Our Impossible Love

by Durjoy Datta

  After about another half an hour of dozing off and vomiting, I heard the door click open.

  ‘Shit!’ said Namrata and ran to my side. ‘Are you okay?’

  I nodded. So I was at Namrata’s place. It looked a little different, a little richer. She helped me up, grabbed me from behind, walked me towards the bed and sat me down. Norbu watched silently, unsure of how he could help.

  ‘You drank a little too much,’ said Norbu.

  ‘Please don’t talk. My head hurts.’

  Norbu and Namrata brought me soup and juice, nursed me to health for the next hour and I felt a little better. No one talked for while. I liked the silence.

  They told me we were at Vibhor’s house. They were surprised I didn’t remember anything.

  I wanted to sleep a little but every time I closed my eyes, the world spun and I would start feeling nauseous again. Norbu charged my phone and I called my mother and told her I was fine, just a little tired, nothing to worry about. She told me she was worried sick because I hadn’t called after I reached Vibhor’s house. ‘Namrata called me to say you had fallen asleep and that she was with you,’ she said. Sarthak had gone back home since he had an assignment to complete and submit the next day.

  A little later, the door flung open and Vibhor walked in. ‘There you are,’ he said. He walked to up to where I sat, took my face in his hands and kissed my cheek. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said. I flinched a little. ‘Now, all of you, come down. My mother has made breakfast and she’s waiting downstairs.’

  ‘How did we get here?’ I asked.

  ‘You seriously don’t remember?’ asked Norbu. ‘We drove here from the party? Played Truth or Dare? You passed out?’

  I shrugged. Vibhor laughed. ‘You seriously don’t? Man, now that’s a blackout. Now come down, everyone is waiting.’

  ‘I need to take a shower,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, then. The towels are on the racks,’ said Vibhor, wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on my lips. They felt raw and chapped.

  I stood beneath the shower for quite some time, trying to wash away the alcohol and the cigarette smell from my body. I felt a little different. My body ached and there’s was a little bruise on my inner thigh. I felt a little burning sensation in my vagina but I didn’t think too much about it. Too much alcohol, I thought and tried smiling it away.

  I washed my face in the mirror. I found my handbag lying upturned on the bed, fixed my hair and my face quickly and walked out smiling and pretending my body was not broken into pieces. Vibhor welcomed me at the table and made me sit right next to him. There were three other people apart from Namrata and Norbu who sat at the table with us, all of whom were at the party last night, and they smiled at me and wished me good morning.

  ‘I hope all of you had a good night’s sleep,’ said a voice from behind me. ‘Did you sleep well?’ I turned to see Vibhor’s mother addressing the question directly to me. ‘They told me you vomited a little.’

  She had a kind face and she touched my face in a way she wouldn’t touch any other girl’s face on the table. It was clear she knew about Vibhor and me.

  She addressed me and then the rest, ‘I hope all of you like aloo puri.’

  Then, she instructed the maid to ask us if we needed milk or juice or tea. Just then, a man appeared at the door in front of us, dressed in an expensive-looking suit, threw us a cursory look, walked right past us, then sat on the sofa in the living room and opened the newspaper. Vibhor’s mother brought his briefcase and his cell phone, and he left the house soon after.

  The food was served and everyone ate quietly, battling their own hangovers.

  ‘Quite some night, haan,’ said Vibhor as he leaned on to me. He shoved his phone into my face as he scrolled down pictures from Instagram.

  ‘When were these clicked?’

  ‘You don’t remember? It was so much fun. You were a riot,’ he said and showed me more pictures. They were all clicked at his house. I was told the party moved from the club to his house where we drank some more. ‘We played Truth or Dare and you killed it. Of course, I just wanted to kiss you more and hence we played it.’ He winked.

  The others who were listening in giggled. I had no memory of any of this so I took the phone and swiped through the rest of the pictures. In most of them, I was clinging on to Vibhor for dear life. There were a few pictures in which my tongue was buried deep inside his mouth. I cringed. It wasn’t how I had imagined my kisses would look like.

  ‘So I passed out?’ I asked, pointing to the last few pictures. The others were still drinking, posing, while I seemed to be sleeping on the couch, mouth open, drooling all over my dress.

  ‘You were shit-housed!’ said a boy at the table. I nodded, embarrassed. The others giggled some more.

  ‘Now, stop embarrassing her,’ ordered Vibhor. He put his arm around me and kissed me thrice on my cheek.

  I finished my breakfast, bathing in embarrassment and left to wash my hands and the shame away. You shouldn’t have got so drunk, I told myself.

  ‘So? How was it?’ A voice said from behind. I turned to see Namrata and a girl I didn’t recognize stare at me.

  ‘How was what?’

  ‘Oh c’mon! We know!’ they said.

  ‘You beat me to it! So stop acting and tell me everything,’ said Namrata.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Fine,’ the other girl said. ‘I will go if I’m the problem. I will ask Vibhor.’ The girl washed her hands and left.

  ‘What was she talking about?’

