It's What You Do To Me

Like their usual Friday evenings after college, they hopped on to their conventional café for their share of evening coffee and gossip. Occupying the same corner aligned with the picture window, that overlooked the sunset every summer evening sharp at 7:05 pm, was always reserved for them each weekend without fail. Ria, Sid and Om. They weren't exactly the three musketeers every college had, but they surely were the couple and the best friend trio that was. Coiled against the bend of the couch, Ria looked out towards the sunset as her toes clinked with each other in a settled rhythm. This was always the favourite part of his week. Sid had always loved the colour of her black hair, which gleamed a bronze sometimes. The inflamed sunset light bouncing off her flawless honey dew skin was what had left him breathless the first time he'd seen her in college. Taking in the colours that her petite dignitary put at play, he realised Ria was staring back at him. 
Meanwhile, Om came along carrying his taller than reality frame, and thumping on the couch beside Ria as he dropped a kiss on her cheek, and threw the bill of their order on the table in a fashion that Ria and Sid had grown used to seeing. Sitting there, talking, laughing and singing their favourite songs that would play along. 

"Hey there Delilah
What's it like in New York City?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight you look so pretty
Yes you do
Times Square can't shine as bright as you
I swear it's true"

This was a routine every weekend to which even the café was now habitual. Two years since they first came to college, two years of being best friends, a year of Ria and Om dating, and six months of Sid and Ria......
There was nothing to define what they had. Tremendous though, it wasn't enough to cease the love that existed between Ria and Om. Sid's brother wedding, drunk night, just a look at each other and that was it. Being with Om was potentially one of the best things that had happened to her. Although being totally crazy about each other, there was a distance between them. A distance she felt in herself, one which she couldn't map. A distance Sid mapped for her. 

"Hey there Delilah
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice, it's my disguise
I'm by your side"

Through time, Sid and Ria had grown inseparably close as friends, or so Om thought. And Om was fairly normal with it considering they'd become friends around same time he and Sid did. But there was always something about the way Sid looked at her, took care of her, talked to and about her. He assumed at times that Sid too might have fallen for her. But it wasn't love that he saw. A possessiveness that encircled his mind each time Ria was near. 

"Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
What you do to me"

It was yet another Friday evening coming to an end. Another Friday when they'd drop Om off at the tube. Another Friday when Sid and Ria would get off, bid their goodbyes and Sid would grab hold of her and kiss her. Ria knew Sid wasn't amongst the ones who'd open doors and pull chairs, but he could kiss passionately. And that was chivalrous enough for her. And that's where Om lacked. However immensely Ria knew he loved her, he'd never let his passion out right. The fire was put out much before it was ignited. She realised Sid didn't love her. And she'd accepted it. And she'd also accepted she couldn't possibly leave Om either, because Sid wouldn't want that. Ria never considered herself to be in a dilemma. She knew what she had to do to keep them all together. But she also knew what she wanted and had accepted it the way it had come to her. Love, lust, who knew? 

"A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
And we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame"

Exasperated,
Ak.