Sabbatical

She took a sabbatical. A two week trip by herself, probably the last attempt to feel rootless freedom. Before sitting back and planning a life out. She traveled to a couple of least known places she had known on the map. As a child poring over geography books.
Now she took that trip, with barely a backpack and slippers. No etiquette. No camera either. 

On the afternoon of the third last day, she landed at his place. Her college boyfriend. His single bedroom cum living room cum kitchen place, remote, away, falling off the edge of her geography map. She wanted to see him with no particular intention, as such. There was an ember of love though, but repeatedly wiped off by the series of other guys that followed. Walked his footsteps. Toward and then away. But she chose him over every other. 

After she had slept a straight eight hours to shed her fatigue of days, they nibbled from take-aways. Quietly, reminiscing. Remembering. Then loudly shivering the walls with laughter, with their stock of forgotten jokes. Legs were pulled and released. They flashed back and forth. Crushed their stoic adult poise with the memories of their once adolescent love. Then crushed the sheets underneath when they mildly made love, and then jumped to intervals of wild fucking. It was difficult to begin with and they missed how they then could never steal a moment to kiss when back in college. She quite felt at rest. 

The day after he took her for a drive in the shamble of a car. She bought trinkets and stoles. A pair of pricey yellow boots which were seen and returned. And dozen other memorabilia. No pictures though, except the one on his cell phone, which he swore he wouldn't put up anywhere. She posed for him before a crumbling temple. The orange hue of the broken bricks went with her sunset dress and the blood-burst in the evening skies.

That night they cooked. Their amateur culinary expertise, with ample doses of faded lust simmered lumps of chicken. Stoned, their brains drenched in vodka, they slightly fell in love again. But markedly only slightly. 

On the third day, she put on shades all day, because she didn't want him to look into her eyes. At all. Until he saw her off. 

On her wedding day, she opened messily one parcel with her henna smeared hands, till elbows, to find those yellow boots and their sunset picture.