Letters to My Ex

by Nikita Singh

  I saw myself pull my hand away again, this time more forcefully, unable to hide my anger. I can’t think of a time I had been angrier at another person, or myself. It suddenly felt like a business transaction, all of it. I was disgusted. We were going through the motions, doing things we were supposed to do, like robots. Signing a contract to live together for the rest of our lives. I just couldn’t do it.

  When I pulled my hand away a second time, I did it more forcefully, with more finality. I looked you directly in the eye, and through the hot tears, whispered, ‘I can’t do this.’

  That was your first clue, and even then, you looked confused. We were on such different planets by then that even when I was breaking down in the middle of our engagement ceremony, in front of everyone, you had no idea what was going on.

  I felt the force of all of it together as I stumbled away. People calling out to me, all the questions, the steps that followed me. I was so angry and so, so disappointed with us, for letting our love come to this. With each step that I took away from that stage, it felt more and more like I was escaping a life sentence. If I was truly marrying the love of my life, I would imagine it would feel quite different from that. It should’ve been the happiest day of my life – getting engaged to marry you. Then why did walking away lift such a heavy weight off my shoulders? Why did I suddenly feel like I could breathe again?

  Leaving behind the million questions, murmurs and confused and angry faces, I grabbed my handbag and car keys. At that moment I felt lighter than I had in months. You followed me. You caught up with me just as I was about to walk out the door, and demanded an explanation.

  You know what hurt the most? The look in your eyes – it wasn’t sadness. It wasn’t even confusion. It was anger, plain and simple. What did you think was happening? That I was following a script, just for entertainment? How could you not know that it was killing me to walk away from you?

  You were angry with me as if I was an unreasonable child acting against your (or our families’) wishes. That first look you gave me was pure rage.

  ‘Where are you going?’ you demanded, grabbing my arm.

  ‘Away from all this.’ It wasn’t an explanation, and I owed you one, so I stopped and turned to face you. I looked up at you, and said, ‘You don’t love me anymore. We shouldn’t be together.’

  I didn’t need to say much more. All three of those sentences were true, and described in a nutshell exactly how I was feeling or what I was doing. And that was enough for you to understand, at least a little, why I was leaving.

  I saw your face change. I saw the anger leave, and you let out a troubled breath, opening your mouth to say something … but then closing it without letting any words escape. I could tell that your mind was racing, trying to find explanations, excuses, something. But you came up with nothing. You wanted me to stay; your grip on my arm established that. But you couldn’t think of a single reason why I should stay.

  You said zero words. I was leaving you, and you said nothing to stop me.

  Was that acceptance? Did you agree that you didn’t love me anymore, and that we shouldn’t be together and I should get away from all of that? If you didn’t agree, why didn’t you say something? Anything. I just needed you to tell me that I was wrong. That you did love me. That’s all I needed to know.

  I thought that I was too far gone, my foot literally out the door, but one word from you and I would’ve stopped. I would like to think that my decision was final and I wasn’t going to change my mind, but who am I kidding? It’s you; when it comes to you, I do unreasonable things. I would’ve stayed with you forever, if you’d asked me once.

  But you couldn’t find a single word to say to me. Not one word.

  You stood there and watched me get into the car, still wiping the stubborn tears off my face. I watched you watch me, in the rear-view mirror, and my heart fell heavy into my stomach. Standing there at the door, watching me leave, your arms at your sides, shoulders hunched in sadness, and the pain on your face…

  I will never forgive myself for causing that. I will try to forgive you for not saying a single word as I drove away.

  March

  From: Abhay Shukla

  Sent: 23/3/2017 4:40 PM

  To: Nidhi Sharma

  Subject: I need to say this

  Nidhi,

  Since you won’t take my phone calls or respond to my texts, this is the only way I can think of reaching you without you calling the police on me. I must say, it’s kind of crazy how quickly you went from not being able to imagine a life without me to this. You see me on the street and you immediately turn the other way, as if you never knew me.

