Sitting in Haldiram’s, we said those loaded words, but we knew if we stood by them, it would be like strapping our lives into a rickety, dangerous roller coaster. It could easily unravel our lives in the most destructive of ways like it has done before. This is simultaneously the easiest and the toughest decision to make. As I take a deep breath and let myself drift off to sleep, my phone buzzes with a notification. My heart stops for a moment before my hand darts towards the phone.
It’s Daksh.
Waiting in the lift lobby
My pulse quickens. I get out of bed, tiptoeing into the living room. Maa–Papa’s room is closed. I move quietly out of the room, thinking of possible excuses I could give them if they wake up and don’t find me in bed.
I walk past Gaurav’s room. He’s bent over a desk, a small lamp is on, and he’s writing a journal. His face is one of peace and health. I stop and look at him, take it all in. I still can’t believe he had been so stupid. Gaurav looks up and I wave at him. He smiles as if he knows where I’m going and shakes his head. I want to slap him.
I see him in the lobby.
‘Are you here for the documents?’ I ask him.
Daksh turns towards me. His dark eyes are deep, his hair is unruly and messy, a two-day stubble growing on his gorgeous face. He is wearing a grey T-shirt that has seen better days and a pair of black track pants. He still manages to look hauntingly beautiful.
‘It’s going to be very cold up there,’ he tells me.
He’s holding out a windbreaker for me and I take it. My fingers brush against his; they are rough and hard like sandpaper. He is warm to the touch.
‘I see we are still playing on clichés,’ I point out.
‘The cliché where you look incredible even in your pyjamas?’ he responds.
I shake my head. ‘You know what I mean? The roof overlooking the city, the city lights, how vast is the universe, how little and insignificant we are. Two people looking within themselves while being on a rooftop. In how many movies have we seen this?’
‘We are both guilty of clichés,’ he counters.
‘That’s all we are.’
‘You’re being cynical and witty because it’s easier than feeling things and being vulnerable.’
I get into the lift after him. As the steel doors close, the proximity of us makes my skin prickle with excitement. My eyes flit to him as he casually leans against the wall. His well-defined arms strain against the seams of his T-shirt, thick blue veins snake down the length of his forearm. I tear my eyes off him and put on his windbreaker. Immediately, I catch his scent wafting from it. It’s of earth and sweat. My mind gallops and I try to rein it in to stay in the moment. It’s just a lift, just a rooftop, I tell myself. No need to imagine what it would be like to have those arms wrapped around me. Behave yourself.
We step out from the lift on to the highest floor, the twenty-fourth, and climb the steps to the rooftop. Daksh has a key to the door, of course he does, and he opens it for us.
As he walks out, he says with a flourish of his hand, ‘Here’s the clichéd view.’ He points to the city spread out beneath us. ‘And then there’s us under the vastness of the universe. But the most important part is not this... the most important, even though clichéd, bit is...’
He walks to a corner and I follow him. On the floor, he has assembled a bed with an array of fluffy pillows, a bottle of Absolut, an ice bucket overflowing with ice and a couple of packets of Kurkure. To keep the bugs away, there is also a battery-powered mosquito killer nearby.
‘Now,’ he says, raising his hands in mock defence and smiling warmly, ‘it’s clichéd, very schoolboy behaviour. But if you think about it, I never got to do these things for anyone.’
‘If you had done these things for anyone, I would have wanted to travel back in time and throw the girl off the roof.’
He picks up the bottle of vodka and two plastic glasses. He walks to the edge of the roof and hops up to sit across it. My heart jumps.
‘Oye—’
‘There’s a ledge here,’ he says, signalling me to come over.
He helps me up to sit next to him. He locks my eyes in a warm gaze and says, ‘Things that endured are clichés now.’
‘Fair point. Where are you going with this.’
‘We make fun of clichés because we don’t want to be like everyone else. We think of ourselves as snowflakes, absolutely unique. So, we deny ourselves the simple pleasures of a cliché.’
‘Have you practised this?’ I ask him.
‘I had no better idea for a date in the building, so I had to build a justification for clichés.’
