The words are knives leaving my mouth. I can feel the cuts as they pass my throat. I can feel the blood in my chest. But I still say them. Because I have nothing else.
I’m begging now, my voice a raw, desperate plea.
‘But what happened?’ she asks. ‘You were okay...’
‘And now I’m not,’ I say. ‘I’m not okay. I need you, please.’
She just stares at me, her face a chaotic mix of anger, pity, and a deep, profound sadness.
‘I love you, Aditi,’ I repeat, my voice cracking.
And yet she stands there, saying nothing.
‘I really do,’ I say, my voice pleading now.
And she stands there, stone-faced. Quiet. And my world slowly starts to crumble.
‘Please,’ I beg, ‘tell me you love me.’
The room is shaking. Or maybe it’s me. The boxes lean closer. The lights dim. The walls bend and close up on me. The ground is soft under my feet. I feel like I am falling but I am still standing. I am standing and falling at the same time. I wish I wasdying.
I watch a tear escape her eye. ‘I don’t,’ she says, her voice flat and dead. ‘I don’t love you, Raghav.’
The words cut through me. They don’t just cut. They sit there, inside my chest, heavy, sharp, their jagged ends tearing me from the inside.
I feel my heart splinter.
But then... she reaches out, and holds my hand.
‘ . . . but I will never leave you . . . I can’t.’
And I want to believe her. I want to hold her words like rope. But my heart knows better. My heart knows this is the beginning of the end. I’m done.
I know I’m done.
Epilogue
A Year Later
Kunal
The morning light in Gurugram is lazy and soft, creeping through all the smog that’s out there choking the early morning running club members and the oldies out on a walk and the middle-aged women doing their yoga. It slips in through the half-drawn curtains. I’m usually the first to wake up. I like the silence before the world starts asking for things, the brief, quiet moments when it’s just us.
I make the tea. It’s a process now, a ritual I’ve come to appreciate for its quiet comedy. I know what’s going to come. The smile, the scrunch of her beautiful face, and then the smile. I start with the loose-leaf Darjeeling, a sliver of ginger, no shortcuts. I use the chipped ceramic mug she likes because apparently the tea tastes better in it. I believe her. Believing the small, illogical things your partner believes is its own kind of love language. But I know it’s not going to end well. Or it will end well, depending on how you see it.
She stirs when I place the mug on her bedside table. Her hair is a magnificent mess—it’s the first thing I noticed about her. And it’s still the first thing I notice about her. Her messy, beautiful, brokenness—clichéd and hackneyed and all true. A boy finding a project to fix, a broken wing. In her case, she fixed herself while I watched. Her face, still half in sleep, blooms into a smile that makes me feel like I’ve won something fundamental. She takes a sip.
And then comes the wince. Barely there. Like I knew it would. Just a twitch around her eyes. She tries to mask it with a mumbled ‘it’s very nice’. She’s horrible at lies. But I can’t blame the lies. Lies are what got her into my life. Even though it came through a series of misfortunes, but it ended well. For me, at least.
My tea is, and will likely always be, second best. And I’m okay with that. With love, that’s the thing you need to know: you can’t be everything. In some things, you have to accept second place. That’s the grace that successful relationships run on. Ask me. I would know. I run one of the biggest offline dating start-ups in the country.
Right on cue, the doorbell rings.
I don’t even look. It’s always him. The guy whose tea gets first place.
Raghav walks in holding a steel flask and two mugs. He apologizes, but he doesn’t need to. It’s a ritual for him too. It grounds him. Behind me, Aditi has now completely woken up, looking even prettier if that was possible. She’s tying up her hair in a bun, and I’m transfixed like I was the first time I saw her dothat.
Raghav hands Aditi her mug, and there comes the smile. That’s howrightthe tea is. She can smell that it’s just right. He knows the exact ratio of milk to water, the precise moment the leaves have released their soul. It’s a knowledge born of two years spent navigating a shared darkness. It’s not a competition I’m interested in winning.
