I pick up a pack of cereal I know Reyansh hates and drop it in my cart. If he plans on annoying the hell out of me, so be it. I won’t back down either.
“Are you sure? Doesn’t seem like that to me.” She says, picking up a pack of chips from the racks.
I give her a curious look. “Why do you say so?”
Did he tell her something? I know they talk often without my knowledge, and I have never had any problem with that.
If anything, I have admired the fact that Reyansh had willingly built a relationship with my mom without me even having to ask.
“I am your mom, Aisha,” she sighed. “I can tell what’s going on inside your mind with just a look at your face. Besides, you two no longer look like the couple that you were a few years ago.”
I purse my lips closed, fearing I might say something more than I am supposed to at the moment. She isn’t wrong. It’s not about looking at me once and being able to decipher what’s going on in my mind, and it’s certainly not about me and Reyansh.
“Well, all couples lose that spark a few years into their marriage, don’t they?” The words leave a sour taste behind in my mouth.
“Bullshit,” she curses. “At least lie better. That’s utter nonsense. If you love each other enough, then the spark never dies. It is a made-up fact by your generation to mask your flaws. I know that because the man I was with never stopped looking at me like he didn’t want me or need me till the day he closed his eyes for the last time.”
I nod, knowing what she is saying is true. My dad never stopped looking at her as if he didn’t want her. Anytime they were in the same room, his eyes were always on her. No matter who he was speaking to.
It was this reason why I always strayed away from men back home. Because none of them looked at me the way Dad used to look at her, and I knew pretty early on that I wanted a man who loved me with the same need and devotion.
This is the curse of having parents with healthy relationships. You start to look for the same kind of love everywhere. And love like that—the one where there’s only pure devotion, where theman worships the ground you walk on even when all you do is just exist—that is rare.
So when I found Reyansh, and when I saw the way he looked at me from day one of us meeting, I knew there was no going back. There was no way I could escape that look, the heat of his eyes, no matter where I went. In the beginning, I tried my best to resist him, to not give in to him. But who was I fooling? When Reyansh Carter sets his eyes onto something, he makes sure he gets it.
He has always been ambitious like that.
But ever since we got into the big world, our relationship slowly started crumbling under the weight of our ambitions, our dreams, and the way we looked at life. And slowly the way he looked at me changed too. It got to a point where he stopped looking at me altogether.
“Maybe you and Dad were the exception,Maa,” I say, and she turns to look at me, cutting me a sharp glare. “I have seen so many couples who were in love before, but a few years into the marriage, they stopped. Look at Reyansh’s parents. They got married young because they loved each other, and now they are divorced too. So, maybe you guys were the exception.”
“And maybe they were the exception,” she says, as I push the cart forward, shaking my head. I think I am done with the grocery shopping.
As we stand in line for the billing and I pass the cashier all of the things, I hope for some silence to sort out my thoughts. But who am I kidding? My mom can do anything but stay silent.
“What happened to you,bacha? When did you become so pessimistic?”
I sigh, thanking the cashier who passes me a small smile. I carry the bags ahead to our car. Because I do not have an answer to that question. I don’t know when I became so pessimistic. I don’t know when I became the shell of the woman I was before.
I keep the bags safely in the backseat before getting in and buckling in my seat belt.
“You were a ray of sunshine before, Aisha. It was visible on your face,” she says even when I ignore her.
“Maa,” I sigh, increasing the speed of my car slightly. “I am tired, okay. I am tired of being okay. I am tired of pretending to be okay. I can’t keep saving this whole relationship all alone.”
She gives me a look and I gulp hard enough to hurt my throat. I know I just admitted out loud that my relationship is failing. Hell, it failed harder than I did in math in grade ten.
“So what are you going to do about it? Let it be? Do you even love him anymore?”
“Don’t say that,” my voice raises an octave, and I know I shouldn’t talk to my mom in this tone, but I am failing hard at being nice nowadays. “I have never loved anyone other than him, and you know it.”
“Then do something about it instead of running away.”
* * *
If there’s one thing I am exceptionally good at, it is avoiding things, conversations, and people. I wish I could blame this annoying habit on Reyansh. But if anything, he makes me painfully aware of this flaw of mine.
Because while I have tried to avoid him as much as I can ever since we came back home from “grocery shopping,” he has been trailing behind me with puppy dog eyes. The look he gives me makes me think I have kicked him.
