Her head twisted over her shoulder, her eyes downcast, not meeting his. “I don’t know why I am telling you all this… maybe because you are the only person outside of my parents who knows this. Maybe because you are the only man who heard me, believed me, understood me, stood with me, and… now did this. Why is it so easy to tell you?”
He did not answer. And she turned away again, shifting closer to the edge of the sofa, laying her head back on her arms. Nilay kept sitting on the other side. He wanted to slide closer, touch her, wrap his arms around her. But these were confessions that had come from her as an individual. She deserved to exorcise them alone, win this battle on her own, just as she had fought it alone.
Strangely, the moment pulled out a similar bellow from his own chest.
“I am not scared of dying.” He heard his own voice. As if from a distance.
Her shoulders moving with her breaths stilled. Nilay continued talking, like words were gurgling out of him, squeezing through his body.
“When Rajiv told me it was a heart attack, and my reports were not looking good, my first thought wasn’t what if I die. It was… what if I live? When he started talking about options, angiography, angioplasty, CABG, surgery, procedures, recoveries… I didn’t want to be there with paid staff to take care of me. Never in my life have I been at the mercy of somebody. And I was so scared of being alone. At my assistants’, my neighbours’, my teams’ mercy. I have been poked for weaknesses all my childhood. I wasn’t weak, I realised that later in life. But I was always called those things. I didn’t want to deal with it again, I didn’t want to bereallyweak this time.”
“Nilay,” she turned. “You are not weak. A heart ailment is not weakness!”
He smiled — “You made me believe that.”
Her face softened. He opened his hand and she took it. Without him tugging her, she crawled closer and closer to him, until his arms had fallen open and she had settled into them. He wrapped them around her and her audible breaths became quiet. Vibrations on his chest.
“You did something today that I never expected of anyone in my life, Nilay.”
He caressed her hair. “I have not felt as strong as I do with you here, Ritu.”
Her breath hitched.
“I didn’t know I needed a future until I looked at you and couldn’t look away.”
Her head moved on his chest.
“I didn’t know I needed to cook for somebody other than myself until you ate my vagharelo rotlo and relished it.”
Her hand came to his naked chest, splayed firmly on his rapidly beating heart.
“I didn’t know I am dying for children until you crawled behind MM and squeezed her close to your chest.”
Her head popped up.
“This is not a proposal,” he sat up. “Please, don’t take my confessions as anything other than me telling you that this is where I am at, and this is where I am going. Ritu, I am unable to stop looking at you and the future you bring along. Take your time, get to know more of me. I am far from perfect.”
A reluctant chuckle burst out of her mouth. He smiled.
“I can spend the rest of my life in front of you and our children laughing at me like that.”
Her smile faded.
“And that’s my cue to shut up.”
“Do you want to go to sleep?”
“Do you?”
She nodded.
“Then come.” He pushed to his feet with her and they walked to the bedroom. He pulled the duvet, let her snuggle in, then slipped in behind her. She turned away from him, pushing into his body as if they were used to sleeping like this for decades. And Nilay pressed his palm to her eyes and folded her in. Because in his head, they were.
17. Nahi Saamne, Yeh Alag Baat Hai
— NILAY —
If walking on clouds was a real thing, it would be this, he thought, taking the steps up to his store like he was floating on thin air. The world felt new this morning. Another morning welcomed with her beside him. And it had reiterated the fact that he needed more mornings like this. Many more uninterrupted mornings.