  I know you’re angry, for many different reasons, and somehow, at the moment, all of it is directed exclusively towards me. That’s okay; it’s your prerogative. You’re allowed to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. So, if you don’t want to talk to me, or even see my face without cringing, that’s okay. You don’t have to. But I do need to get this off my chest, so I will leave this in your inbox and so you have the option to read it if/when you so please.

  We broke up. You broke us up. It was your decision to end things, I was not involved in any of the planning or decision-making and my wishes were definitely not considered in this decision that affected my entire life. But okay. If one person out of the two doesn’t want a relationship, it dies right then and there. I couldn’t force you to stay with me when you so clearly didn’t want to. I accepted that as you literally ran away and left me behind.

  But won’t you agree that since we are not together anymore, it’s okay for me to find someone else? Has the mourning period passed? Am I allowed to rebuild my life now? Or should I just go crawl into a hole and die? Is that what you’d like to see? Or do you just not care at all?

  Well, considering your reaction today when you saw me walking out of that store with Piya, you do care. Was it the fact that I didn’t look absolutely miserable, or that it was Piya I was with, or just that I am still alive that bothered you the most?

  I don’t owe you an explanation at all, but because I’m still human, and I still care about you (my feelings don’t switch off in a split second like yours, you see) I will tell you this – you can relax. There’s nothing going on between Piya and me. She got that job that Dad got her an interview for, so she wanted to meet up and thank me over coffee. Again, in the interest of honesty, I do think she likes me. But I don’t think it’s a big deal, and I’m sure it’s just a fleeting emotion. As far as my feelings towards her are concerned, there aren’t any.

  As much as I’d like to move on, I can’t feel anything about anyone, even if I tried. I don’t know if I ever will. When I try to imagine a time where I would be able to place all of my faith in another human being, and trust them with everything I have, I simply cannot see it happening again.

  I gave you everything I had, every piece of me was yours, but you didn’t want it. It seemed like you did, you know, when you told me a thousand times that you loved me, and wanted to build a life with me and couldn’t imagine living without me. When we fought everyone and everything that came in our way in order to be together, but then, it turned out that you didn’t actually want any of that.

  Anyway, I have thought about this for days and weeks and months at end and haven’t been able to find an answer. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting you to give me one. When you left, even as you were breaking my heart, I knew that there was a reason. I know that you didn’t just do it for no reason at all. And I knew that one day you would tell me why. It’s been three months now, and you spin on the spot and go the other way when you see me, so I’d be an idiot to expect any kind of honesty, or any words at all from you.

  Lastly, and I won’t take too much of your time with this, but I do need to tell you that I’m angry too. With you. I don’t fully understand what happened that day. I can think of a few reasons why you were unhappy with the way things were. However, even after having thought about this a lot, I can’t t
hink of something so big and unresolvable that would make you decide to immediately end everything. I know that things were stressful at home. They were stressful for me too. But I was dealing with it. I could see that at the other end of this would be us, together. All that mattered to me was that we would be with each other and everything would go where it was supposed to. But that was clearly not what mattered to you.

  I’m sorry if I’m being aggressive in this email. I understand that if I’m unhappy with the way I expressed something, I can easily edit it. But I won’t, in the interest of honesty. I’m not pleased with how I expressed some things in this letter, but I honestly feel this way, so I’m presenting you the unadulterated version of the truth.

  Also, I didn’t mean to sound this formal. But considering how I feel as if I don’t know you at all anymore, it’s quite fitting.

  I don’t know how to close this. I have no expectations from you.

  Hope you’re happy.

  Abhay

  *

  From: Nidhi Sharma

  Sent: 23/3/2017 5:33 PM

  To: Abhay Shukla

  Subject: RE: I need to say this

  I have no right to expect anything from you, I know that. After what I did, the last thing I can demand is that you follow my wishes. Or anything, actually. I can’t make any demands at all.

  It was good to hear from you. I know, I know. It was hardly a love letter, but I’m still glad you wrote to me, because I certainly didn’t have the courage to initiate this very important, long-overdue conversation. I still don’t know what to tell you, or how to begin this. There are so many things I have to say to you. And now that I am writing this, it’s hard to know where to begin.

