Must have been love

Rushing through to catch the flight she realized was early, and sat down for the much needed cup of coffee, the man before her definitely a has been, fifty going on fifteen. Something very familiar about him.  He looked up at her, there seem to be an anticipation of recognition.

“Aren’t you, Jojo’s sister?”

“yes,” the voice the face they were familiar like a fading echo, at 50 she had got used being called her professional designation, and madam, “jojo’s sister heavens !!” she thought she had overcome it years ago.

“Okay you don’t recognize me,”

“Sorry”

“Ozzie..Machado”

Ozzie..Oswald Machado the youngest of the Machado brothers the only one who did not invoke a deep crush and puppy eyes. Maybe because he was the youngest, maybe because he was so every day, we met him at school, at the classroom, at the playground. He was the fall guy we handed to the teachers; he was guy who copied our homework.

“You know Olli don’t you” of she knew Oliver  the lead singer in the band, every matchmaking mama shook her head in despair, he was spending too much time with Seema Andrade, and  rehearsals than his studies he was already two grades lower than his peers, but Oliver brought home the laurel’s from every cultural meet.  Looking at him, she thought,”uh! Teenage crushes, it’s like flu, you find a remedy for it, and it lasts for a couple of days. If you don’t then it still lasts for a couple of days.”

Funny she thought there is always that one guy who gets a hold on you. Not like your best friend’s bother who gets you in a headlock the kind of hold. Or the little kid you’re busy babysitting who attaches himself to your leg kind of hold.  She was thinking epic here, life changing, the can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do homework, can’t stop giggling, can’t remember anything but his smile kind of hold. Like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr.Darcy … like the song one sang into the hairbrush-microphone in the hostel on top of your lung with your roommates on a Saturday night… oh! Yes, the eighties chart busters, the songs that Olli and Seema sang, only we thought it was us instead of Seema, the Eternal Flame’s the Must Have Been Love’s and the Take My Breath Away’s.

Funny she thought, if one looked up the dictionary, for the meaning of the word crush, it says, to break into powder or very small pieces by pressing, pounding, or grinding it. It could also be press or squeeze something so hard that it breaks or loses its share. That’s what happens with a crush, one literally saw stars, and every ragged breathe one took felt like one was trying to breathe through the broken glass. There is something about first love that defies duplication. Before it the heart is blank, unwritten, afterwards the walls are left inscribed and graffitied. When it ends no amount of scrubbing will purge the scrawled oaths and sketched images. But sooner or later one finds that there’s space for someone else, between the words and in the margin.