8
Raghav
The stiff silence between us stretches out, thick and heavy inside the near-empty airport. It’s made worse by the deadness of the night. The only sounds are the low hum of the ventilation system, the rhythmic snoring of others, the muted chatter of news reports on the television playing at the lowest volume, the patter of therain.
Aditi is on one end of the bench, resting her head on her bag, her eyes closed, trying to sleep, but I know she’s antsy. I’m on the other side, trying to find ways to apologize. Why did I have to meddle? After a few minutes, I clear my throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the quietness of the night.
‘You’re right,’ I say, not looking at her. ‘I don’t know your story.’
She opens her eyes, a little too quickly, as if she were expecting the apology. She nods and then turns to me. ‘What’s your story?’
‘You know what you know,’ I say, shrugging, being evasive. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You keep checking your phone every now and then,’ she says, straightening up. ‘But Megha’s asleep? What are you waiting for?’
Suddenly, it feels silly. But I think I owe it to her. As an apology. So I open my email and show it to her. There’s a new mail from my sister, Shilpi.
You okay?
‘Who’s that?’ she asks me.
‘My sister,’ I begin, finally looking at Aditi. ‘She’s fifteen... she’s stuck. Between them and me. In the middle.’
‘I don’t think there’s any middle in your story,’ she says. ‘They are wrong and you’re right.’
I nod. ‘She gets how wrong my parents are, but she won’t leave them. She tells me that she has board exams this year, that she can’t afford the distraction, but she doesn’t say the real reason why she didn’t come with me. Or reasons, I should say.’
‘Reasons? Plural?’ she asks, leaning forward slightly.
‘She thinks we are too young. Twenty-three is no age to decide who you’re going to spend your life with,’ I say. ‘Of course she’s saying what my parents said to me. Who, by the way, got married at twenty-five.’
I don’t know why I’m spilling out to her like this. If Megha were here, she would blame my momo-suttafriends. That’s what she calls them. All you do is eat momos and smoke with them. What value do they add? I tell Megha, nothing, they add happiness to my life. And she tells me, and when you’re sad? Nothing. We don’t go there. We roll up our sadness and instead go out and eat momos. I can’t tell Sumrit that I wished Shilpi was on my side. I can say that as an off-hand remark, but I can’t really get into a conversation. That would just be weird. Momos are easy.
‘I knew at twenty-one that Aman was the one,’ she says, breaking my train of thought. ‘But I get it. All my friends say the same thing. You’re too young, blah blah. Anyway, so your sister...’
‘She keeps saying Megha and I will break up. Or you know, we won’t be able to sustain ourselves,’ I say.
‘What does that mean?’
‘That I would have no support from the house. It’s just been a year since I have been working... my salary’s fine, but I wasn’tsaving a lot. But now the security deposit and broker’s fee has wiped out my savings entirely,’ I say and immediately regret it. Megha and I had decided we will skimp, and things will be fine. That I don’t need to worry about it. We have the numbers calculated. We will be fine. I steer the topic back to Aditi. ‘And second, she doesn’t want to abandon them. So she’s choosing to abandon me.’
‘That must be hard,’ Aditi says quietly.
‘I mean . . . a little? She used to follow me around. And she . . . for large parts of my life . . . she was . . . anyway . . . So it feels like a betrayal,’ I admit.
‘Has she met Megha?’ she asks me.
I shake my head.
‘So she hasn’t seen how hot Megha is?’ she says.
That makes me crack up a little, but the laughter dies in my throat, leaving a familiar ache. ‘She once told me, “I don’t know what you see in her.” Just parroting my parents.’
‘For the record, I see what you see in her,’ Aditi says, offering a small, genuine smile.
I smile back. ‘I can’t blame her, you know. She’s in a difficult position. But she still emails me. Secretly. My parents wouldn’t check her email. So that’s that. Always sends the same thing—“You okay?”’
Aditi lets out a breath. ‘Wow.’
