She breaks my reverie. ‘Rabbani’s cute. She’s growing up to be quite smart.’
I am yanked into the present. Into a reality where she has a boyfriend and I have a broken life.
‘You still hate kids, don’t you?’
‘Even more now,’ she says. ‘Three DeliverFood VPs have gone on maternity leave. They will lose out on so much growth. It’s stupid. We try to say ya, nothing matters, but the guys at the same level will zoom ahead.’
A conversation that’s not about us feels unnecessary, empty words to fill time. A white Dzire comes to a stop next to her.
‘Will I see you tomorrow, Aanchal?’
‘I hope so,’ she tells me.
‘And what will happen tomorrow?’
‘We will torture ourselves again with a changed past and a future that doesn’t exist,’ she says.
‘So we will torture ourselves with possibilities?’ I say. ‘Cool. I am used to that.’
I step forward to hug her, my face within breathing distance of hers. She looks up to catch my gaze. In her eyes, I see hesitance, eagerness, rage, love.
‘Do I get a hug?’
As she wraps her arms around me, I feel her body lose its composition and melt into mine. I grip her tighter. I’m made of nerve endings. I feel everything. A deep hunger for her body uncoils within me. I want to keep holding her. I want her clothes to be gone, I want to feel her skin against mine, my tongue against hers. I want her to be mine.
I let her go.
She gets into the cab.
‘You’re right about that. It is torture,’ I admit.
‘I will think about you, Daksh.’
The driver asks for the OTP. He puts the car in gear. She waves at me. I keep waving till she looks away from the rear-view mirror. It feels like my heart’s being ripped out of my chest.
Back home, I slip next to Rabbani in bed. She snuggles up to me. I hear Baba turn sides. When I look at him, his eyes are open. I assume the worst.
‘Baba?’
He blinks. He’s alive.
And then, he smiles. He doesn’t turn away.
‘Sleep, Daksh,’ he tells me before closing his eyes.
Yeah, right.
17.
Aanchal Madan
My body’s on fire.
I can still feel his hands on my body. His fingers burned through the fabric, and I could feel them on my skin. When his body pressed against mine, I felt naked. Every ridge of his body against mine was like it was always meant to be. I felt every inch of him against me and every inch of me blazed with thirst. He pressed against me and every fibre of my being wanted to meld into him. Every time I have been touched before, shame flooded me. The shame of doing something wrong, the shame of being with someone wrong. But today, I felt none of it.
My body was no longer mine, but his.
Had he pushed himself into me, I would have let him. If he would have slipped his hands inside, let his fingers run over the small of my back, I would have encouraged him. If he would have breathed heavily near my ear, I would have moaned and asked him to go on. If his lips rested against my neck, I would have invited him to do more. If he had pushed his bulge against me, I would have grabbed him and urged him to go further.
