by Nikita Singh
‘And I’m not asking you to do that either. You can have whatever kind of relationships you want with your ex-flings.’
‘Oh, thank you. I didn’t realize I needed your permission, but now that I have it…’ Kishan gave her a thumbs up.
‘Kishan, I don’t know why you’re being so unreasonable about this. I’m just trying to tell you that I didn’t like that I had to see this on Facebook. And I feel betrayed.’
‘What is there to feel betrayed—’ Kishan stopped abruptly and sighed. He turned away from her and spoke, almost to himself, but loud enough for her to hear. ‘… Exactly what we were talking about.’
‘Excuse me?’ Maahi was driving just around the speed limit, and finding it difficult to stay under it. ‘You were talking about what now?’
‘This. Dia and I were talking about this.’
‘What, me? Why were you talking about me with your ex-fling?’
‘Because you don’t get it. You refuse to grow up and act like an adult,’ Kishan said.
Maahi was appalled. She looked at him, trying to read his face, but couldn’t find any emotion. ‘And you thought it would be a great idea to discuss my immaturity with someone who doesn’t know me at all?’ she asked evenly, her eyes on the road. ‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing. That there is a four-year age difference between us that can’t be overlooked. She said it’ll get easier with time. To be honest though … I don’t see how.’
‘What do you mean “easier”? Is it tough right now?’
‘Are you seriously asking me that? I mean, look at us. What do we have in common? What can we talk about?’ Kishan asked. He looked at her expectantly. Maahi’s palm got sticky.
‘I talk to you about everything! I tell you everything. Isn’t that enough?’
‘For you, I guess. I don’t know. There are things that I want to share with you too, but sometimes … you just don’t get it. I mean, I’m not saying it’s your fault, because it isn’t. There’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes I just wish I could talk to you about things freely, without having to walk on eggshells, trying not to hurt your feelings.’ Kishan reclined his seat further and leaned back.
He wouldn’t meet her eye, so Maahi looked back at the road. She couldn’t believe that he had talked to some random person about their private relationship and was behaving as if that was completely normal. She didn’t hold anything against that girl, Dia. But seeing their pictures, both looking high and delirious, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of betrayal.
Kishan clearly didn’t see it, and if she tried to show him, he would somehow turn it around on her to prove his point about her being childish. She felt suffocated in the car with him and was glad that her hostel wasn’t much farther away.
‘Say something,’ Kishan said, still looking out of the window with his eyes half closed.
‘Say what?’
‘Anything. Tell me what you’re thinking.’
Maahi shook her head. ‘I don’t know, to be honest. I … never knew that you were unhappy and you felt like you couldn’t share certain things with me. I thought we were okay.’
‘We were,’ Kishan said. He paused and added, in a voice much lower, ‘We were okay.’
He didn’t say anything after that, and Maahi’s heart sank deeper. We were okay. We aren’t anymore. We were. She stayed quiet the rest of the way, contemplating their relationship, wondering how Kishan really saw it. Did he see her as a burden, a weight he had to carry around with him, always being careful around her, watching his step? The idea was very unsettling. But it was probably true; he had more or less said that.
She pulled over outside her hostel and turned the key. ‘Do you think we should talk about this more?’ she asked casually, stretching her hand to pick up her bag from the back seat. Her face was very close to Kishan’s. He looked at her eyes, dropped his gaze to her mouth and then met her eyes again. He held her hand lightly and rubbed his thumb over the inside of her wrist. The car was filled with his musty scent and she was overwhelmed by his sheer presence. Maahi got hold of her backpack, pulled it to herself and turned away from him.
‘Yes,’ Kishan said mildly. ‘I think we should.’
‘Okay. When?’
‘Tonight after work? Can you sneak out?’
Maahi nodded and got out of the car. She heard his door open and close behind her, and then another door open and close a moment later. She heard the car start and drive away, but she didn’t turn around. She kept her chin in the air. As she walked, blinking her eyes rapidly, breathing through her mouth, her steps were measured, confident. At least they appeared to be.
She skipped all her classes and spent the rest of the day in her room, staring incessantly at the ceiling. Gunjan wasn’t there during class hours, and that gave Maahi plenty of time to think. She was used to seeing people around her breaking up, finding someone new and breaking up again. But she knew what she had with Kishan was different. There’s a difference between being in love and being in a relationship. They were in love. They were meant to always be together.
She scrolled up her text messages and read every single text they had sent each other over the past couple of years. Right from the first one to the very last one from that morning. It was an eye-opening experience. For the first time, she was seeing her relationship with Kishan without rose-tinted glasses. Maybe it hadn’t been all that great, after all. Maybe she had just built it up, turned it into something that wasn’t there.
Her heart revolted against the idea. No. No, that can’t be it. They had been through some bad times, it had been hard on occasion, but she never for a second doubted that it wasn’t true love or they weren’t supposed to be together. There was no barrier strong enough to separate them from each other completely. She knew he felt it too.
She found a message he had sent her after a fight, about a year ago. She had saved a screenshot. Every time she felt frustrated with him, she turned to that message. Reading it assured her that he was hers, no matter what. That he loved her and needed her, and no matter what stupid things they did to mess it up, they would still be together because it was real, it was magical, it was love. She read it whenever she needed proof.
