No....(Short Story)

"No"

She had said just that. One word. It was so potent, so poisonous, it was eating his insides. He knew it was a lie. And he knew that she knew it.

"Don't you love me anymore?" He had asked.

"No."

That one word was enough to wipe away five years from his life. Those five years in which she had become an inevitable part of his life. He knew that her sacrifices in these five years far exceeded his. He only wished she had a little more patience. Now the things seemed to be changing. He was changing. He was no longer the idealistic and adamant young man that he had been. Age and agony had mellowed him down.

For five whole years she had supported him. They met at a bus stop on the day he had run away from his house. She had taken him in when they were strangers. She was staying alone and knew that her neighbours would react unfavourably to her letting in a young man. But she braved the opposition, fought the odds. Maybe she liked him from the first day she met him. As days went by she had fallen for his charm and his firebrand idealism.

She worked as a waitress in a hotel during the day and some nights sold her body to uncaring strangers in some cheap hotel room. He stayed at home all day, wrote poems and essays, went out and discussed politics with whoever he met. She didn't mind. She was deeply in love with him. He loved her too but he loved poetry too and literature and humanity and animals and environment and so the list was endless. She loved him.

First sparks appeared when he first slapped her. She wanted to go for a movie with her friends while he wanted her to stay home with her. "I am not your wife." She had said. His answer was a slap across her cheek. It was the first time they did not speak to each other for more than a day. That night for the first time since they met, she slept without him reading a poem to her. Next day their fight had ended with mad passionate love. She could not bear to stay away from him any longer. Nor could he. She admitted it. He did not.

"Why don't you take a job?" She had asked. It took her four years to ask this.
"Why?"
"So that I can stop selling my body. So that we can get married."
"Why do you want to get married?" he had asked. And did not understand then whay her answer was only mute tearful eyes. Her look had made him feel guilty. But his idealism was still alive.

After that day, almost every day was the same. Everyday till today.He found his bags on the doorstep when he returned from a stroll. Through closed doors he had asked "Don't you love me anymore?"

"No."