Love, simulacrum…

With a racing heart and a slowing brain she waited there for him. All the while she kept thinking about her boyfriend, fighting with the urge to video call him, even though she had called him just moments ago. “It’s just a date”, she thought to herself, “he won’t mind, why should I?”
The date was supposed to be a casual one. 3 o’ clock at the canteen. She looked at her phone, it was 3:05 already.

She saw him walking towards her. It partially resembled the way her boyfriend walks. She didn’t remember well, she hadn’t seen him walking for a long time now. No, he still had his legs, it’s just that they were in a long distance relationship. It had been quite a while since things had been this way. She was more familiar with the movements of the upper half of his body, his facial expressions, the way his gleaming eyes became so small when he smiled….

“Hey!” he said, and she was startled. She came back to reality after the little trip in her wonderland. “Hey, have a seat.”, she replied, trying to be as less awkward as she could manage. They exchanged assuring glances and took their seats such that they were facing each other.

“You look beautiful, have you done something to your hair?”, he asked, but his mind was somewhere else. He was thinking about his girlfriend’s messy hair bun and imperfect attires and how he liked them better than the well-groomed, well-dressed girl sitting right infront of him.
It was weird for her too, looking into his eyes. It was so different from looking at the screen, trying to maintain an eye contact with her man in the blurry video. He seemed so interested and at the same time so distracted that it hurt. It was so real, and infiltrating that it became a little uncomfortable for both of them.

“Hey, what happened? There’s something that you are thinking about, tell me about it”, he asked her rather politely.
“It’s nothing. Really”, she uttered trying to control her smile. A confused smile it was. She was confused as to how she should react to this person sitting in infront of her. They had met, on several occasions, they had a history. They had been on dates before, they had gone on romantic rides. But now things were different. What about the person with whom she talked, day and night? What would she tell him?

The date continued. They kept on staring at each other with little to say, playing with their smartphones absentmindedly.
She wondered if he was feeling the same way. They had met after so long anyway. There had to be some development in his life that would change their dynamics altogether. Both of them were excited and guilty at the same time, both of them sat with their phones clutched tightly in their hands. That’s when he decided to tell her.

“Listen, there’s this girl, and I love her”, he said, half distracted by something that he was doing on his phone, as she let out a sigh of relief.
“Okay”, she replied, a reply so faint that it almost came out like a whisper, “just a minute I need to take this call”, she said in a hurry and answered to her boyfriend’s video call.
Everything felt so normal now. She had never felt this comfortable. “This seems more real than what’s going on here,” she told him. Her boyfriend said, “I know, you are right in front of me but I still feel like talking to you over the video call!”