I love you. You’re really smart and you get me. Well, you don’t get me. But you get me much more than anyone else does and it’s only you whom I want to get me. I am just bullshitting but I am scared. I want you and I don’t want anything to go wrong. Please bear with me through my stupidities and don’t leave me too easily. I am tough to be with but I hope someday it will all be worth it. I am sorry I shouted at you. After I hung up, I knew you would be sad. But I knew it was manageable. It got me scared. What if I piss you off one day and it’s not manageable? That scared me. I am sorry for all the mistakes I might commit. Please never leave me.
Maahi’s eyes filled up with tears. She let them flow freely into her hair. She knew they would make it work. She sometimes struggled with understanding what was going on in Kishan’s head. He could get very distant if he wanted to and there was nothing she could do to get in. It was one of those times, when his reasoning about something was completely perpendicular to how she looked at things. She couldn’t imagine how talking to an ex about your current girlfriend and your relationship troubles could be justified as normal.
A little after seven, when she knew Kishan would be home, she called him to ask if she should come over. When she got no response, she continued lying on her bed. Gunjan came a little later, but Maahi didn’t move at all; she didn’t even look up. Gunjan went about her business quietly, not interrupting Maahi’s strange mood.
Maahi called him every ten minutes, for hours. Every time he didn’t pick up, it got a little more difficult for her to breathe. She eventually got up and paced back and forth in their tiny room, trying to release some of her frustration, constantly calling Kishan. A hundred different explanations passed through her mind; none of them provided any comfort. Did he change his mind? Did he not want to
talk to her anymore? Was he at work? Did something happen to him?
The more agitated Maahi got, the more frantically she called him. She wanted to believe he was just careless—the simplest and most obvious explanation. It was midnight, and there was still no response from him. Maahi sank into her bed and tried to hook up her phone to the charger. It took her a few attempts; her fingers shook wildly.
‘You okay?’ Gunjan asked.
Maahi shook her head.
‘You don’t look so good.’
‘I don’t feel so good,’ Maahi cried. She tried to frame her sentences in her head before speaking, but her words slipped unchecked, out of control. ‘It’s just that … my boyfriend. I don’t know where he is and I’ve been calling him for the past five hours and there is no response. We had plans to meet tonight and he just disappeared. I don’t know what to think or do. I’m so worried something happened to him. I mean, who does that? Do you think he’s seeing my calls but deliberately ignoring me? We did fight in the morning and I know he’s mad at me but who does that? I must’ve called him a hundred times by now.’
‘Whoa. You need to chill, dude,’ Gunjan said. ‘I’m going to get you some water.’
‘Thanks,’ Maahi said, accepting the small gesture of support from an unexpected source.
‘Now, as you know, I don’t know shit about your boyfriend. Or, umm, you. But let me ask you this—do you want to be with a person who makes you feel like this?’
‘Maybe it’s not his fault! Maybe he got into an accident. Or lost his phone. These things happen, you know? You can’t just assume it’s him,’ Maahi said heatedly.
‘Whatever you say,’ Gunjan said and zipped up her lips with her fingers. She sat back on her bed with her laptop and eventually plugged in her headphones. Maahi watched her. No matter how much the idea revolted her, what Gunjan said refused to leave her head. Did she want to be in situations like this all the time? How many more of these could she take before her knees buckled? She felt alone. That was the emotion that overpowered all the others she was feeling at the moment.
Deserted.
He was there. He was always there, but somehow, never there at all. She felt as if she was the only one who cared about their relationship and killed herself trying to work on it, when he couldn’t be less bothered. The more she thought about it, incidents popped into her head, and added to her anger. He kept telling her he wanted the relationship, even needed it, but he never really did anything to fix it, or even sustain it.
She needed to tell him that. Maahi needed to tell Kishan that she needed his help, that he needed to work on their relationship with her. If he wanted to be with her, he needed to step up. He needed to treat her the way she deserved, to be respected, not taken for granted—the way she treated him. He couldn’t get away with being careless and self-absorbed all the time—that was an excuse Maahi was tired of. She was tired of making excuses for him. He couldn’t just go around doing things like discussing their private lives with his ex and expect her to be fine with it.
Kishan had done things like that before. Stupid things, for which he later apologized, accepting that he was ‘such an asshole’ and promising her that he would ‘try to be better’ for her. Requesting her to not leave him too easily.
Her anger simmered beneath the surface, and when he finally texted her—‘Oh fuck. I fell asleep. Coming over now’—she came dangerously close to hating him. He didn’t even realize what time it was. Coming to her hostel at 1.30 a.m., when her roommate was there too, after being MIA for six hours … Either he didn’t realize how difficult and inconvenient it would be for her to sneak him in, or he didn’t care, he just assumed that she would do it for him, the same way she had been doing everything for him, never once putting herself first.
Maahi felt betrayed, short changed, as if he was breaking an unspoken promise. Somewhere in the back of her heart, she always knew that he wouldn’t do for her even half of the things she did for him, but she never let that thought grow. She reasoned that he was different from her. His ways of expressing love were different and she had to accept that as a part of him. It was when she thought about how little he accepted her personality that her anger rose.
