enough to last for the months to come that they spend apart and how distance can drive a wedge even in the most beautiful of love stories.

Excerpt:

'As she stepped onto his feet, he smiled and pulled her closer. His hand on her waist was sending tingles up her spine and as she looked up into his eyes, the crowd of people started to fade away around them. He whispered the song ever so softly in her ears and took a whiff of her hair as they continued waltzing to a melody so pure and apt that it would be cheating destiny to resist this. Inches away from her face and those big, brown eyes, he admitted to himself how this was the very first time he could see clearly. She parted her lips, trying to say something but nothing needed to be put into words; not that either of them could've described the perfection of the moment anyway. 

But as he listened to the ending notes of her favourite track draw to an end, fighting his insides to not swoop her into a kiss that very instant, she pulled away from him and ran - putting as much distance between them as was possible in that little room in which they'd been left alone.'

This is my entry for the HarperCollins-IndiBlogger Get Published Contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

If you like it enough and would like to read more or better yet, see this in print, please like it at:
http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/idea/303/