  ‘Oh, shut up and tell us. Vibhor has already told us!’ She held my hand. Her face had lit up like Christmas. ‘You did it last night, right? Lost your virginity? How was it?’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t remember, Namrata.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. How can you forget that?’ she asked.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Stop acting, now.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘If you don’t want to tell, it’s fine. I just thought we weren’t hiding anything from each other.’

  I stood there trying to recall the last night. I had no memory of leaving the club, or coming to Vibhor’s house, or playing Truth or Dare, no memory of posing for those pictures or kissing him, or having sex with him . . .

  ‘But I had passed out, Namrata,’ I said. ‘You saw the pictures.’

  ‘Yes, you had and Vibhor put you to bed. But you must have woken up and felt horny?’ said Namrata, winking and nudging me.

  ‘I didn’t wake up!’

  ‘Maybe you did.’

  The tears came and so did the shame.

  ‘Nothing happened, Namrata.’

  ‘Then why is he saying that it did.’

  ‘I don’t know why!’

  I ran to the stall and locked myself in. I buried my head in my knees and cried while Namrata stood outside and kept calling out my name.

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Are you okay? Are you okay, Aisha?’ she said. ‘Talk to me. Talk to me.’ She kept knocking at the door. I kept hitting my head against my knees hoping it would all come back to me.

  ‘What . . . did he tell people?’

  ‘Ummm . . . that you guys did it,’ said Namrata.

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Stop crying? Listen to me?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You were wearing your T-shirt inside out today.’

  ‘But I didn’t take it off—’

  No. No. No.

  And then I remembered. When I woke up this morning, my pants were bunched up around my ankles and my T-shirt was lying upturned near the bedpost.

  ‘Aisha? Did you take off your T-shirt yourself?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Did you?’

  I mustered up the courage to s
ay the words, ‘I have been raped, Namrata. I have been raped by my boyfriend.’

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘. . .’

  32

  Danish Roy

  The meeting with the principal was brief. He wished me luck and hoped I could stay for a little bit longer. The board exams were nearing and the students could really use some help, he told me. It felt good to be wanted. I told him it was a great experience and he could still send students to me if they needed help though I knew he would hire the next person available.

  Back in the room, I dreaded seeing Aisha again. The first two students came to me worrying about their class ten results. They cried, and I told them stories about people who had made it without excelling in stupid standardized tests, and they stopped crying and talked about issuing the biographies of those people. I offered to talk to their parents and they took down my number.

  Once calm, one of them updated me on the latest rumours. Usually I would ask them to shut up but today they talked about how the entire school was abuzz with Aisha and Vibhor totally doing it in his house.

  ‘Are you sure about it?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. Everyone knows that,’ said the kid brightly.

  When he talked about the rumour, it felt like someone had ripped out my heart with a butter knife. On a scale of ten, if the hurt from her falling in love with Vibhor was a ten, her sleeping with him, right now, was Taylor Swift. I felt petty and small for thinking the way I did and forced myself to be happy for her. Easier said than done.

  That day I decided to eat my lunch at the cafeteria instead and hoped to bump into Vibhor and Aisha. The heart gets what the heart wants. If it wanted more pain who was I to deny it that?

  The cafeteria fell silent for a few brief seconds as I took a seat at the corner table. I pretended to read a book on my Kindle while I stole glances at the table Aisha and Vibhor sat on. Namrata and Norbu were there too, and they were laughing all too loudly, and so was Aisha. She caught me staring a few times and walked up to me, smiling.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Nice party that day. I wanted to stay—’

  ‘Why did you leave early?’ she asked. Before I could answer she said, ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  She wasn’t smiling any more. Why was she angry with me? I wasn’t the one who was putting up snuggly Instagram pictures.

  ‘I’m sure you had fun,’ I said in a tone befitting a friend, and not a jealous boyfriend.

  She shrugged as if she didn’t. Who was she kidding? Of course she had fun.

  ‘You shouldn’t have left,’ she said again.

  Her eyes were on me but were some place else.

  ‘Maybe I will stay for longer the next time and play Truth or Dare with you guys. That seemed like fun.’

  ‘Who told you about that?’

  ‘I saw the pictures. Everyone has seen the pictures,’ I snapped.

  ‘Glad you have,’ she said dryly. ‘I don’t need you any more.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘What’s this about, Aisha?’

  ‘I have talked to the principal, Danish. He said I was well enough to stop going to your sessions.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘How does it matter? You’re leaving the school anyway. I thought you would tell me before anyone else,’ she said.

  ‘I would have told you today.’

  ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nothing you said matters.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I was wrong. What you told me, taught me? Everything was wrong,’ she said, her voice steeling up. ‘I was foolish to listen to you. You encouraged me and look what happened.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ I stood up and reached out but she jerked back.

  ‘STAY. AWAY.’ she shouted. A few students looked at us. She lowered her voice and said, ‘What did you tell me? To be my own person? To do what I want to do? Experience everything? That’s not what a girl does.’

  ‘Of course that’s what a girl—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Danish.’

  ‘Excuse—’

  ‘You were wrong. I should have never listened to you. Who are you after all? A failed psych major. You know nothing about anything.’

  ‘Can you just tell me what happened?’

  ‘Life happened, Danish.’

  She bolted and left the canteen.