It was as if he had set standards for her—standards she could never match. It was never enough, no matter how hard she tried. Over the course of their relationship, she felt like she’d lost all her self-respect. His opinion, his wishes, his decisions—they all came before her. But that was going to change. Maahi was partially glad he was coming over. She had to tell him how she felt; she couldn’t bear to keep it with herself any longer.
When he finally arrived, half an hour later, Maahi sneaked him in. He gestured towards Gunjan and raised an eyebrow at Maahi.
‘What? She lives here.’ Maahi was annoyed. Her anger had reached tipping point and she struggled to keep it in check.
‘Umm, guys?’ Gunjan said.
‘Do you mind—’ Kishan began but Maahi cut him off.
‘We can’t ask her to give us privacy in the middle of the night. She lives here. Where do you expect her to go?’ Maahi asked. ‘It’s not her fault you chose to be so careless.’
Kishan stared at her for a moment, then muttered, ‘Fine.’ He sat down at the edge of her bed. Maahi remained standing in front of him. Gunjan’s eyes were glued to her laptop screen and her earphones were plugged in, but Maahi wasn’t sure she wasn’t listening.
‘So, talk,’ Maahi said.
Kishan didn’t respond. He simply looked at his hands clasped together as he sat with his elbows resting on his thighs.
‘Okay then, don’t talk. I’ll talk.’ Maahi gulped, her throat dry. ‘I am the closest person to you, but you can’t talk to me about anything, even about us. You find it easier to talk to some random third person about it. What’s that about?’
He sat there like a statue.
‘I tell you everything. I share everything with you, but you say you feel like you can’t tell me anything? Why is that? What are you so afraid of? I have been working on this relationship from day one. Even when you have treated me like a child, I have always been the grown-up in this relationship and I’m sick of it. I’m tired of working on it, I can’t do it alone anymore. You have to take some responsibility.’ Maahi paused to take a breath, and continued, ‘You know what I think? I’m sorry for saying this and I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings, but it’s truly how I feel. I think you are a coddled child who was never held accountable for anything in his life and that’s why you can afford to be careless—because you’ve had everything easy, served to you on a silver platter. You’ve never had to work for anything, fight for anything. Well, I have been fighting for this, us, for two years now. And I can’t do this alone anymore, Kishan. I just can’t. I need your help. Do you want this relationship or not?’
Tears escaped Maahi’s eyes, and she wiped them away angrily. As she gasped for air, she could feel Gunjan’s gaze on her back. She felt her chest burning, and her face and her whole body. She didn’t take her eyes off of Kishan, who didn’t take his off his hands. He didn’t even move. He sat there, not responding to what she said in any way, through words or action. And as Maahi studied him, it dawned upon her.
‘Answer me.’ An unknown force was pulling her down, not just her legs, but her whole body. She found it difficult to stand. She knelt down in front of him, looking up at his face. ‘Kishan, say something.’
He continued hiding from her gaze.
‘Do you want this relationship or not?’ Maahi repeated, her voice barely held together, every word disjointed from the other. Her hands came together at her temples, rubbing them, trying to make sense of the situation.
Kishan looked at her. He met her eyes, his own glazed and hollow.
‘Do you want this relationship, Kishan?’ Maahi asked again. She couldn’t look away from his eyes, those empty black shells, devoid of all emotion. Dead. She erupted. ‘Fucking say something dammit!’
Kishan’s nose curled
up as he took big breaths.
It was the only sign of life in him that Maahi could see. Her body suddenly turned cold. She sat on her knees in front of him, their faces inches from each other. She had never felt further away from him. Her eyes pleaded his, her voice low when she spoke next. ‘Just speak. Anything … anything that would keep us together. Just say you love me…’
Maahi saw his eyes fill up. His lips remained pursed.
‘ANYTHING!’
Later, after Kishan left without saying a word to her and Maahi found herself on the floor, with her face hidden inside a pillow to muffle her cries, their whole relationship flashed before her, piece by piece, digging harder on her wounds. She didn’t notice Gunjan’s hand on her back, her voice telling her how proud she was of her for speaking her heart out without fear. All Maahi could see was Kishan’s hunched frame, sitting at the edge of her bed, his dead eyes looking at her. All Maahi could hear was silence.
Part Two
5
The smell of incense woke Maahi up. She sneezed once, and then again, before she got up and closed the door of her room. She hated when the maid forgot to close the door after cleaning her room in the morning. How hard was it to remember? Open the door, clean the room, close the door—that’s all there was to it. What a great start to the day.
Maahi checked the time on her phone. 10.43 a.m. She was surprised her mother hadn’t woken her up. Usually by this time, she would’ve stuck her head through her door a few times and yelled at her to get up. Maybe she had left for work without waking her up, which was something Maahi felt grateful for. She didn’t get a lot of sleep the previous night, having stayed up late on her phone, scrolling through Kishan’s Facebook profile—at least that’s where she’d started. Hours later she’d found herself staring at Kishan’s friend’s sister’s girlfriend’s page, with no idea as to how she landed there.