Every Time It Rains

by Nikita Singh

  Laila wondered what would’ve happened if Abhishek hadn’t died. She hated to think that they might have tried to fix things and she would’ve gone back to live with him, but she knew there was a very good chance that they would’ve done exactly that. Or maybe she would’ve never turned back. It wasn’t like the first time; it wasn’t a mistake. There was a pattern. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he wasn’t a bad person. Maybe he was a good person who’d made mistakes, done bad things—

  When Laila found herself making excuses for him, defending his actions again, she froze. Now that she knew about her father and what he’d done, she felt even more repulsed by Abhishek. She put herself in her mother’s shoes and tried to imagine how Maa would feel if she knew about what Abhishek had done to Laila. She would’ve been furious with Abhishek, and would she have been disappointed in Laila for sticking by him?

  Was she doing it again with JD, when she tried to justify his actions to herself?

  Her head felt dizzy as she got into a cab. She found it hard to be rational and compute the fairness or unfairness of all of these emotions roiling inside her all at the same time. It was just too much. She couldn’t clear her head, which felt like it was going to explode from all of the tangled questions throbbing inside it. Laila released a long breath, feeling a violent pain in her stomach as she tried to push away all thoughts of her father, her dead husband and her ex-boyfriend off her mind.

  She climbed out of the cab and pulled her suitcase behind her to the gate, which squeaked worse than ever. Cursing the stupid thing, she shut it behind her and entered her house. At first, her heart gave a violent lurch in her chest when she saw Maahi on the living room floor, bent over with her face in her knees. And then, for a wild second, she almost laughed at how they had somehow ended up at the same place repeatedly. Crying on the floor had become a norm in that house; she shouldn’t even be surprised because this was apparently what they did now, on a regular basis.

  And then the moment passed and she found herself leaving her bag by the open front door and kneeling down in front of her friend. A thousand horrible possibilities passed through her mind in the time it took her to hold Maahi’s head up and look at her. Her face was swollen in a way that suggested that she had been crying for a long time, possibly overnight, judging by the way her lips were puffed up. Deep, dark shadows surrounded her red eyes that shone with tears.

  ‘What is it?’ Laila asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘Siddhant …’ Maahi blubbered, her eyes filling up with fresh tears as his name left her mouth. ‘He has a girlfriend…’

  Laila managed her expression in order to hide the relief she felt. Out of all the horrible things that could’ve potentially happened, a broken heart was possibly easier to fix. But even as she thought that, she knew there was more, that it wasn’t just the fact that Sid was apparently dating someone. So she sat Maahi up and wiped her face. ‘Talk to me,’ Laila said, and sat down with her legs crossed in front of Maahi, holding both her hands in her own.

  ‘You think this is stupid, don’t you? You think I’m stupid to cry over a guy,’ Maahi said hotly.

  Laila didn’t think that it was stupid. She knew what love felt like, she knew what loss felt like, and neither of those feelings was stupid. But her friend seemed mad at her for some reason, and Laila felt that Maahi needed her to be her punching bag, so she sat quietly, waiting for the punches.

  ‘He has a girlfriend! He’s moved on from me successfully and now I’m just a part of his past,’ Maahi cried miserably. ‘I know that rationally, practically, and in whatever other way we look at it, we had to break up back then. I was too messed up with everything with Kishan, Siddhant was too hurt and confused because of that stupid kiss and we just couldn’t be together at the time. We couldn’t, there was no way. But we always said it was the timing. And I always thought that there was a future somewhere, maybe, hopefully …’ Maahi was shaking her head furiously.

  Laila had no words of comfort for Maahi. What could she say that would make her feel better? There was nothing she could think of that would change the facts.

  ‘I tried to move on. I thought I was fine and I had let go of my feelings for him and I dated random people, trying to fool myself but I was failing miserably. It just wasn’t the same with anyone else. We should never have broken up in the first place! All odds were against us and whatever but we loved each other. We loved each other and that was the only thing that should’ve mattered!’

  As a fresh wave of pain rocked Maahi, Laila moved closer to her and wrapped her arm around her. She rested her head against Maahi’s and whispered, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ Desperate to find something, anything, to make her feel better, she said, ‘What do you need? Is there anything at all I could do to make you feel less shitty?’

  Maahi pulled away from Laila roughly. Her nostrils flared as she said, ‘Go back to JD.’

  ‘What?’ Laila was taken aback. That was the last thing she had expected.

  ‘You have something beautiful with him,’ Maahi said urgently. ‘I don’t know what it is, and I don’t claim to understand it, but in all the time I’ve known you, the happiest I’ve seen you is when you’re around JD. It’s like … it’s like you’re okay on your own, perfectly content and even happy, but with him … I can’t explain it. It’s like you change in a beautiful way. Even the way you smile is different when you’re with him. And you need that, Laila. You can’t let that go just because … I don’t know … you’re afraid.’

  ‘I told you I’m not afraid of anything,’ Laila began, but Maahi was already shaking her head, this time with more anger.

  ‘Yes, you told me that but you lied! You are scared, of course you are! Anyone would be. But JD is not that asshole husband of yours. He didn’t hit you—he did the opposite of hitting you!’