  33

  Aisha Paul

  I was sitting in a bathroom stall crying for what I believed was a couple of hours because I heard the bell ring. I had just shouted at Danish in the canteen for no apparent reason, for something that wasn’t even true, something that I was overthinking and wasn’t much of a big deal.

  But if all of it were true, why did I want to slit my wrists and die?

  I woke up today morning feeling the simultaneous need to shower, vomit, and to stay in my bed and never get out. I told my mother I was sick and would not go to school but of course she insisted that I go and got my breakfast to bed. Since the last two days I hadn’t been able to keep food down. My body rejected everything. I threw the paranthas out of the window as soon as my mother left the room. For the longest I thought it was a side effect of the iPill Namrata had made me swallow the day after but it wasn’t. Why did my mother let me go to that party? Why? I should have just stayed home and nothing would have happened.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get ready?’ asked Sarthak when he saw me in bed this morning. ‘You will miss the bus.’ None of this would have happened had Sarthak not planned the party. ‘And why aren’t you picking up Vibhor’s calls? He called me twice today. He told me to tell you he misses you.’

  Why was Sarthak still talking? Why was he talking? Why did he have to leave for home that night? How was his assignment more important than me?

  ‘Call him, okay?’

  The mention of Vibhor’s name made me gag. I got up, washed and scrubbed myself till my skin turned red and burned. The mirror fogged up and I was glad not to see myself in the mirror.

  I dodged the glances of my curious school mates who by now had heard of me losing my virginity to Vibhor on my birthday, reached my class, and settled at the last seat. Yes, I lost my virginity. I didn’t share it. I didn’t experience it. I lost it. It was snatched away from me.

  Namrata entered the class a little after me with Norbu walking close by. My eyes met Norbu’s and he looked away, probably in shame. Yesterday, he had texted me to enquire if I was fine and I knew it was a courtesy text. I didn’t blame him. What was he to do? He probably didn’t believe me anyway. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have known what to say or how to behave.

  Namrata came and sat next to me. Other boys in the class looked at me and smirked, almost as if me having had sex with one boy meant they had a shot too. Maybe they did? What stops them from having sex with me right now? Vibhor never asked. It wouldn’t be any different. I felt their eyes on my skin like little crawling spiders. I could barely keep from crying.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Namrata. I shook my head. ‘Do you remember anything?’ I shook my head. ‘We all drank from the same bottle. I’m sure there was no sedative. Are you sure something happened?’ I nodded and showed her the text Vibhor sent me.

  VIBHOR: Last night was great, we should do it again sometime. You took an iPill no?

  My stomach retched. ‘Are you sure you didn’t want to do it?’ asked Namrata. ‘You really liked him, Aisha. And you were kissing him all the time.’ I had nothing to say. ‘Are you sure you’re not overthinking this? Are you sure it’s a big deal? You don’t even remember it. Can’t you try to forget it?’ asked Namrata. She rubbed my hands trying to calm me down. ‘Can’t you get past it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was your boyfriend. And he really likes you. Doesn’t that matter? He still dotes on you.’

  ‘But I didn’t want him to do it—’

  ‘But it had to happen, didn’t it? Some day or the other?’ asked N
amrata. ‘Are you sure you’re not saying this because you don’t want people to think you willingly had sex with him?’

  ‘What—’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘What are you saying, Namrata? Please tell me, what the hell are you saying?’

  ‘I am just—’

  That was it.

  I ran from the classroom, through the corridors, bumped and crashed into people, away from her and from everyone else, and didn’t stop till I reached the roof of my school building. I walked towards the edge of the roof and looked down; my head spun. I knew I wouldn’t jump. I slumped on the ground and the tears came all at once.

  My best friend was supporting Vibhor, asking me to get past it, telling me that it had to happen some day. He had raped me. Hadn’t he? Did he not? Was she right? Could it be even called rape? It had to happen some day? He likes me? He was my boyfriend? He still doted on me? Namrata was an intelligent woman, way more intelligent than I am, so could it be that she was right? Maybe the decision was his to take? But why did I feel powerless? Betrayed? Or this was how it was supposed to be? My phone rang. Vibhor calling. I switched it off. I stared at the phone, scared, as if he wielded the power to hurt me even through the phone.

  ‘There you are!’

  I turned. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I watched Vibhor walk towards me, smiling. I wanted to tell him to walk away from me but lost my voice. He came near, and with one swoop, he took me in his arms and nuzzled his nose against my neck and told me I smelled great.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, putting me down. ‘I got something for you.’ He rummaged through his pockets, took out a few old parking receipts and threw them away, and then found a little Swarovski pendant. ‘This is for you. To celebrate you know . . . that.’

  We were alone. Was this why he was there? I felt like running. I felt like jumping off the terrace. Would he try doing it again? He held me tighter. Words dried in my throat and I felt my body go limp. What if I screamed? What would I tell people? He came to my room when I was asleep and had sex with me without my consent? He raped me. Who would believe that? I was the school slut for everyone anyway. And those Instagram pictures? The pictures at the party? I was the loose cannon and Vibhor was the nice boyfriend who had gifted me things.