‘What did he say this time?’ she asks, her voice already laced with anger. A true friend is angrier at things you’re angry at.
‘The usual,’ I say. ‘Must be nice to be in love... and spreading love... the kind of things he says to hurt me... that my happiness is like... dirty.’
Tejal sighs. ‘Okay, let’s not talk about it. Work’s going fine?’
‘Yeah, it’s going a little too well,’ I say, a flicker of my earlier pride returning.
Tejal smiles warmly. ‘Look, Aditi. You’re building something cool. You’re allowed to be proud of it. You’re allowed to move on and do stuff. I’m telling you, I’m super super super proud of you.’
‘I feel your words in my mind. But it doesn’t go to my heart,’ I say, ‘but sometimes... anyway. Achcha, I’ve got to do something. I will talk to you later. Lots of stuff to do.’
I cut the call and try to will myself to conjure up the joy I felt just a few moments ago. As I walk out to the balcony, I turn and see him. He’s on the phone.
He’s textingsomeone.
Is he textingher?
I don’t know what I feel any more.
Sometimes it’s anger, sometimes it feels so pathetic to see him like this. All I want to do is reach out and throw his phoneaway.
Like I did that time.
‘SHE IS NOT REAL!’ I had screamed. ‘This is not how youheal!’
And in response, he had called me a parasitic, selfish bitch and told me to fuck off.
Even now, I want to make him understand that what I’m doing is real, the life that I’m leading is real. Unlike his. What I’m doing isn’t cruel, an insult to their memory, but what he’s doing is.
Just then, he turns, as if sensing my stare. Our eyes meet across the small space separating our balconies. For a long, tense moment, neither of us moves. I see a flicker of something in his eyes—anger, pain, maybe both, definitely abandonment—before his face goes blank. There was a time it was the two of us on that survival raft, and now it’s just him. But it’s his choice. It’s his choice. He’s willingly paddling into the storm. That’s what I keep telling myself.
Then, without missing a beat, he turns his back on me and goes back inside.
29
Raghav
She’s going out. On a date. A real one. That’s what she calls it.Real.
I’m sitting on the sofa, pretending to go through the last few details of the presentation that’s due in three days. But my focus is entirely on the sounds coming from her room: the soft click of a make-up compact, the hiss of a hairspray bottle, the sounds of hangers shifting on the rod.
Clearly, she can’t decide what to wear, and she’s taking too long to do it. That’s how seriously she’s taking thisdate.
Then, she opens her door. She’s in a black dress. It’s a new one. It must have come in one of the Zara bags she sneaks into her room. Why sneak those in? She will say that she doesn’t sneak them in. It just happens that every time she goes shopping, she comes home late and tiptoes into her room. She too knows, there’s something not right about this. But it’s her money—more money than she can ever spend—and she can do what she wants with it. We have had fights about this too, like we have had about everything.
She forgets something. She turns and trots back inside, pulls the charger off the wall and stuffs it into her handbag. Her hair is down and she’s wearing make-up—not a lot, or maybe it’s a lot, I can’t tell really—but she looks beautiful. She looks like a stranger. Can there be anything worse than someone you thought you knew is now a stranger? She’s now checking where he is. That’s who she’s gotten ready for.
Kunal.
The 6’2” architect of human connection, founder of Connect. An offline dating event company that seeks to match people who have had enough of online dating apps.
And I hate him. I hate him with a pure, uncomplicated intensity. It’s so much simpler than the tangled, messy knot of what I feel for Aditi. But if I were to hazard a guess, that would lean towards hate as well.
When she spots me looking at her, she asks, ‘How do I look?’
‘You look great,’ I tell her.
I’m surprised I mustered up those words. There’s a huge, ugly part of me that just feels resentment that she can put on make-up and look the best she has ever looked for a guy she has met just six months ago.