  ‘You weren’t there!’ Laila argued. Before Maahi could counter that, she added quickly, ‘And I just found out that my dad used to beat Maa. That’s why they got divorced.’

  That shut Maahi up for a minute.

  Laila continued. ‘I can’t help but look at things in this dark, twisted way because I have to. Once you see that side, you see it everywhere. You can’t not see it. JD hit another person because he’s the kind of person who thinks that it’s his right, his prerogative to punish others for not behaving the way he expects. It’s not what he did—it’s how he thinks, it’s who he is!’

  For a moment, when they were both quiet, Laila thought she had convinced Maahi, but then Maahi pulled herself out of Laila’s grasp and shot to her feet. She was shaking her head again, her lip curling furiously.

  ‘Maahi …’ Laila got up too.

  ‘No. There’s nothing left to say,’ Maahi said quietly, but her voice shook with the rage she was hiding underneath, which confused Laila.

  ‘Why are you so mad at me?’

  ‘You won’t understand.’

  ‘Then explain it to me!’

  ‘Because you have everything I want and you’re throwing it away!’ Maahi cried. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood face-to-face with Laila. ‘I’m dying here because Siddhant doesn’t want me anymore and you’re throwing away love that’s right in front of you. You don’t understand it, or value it, but trust me, when it’s gone, you’ll be right where I am right now. But it’ll be too late. He won’t wait for you forever. You don’t own him. He’s a person whose life doesn’t revolve around you. While you’re over here thinking only about yourself, he’s going to move on and you’ll regret all the chances you didn’t take when there was still time. And you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life!’

  In the seconds that followed Maahi’s outburst, Laila’s heart pumped loudly in her chest. She could feel it all the way in her stomach. There was a lot of truth in what Maahi had said. In all the scenarios that Laila had thought about over and over in her head, she had always assumed that JD would still be there. That it was her decision to give him another chance or not and when she made her decision,
he would simply be there waiting. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. The thought of never seeing JD again … or even worse, seeing him but knowing that he didn’t care about her anymore. His face wouldn’t light up when he saw her, his lips wouldn’t expand in that grin, he’d never sing old Kishore Kumar songs for her.

  Maahi wasn’t done. She continued in her voice full of rage, ‘Do you want to know how I found out about Siddhant’s girlfriend? I met her. I saw him last night and like an idiot, I walked up to him, expecting him to be as happy to see me as I was to see him. But he looked at me as if he’d seen a ghost. And then his girlfriend introduced herself to me. She was touching him, holding his hand and smiling at me, Siddhant’s old friend. Do you think you can take that? To see the man you love with the woman he loves?’

  Laila tried to form words, her thoughts scattered around her mind in pieces. ‘It’s not that simple,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s not that I don’t love him … but it doesn’t change the fact that he did what he did—’

  ‘OH MY GOD, STOP!’ Maahi yelled. ‘STOP IT. Enough of this. He spat on you—that goon, he spat on you. I would’ve punched him too. How can you even compare what JD did for you to domestic abuse? Fuck your stupid philosophy or definitions or rules or whatever. These are two very, very different things that do not operate on the same principle. It just isn’t the same. Not even close.’

  Laila didn’t say anything.

  ‘Ask yourself if you wouldn’t have done that for me!’ Maahi challenged. ‘And if you say no, I’ll punch you in the face right here!’

  They stared at each other, their chests rising and falling in sync. And then, suddenly, the tension between them melted away and they both burst out laughing. They laughed for a long time, throwing their heads back, clutching their stomachs. When they finally slowed down, Maahi looked at Laila with such sadness in her eyes that Laila felt as if someone had physically squeezed her heart out of her body.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Laila whispered, putting an arm around her friend.

  Maahi nodded slowly. She tilted her head to the side and rested it on Laila’s shoulder as they looked out the open front door. ‘He’s not Abhishek. And I know you have a lot of questions … but the good thing is that JD isn’t dead. He can answer those questions for you.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t want to?’ Laila voiced her fear.

  ‘I think he does. He came looking for you after you’d left. He’s the one that told me that one of those men spat on you! How could you leave that detail out? I swear I would’ve punched that guy too.’

  ‘JD came looking for me?’

  ‘Yes. Technically, though, he came to tell us that the deal is on. Roast House chose us!’

  ‘WHAT!’ For a second, Laila forgot every shitty thing happening in both their lives and her heart did a somersault. ‘Are you serious? Roast House picked us?’

  ‘YES!’ Maahi screamed. ‘We were so psyched when JD first told us—the whole team went crazy! I didn’t tell you because I wanted to tell you in person … I’m sorry—this is the worst possible circumstance to break such happy news.’

  ‘Our lives have become a sad circumstance.’

  ‘But we have this one thing going. Got to focus on that—count our blessings.’ Maahi’s words lost steam towards the end.

  Laila nodded. Her mind was elsewhere. She spoke evenly. ‘When JD saw you … Did you tell him…?’

  ‘About Abhishek? Of course not. When he asked me why you wouldn’t talk to him, I said that only you had answers to that question.’

