Heart Break Resort

A girl falls in love and is devastated to find that her lover is in fact gay

Riya  completed her MBA in Sales & Marketing and got a job in an MNC in Mumbai. Riya relocated to Mumbai and took up rented accommodation with her friend and started working.

She completed her induction and was assigned to Mumbai North territory and was asked to report to Henry. Henry was a handsome man smart, sophisticated, intelligent and witty. Henry had a way with people and his extremely helpful nature had people eating out of his hand. .Henry was a hard taskmaster and ensured that his subordinates learnt the trick of the trades and ensured that they exceeded their targets. The office girls were crazy about him and used to flirt with him. Henry was sporting and used to play along but maintained a discreet distance and avoided relationships. Eventually word got around that Henry was not worth the effort since he refused to take the bait.

 Riya was deeply smitten by Henry. She had fallen head over heels in love with Henry. She would think about him 24 hours a day. She was always looking for excuses to speak to him, call him and chat with him. She wanted Henry by hook or crook. She played the role of a damsel in perennial distress. She managed to get Henry’s attention and Henry was going all out to make her comfortable. Riya started gifting him perfumes , shirts , chocolates. She started wearing dresses that Henry liked. She could sense Henry opening up. They started dating. They started going out to movies, dinners and musical events. Everybody cheered Riya for dating Henry. Tens of girls had tried to go out on date with Henry and he had never obliged. Outside his professional life nobody knew anything about his personal life. Henry had made it clear to Riya that he enjoyed her company and they could only be friends but never get into a relationship.

In the heady whirlwind of romance , candle light dinners and romantic moonlight drives Riya was in seventh heaven. She told her friends and family she had found her man. Henry was her Knight in Shining Armour , a man who understood her perfectly and could do no wrong. Considering the long working hours and stressful working life , there wasn’t much time for romance.

Days turned into weeks , weeks into months and months into years. Riya had continued working and become a successful manager and Henry had become Vice President . Riya’s friends were married and most of them were now on the verge of becoming mothers and in some cases for the second time. Riya’s parents and friends were now pressuring her to get married. She would laugh and tell them that she was very happy and in no rush to get married. She and Henry were just not ready , they were focusing on their careers. Riya knew that Henry wasn’t seeing anyone else so was relaxed . She did bring up the topic of marriage and Henry brushed it aside saying that he was not romantically inclined and they were only great friends. Though everyone thought that Riya and Henry were in a serious relationship their was nothing going on between them. Henry had never kissed Riya.  Riya was thinking that Henry was deeply in love with her but was shy and hence not saying those three words . Riya desperately wanted Henry to say “ I Love You.”. She begged Henry to say those words but Henry refused to oblige. He would just laugh it off.

Another year passed , promotion letters came out and as expected both were promoted again. Riya was made in charge of India region and Henry Asia Pacific. Both would have to travel a lot and would be seeing less and less of each other. They decided to celebrate their promotions by taking a vacation in Maldives. They booked their rooms at the Sheraton Resort a beautiful resort where the rooms were huts on sea water. The hotel was beautiful and the blue green waters were simply divine. The evening sun cast a golden glow on the crystal blue waters. It could not get more romantic than this.

Riya and Henry had lobsters and beautiful seafood. They had lots of wine and were feeling high. Riya was feeling high and wanted Henry in her arms. They walked back into the room. Henry slumped into the bed and Riya went to change. Riya put on some sexy lingerie and walked upto the bed. Henry was fast asleep, she tried to wake him up but he would not move. Frustrated Riya went to sleep. When she woke up in the morning Henry was gone. Riya found Henry at the bar in a bad mood. Henry had been asked to cut his vacation and fly back immediately. Riya could not believe her ears, her first chance to seduce Henry and make love to him in such an exotic place was being taken from her. Nobody would believe her that she went all the way to Maldives and did nothing. They packed their bags and left. Henry promised to make amends and told her jokingly that he would take her to Mahabaleshwar at least. Riya was secretly relieved that she would at least get another chance and all was not lost.

Back in Mumbai they were caught in presentation, client meetings , dealer meetings , running against time to meet deadlines. Everything had to be done yesterday. The stakes were high and so was the pressure. In such stressful situations the least important thing is put on the backburner and in Riya’s case her romance was on the backburner. Riya and Henry saw less and less of each other , the physical meetings were reduced to long phone calls. Over a period of time the long calls became short and they soon switched to chat. The spark and the romance was slowly dying out. Riya felt she was losing Henry and if she did not to do something fast she would lose Henry and she would simply not find her mister right as age was not on her side.

Riya tried to wrangle a transfer to Henry’s unit. She started barging into his office, tried to meet Henry on his way into office and or on his way out. She tried to go out on dates with him. For Henry nothing had changed , the only thing that had changed was that he could not take out time for Riya. He missed her and her romantic liasions. But he was slowly getting irritated with her demands and her insecurities. He was losing his cool on her. He needed space , he wanted to relax. The work pressures, long working hours were getting to him, he was burning out. Riya was flooding him with messages. He had not replied to her messages.

Riya willed herself to not check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his 'last seen at' status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn't stop herself. This sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost torturous.

And then, just as she sat down in her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message.

But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn't know if he was joking or not. What was this? He had finally replied,

I am gay and cannot marry you.

Riya’s world collapsed , tears flowed down her cheeks , the world had become blurred and hazy. She could not believe that Henry was gay. She wanted to die , she did not want to live.

She stepped on the window ledge and jumped. The moment she jumped she realized that she did not want to die , she prayed to God. Riya’s fall was broken by a 300 year old raintree, the tree broke her fall , scratched and bruised her and deposited her on top of a sand truck. Riya thanked God for letting her live.

Her building security rushed her to hospital. The doctors checked her and were relieved to find that she had not broken any bones and only suffered multiple scratches and bruises. They told her that she would be as good as new in a months time.

Riya’s fall from the window was captured on video and the video went viral. Riya became an overnight celebrity. Her video was shared on You tube, Whatsapp, Face book and shown on several news channels. News reporters wanted to interview her. Her doctor put out a story that she had slipped and fallen from the window. Riya hugged her doctor and thanked him for giving her a face saver. The Doctor was about Riya’s age , handsome , charming and successful. He too was enamored by Riya. He never had a smart, beautiful young woman as a patient and spent unusually more time with her compared to other patients.

Riya was killing time on the tab checking out her messages. She had now hundreds of men chasing her. She felt good that lots of men were ready for her. She short listed about a half dozen men  whom she would like to date. She compared them with Doctor and Doctor was too good for them. She compared them with Henry and even Henry lost out.

Everybody came to meet her in the hospital except Henry. She realized it was time to move on. She went out on a date with Doctor when she was discharged from the hospital. After a whirlwind of romance ,candle light dinner and romantic drives , Riya married Doctor at the Sheraton Resort in Maldives.

As Riya sat sipping her shaken Martini and staring into the golden sunset , Doctor asked her what are you thinking?

Riya smiled and said nothing.

She was actually thinking, “ Whatever happens , happens for the good “.