No.
It can’t be.
It was so her.
It was exactly what Megha would have sent. I could feel my body loosen up. It felt like grief finally lifted its foot from mychest. I felt my lungs fill with air again. I felt my heart pump again.
And that’s when I started to heal. That’s when I started to feel that there was an end in sight to the grief that I felt. That’s the first time I thought I could find closure of some sort, and that everything I was doing wasn’t a slow march towards the day I would finally fling myself off the balcony of my apartment and end everything.
My love was my escape route. I don’t see why they don’t get it. Most of all, why Aditi doesn’t get it.
I don’t know how long I’m staring at the plug-in when my phone buzzes. It’s Sumrit.
‘Bhai,’ he says when I answer. His voice is hesitant. ‘Tejal just called me. She was saying that Aditi was pretty upset. Everything okay over there?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ I lie.
‘Bro,’ Sumrit says, and I can hear the frustration in his voice. Boys don’t do well with grief. We are loyal to each other’s silence, but not truth, not openness. Emotions are a threat, so we joke, we arm wrestle, we move on. What Sumrit’s trying to do is awkward. ‘Don’t do this. Don’t push her away.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I say.
‘No bhai, I don’t,’ he agrees. ‘Because from where I’m sitting, you’re...’ He begins the familiar bungling with words ‘... scared and you’re...’
‘Behenchod, I’m not fucking scared,’ I grumble.
‘You’re not being left behind, bhai,’ he tries to assure me with words I’m sure Tejal has fed him. ‘She’s just—’
‘I have everything I need, chutiye,’ I snap.
I hear a long sigh. And then he says, ‘What you have on your phone, that’s not Megha.’
Oh, c’mon.
‘Are you all fucking dumb? Of course, I know it’s not Megha. But it’s fucking closure for me. It’s how I’m grieving!’
‘Bhai, it’s been six months you have been chatting on that app,’ he says. ‘It’s...’
‘It will take as long as it will take,’ I say and cut the call.
Sumrit calls again, but I don’t take the call. He calls again. Then, I block him.
I turn back to the chatbot. How can I tell them, make them understand that when I type in anything, whatever it says, it feels like it’s Megha on the other side.
And fuck them for thinking that it has not made me feel better.
I feel alive.
Fuck them for not getting it.
Fuck everyone.
30
Aditi
The event is a success. A roaring, crazy success.
The brewery in Sector 29 is packed, as we had expected, but these things can go sideways if the energy of the room is not right. But today, the air is buzzing with the electric energy of a hundred people talking, laughing and connecting... and who knows, even finding love.