  ‘Thanks.’ JD deserved an explanation, and it had to come from Laila for it to mean anything. ‘I’m broken, Maahi. I break everything. I almost broke him! Before I left for Patna that day, JD came to see me at Two … I’ve never seen him that sad. He used to be the happiest person on the planet, and I did that to him.’

  ‘But do you love him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then trust him to be able to be happy despite your presence in his life!’ Maahi joked, but then spoke seriously. ‘Listen, if you try, you’ll find a thousand reasons not to be with him. But as long as there’s love, that’s the only reason you need. You can’t let him go. He loves you so much. When was the last time you felt this way about someone? I get that you’re scared, but get over it. Stop it before it’s too late.’

  Maahi’s voice was a whisper, breaking slightly as she spoke, ‘Do this for me. Give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m not coming from the same place that you are, and I can look at the situation objectively, rationally, and he’s a good man. You can’t punish him for feeling protective about you. You can’t punish him for what Abhishek did to you, or what your father did to your mother.’

  Laila swallowed hard. She felt much lighter, knowing what she had to do next. It was not going to be easy, but knowing what she wanted and doing something about it was far better than living in confusion. Now she knew the problem, and she knew the only way to fix it. There was no guarantee that it would work, but she would sure as hell try.

  21

  SUPER-MEGA-ABSURDLY-COMPLICATED

  Plans don’t take the unexpected into account. In Laila’s plan for her life, she hadn’t foreseen falling in love again. In the years since Abhishek, trying to survive, one day at a time, Laila had turned all her energies towards herself. Perhaps she’d even become a little selfish that way. When JD came into her life, she hadn’t seen it coming. She wasn’t prepared to be more than an individual—a part of a couple. To love another person and care for them, be responsible for their feelings. And so, in the time that she’d spent with JD, she’d only thought about how he made her feel, not how she made him feel. She’d only taken into account what the relationship had to offer her, not what it had to offer him.

  Caught in all of that, she’d failed to realize that while she was looking out for herself, JD was also looking out for her and no one was looking out for him or his feelings. After that disastrous night, she’d been overwhelmed with everything she was going through. She hadn’t even stopped to consider how JD was feeling. Instead, she’d come to a decision by herself and written out a sentence for JD too.

  Laila had plenty of time to think about all of this, while she waited outside JD’s office. Not knowing where else to find him, Laila had shown up at his office first thing the morning after she returned from Patna. When she’d asked for him at the reception, he’d had word sent out, saying he was busy. He probably thought she would leave, but she didn’t. It had taken her a lot of courage to go there, and she wasn’t going to return without at least trying to make it up to him. And it wasn’t like she’d cared about him enough to find out where he lived while they were together. She felt another pang of guilt at the thought. If JD refused to have anything to do with her anymore, how would she live with herself knowing that she didn’t do better when she had a chance?

  Maahi said that one year was too late, like with her and Siddhant. Her chances should be better because ten days surely couldn’t be too late? Or could it? Laila went through all the possible outcomes, sitting outside JD’s office all day. Before leaving her house that morning, she’d finally taken a bottle of cooking oil to the front gate and oiled the squeaking hinges. It wasn’t the right kind of oil, but it had done the job. She was determined to fix things, one at a time. But after all the preparation, when JD finally came out at the end of the day, she found that she wasn’t prepared to face him at all.

  JD walked out of his office carrying his bag with him, and Laila stood up immediately. Her face grew warm at the sight of him, the curly hair in place, the signature grin missing. He didn’t seem angry or even sad. He just looked tired. He didn’t even look at Laila as he said goodnight to the receptionist and left the building. Laila followed him outside, jogging to catch up.

  ‘JD!’ she called out, just a few steps behind him.

  He froze at the sound of her voice.

  Laila stopped in her tracks as well, nervous about what she would say to him, where she wo
uld even start. There was so much to say and she tried to gather courage to say it.

  But JD never turned around. He stayed frozen to the spot for a few seconds and then resumed walking as if he’d never stopped.

  Laila followed him and called out again, but when he continued walking, her heart dropped to her stomach and she lost all nerve. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t even want to look at her. As that thought sunk in, Laila paused and looked around for a way to escape.

  There were many people outside the building. The sun was hanging low, casting an orange light over the city, and Laila stood in the middle of all the evening rush, uncertain of what to do next. Maahi had brought her to JD’s office that morning before going to work. She would bring her there again the next day—and the day after that. Every day till JD agreed to look at her again.

  A sob escaped Laila’s mouth. What good would that do? He didn’t want to see her, and forcing him to was hardly fair to him. She would only be putting herself first, not him. And that was what she always did because she was selfish. Her thoughts jumbled up in her head again. She rubbed her forehead, which had begun to throb, and looked around, up at the sky, down at the roads, vehicles, buildings, people, trying to find answers.

  The first thing she needed to do was go home. So Laila walked to the side of the road and pulled out her phone. She was trying to figure out where the nearest metro was or whether she’d find an auto or a cab, when a car stopped right in front of her. When she didn’t look up from her phone, it honked.