  First things first, I owe you an apology for behaving the way I did when I saw you at the coffee shop today. And also for being too much of a coward to take your phone calls. That’s exactly what it is: I’m a coward. When I saw you walking out of the shop, I hadn’t expected to see you, and it happened so suddenly, I was taken aback. I know that’s no excuse for turning on my heels and running away, but it is the truth. In the months that we’ve been apart, I have imagined us crossing paths again in various different scenarios. Maybe at a mutual friend’s party somewhere, or somewhere randomly, like today. But I hadn’t expected to be taken so off guard when it actually happened.

  I would be lying if I tried to pretend that my reaction had nothing to do with the fact that you were with that girl. I don’t know her at all, but I’m sure she’s lovely. I believe you when you say there’s nothing going on between you two, and I can definitely believe that she likes you. I appreciate you telling me all this, but it’s not like you owe me an explanation. I don’t deserve anything from you.

  Of course, you are right in expecting an explanation from me. Only a monster would do what I did and give you no closure of any sort. I have been meaning to talk to you. And trust me, I have been trying to find a way to explain to you what happened and why. But every time I think about it (which is all the time) my thoughts keep going around in loops, circling over and over again till I lose track of the head or tail of it and everything stops making sense (not that there was a lot of sense to begin with).

  I guess what I’m trying to say is – I’ve been struggling to provide you an explanation, because I don’t have one. You were shocked and confused by someone else’s sudden change of mind. I was too. Only, it was my own mind that shocked and confused me. I don’t understand why I did what I did, except that deep down I honestly believed that something about us was broken irreparably, and I couldn’t fix it.

  I have nothing to tell you. The fact that this decision came from my mind didn’t allow me an inside scoop of the reasoning behind it. If anything, maybe you have a better idea than me; you were always able to read my mind, remember? You always knew what was going on, or how I felt about something even before I did. So, you tell me – what happened to us?

  I can’t believe what I’m doing, posing this question to you, when I’m the one who owes you the answer. But, Abhay, I have racked my brain – trying to make sense of this, to arrive at some sort of a closure – and found nothing. My head is foggy, my heart is sore, it hurts everywhere, all the time.

  I walk around not knowing where I’m going, and end up in places I don’t recognize. I’ve travelled to the ends of this city; wherever the metro would take me. Just to get away from home, and everyone I’ve disappointed, I walk aimlessly, not knowing what to do with myself and my time. It’s like I’m on autopilot (and not a very good one, considering that not once have I found myself somewhere I was pleased to be).

  And then, today, my autopilot took me to you, and I was jolted back to reality. After the initial shock of coming face to face with you. When my eyes met yours, and we stopped dead in our tracks. All my thoughts halted. The entire world came to a pause. It was just your eyes holding mine. There was no sound, no movement, no air. And then I was flooded with feelings all at once. I didn’t know what to do. Walk up to you and talk to you?

  What would we have talked about? What would you have said? What are you doing here? How have you been? Why did you run away and leave me? I had answers to none of those questions. So, I took the easy way out again. It wasn’t easy at all, actually, but compared to the alternative, it was sufferable.

  I hope you find at least some kind of relief in knowing about my suffering. You deserve the satisfaction. You deserve so much more. I wish I could give you everything, but I can’t even give you a simple answer.

  I’m sorry, Abhay. I really don’t have more answers for you. I wish I did, but this is all I have. I’m sorry that this is disappointing. People should expect disappointment from me at this point.

  N

  *

  From: Abhay Shukla

  Sent: 23/3/2017 6:07 PM

  To: Nidhi Sharma

  Subject: RE: I need to say this

  No, I derive no pleasure from knowing about your suffering. Don’t you know me at all? Who do you think I am? In the three months that we’ve been apart, yes, I have hated you on various occasions and hoped for a lot of things, but seeing you suffer like you say you are was never one of them.

  Yes, it is unfair of you to ask me to explain to you why you did what you did. This question has been eating me up inside for months. I too have imagined multiple scenarios where this would make sense. Nothing ever clicked.

  When I put my feelings aside, remove myself from the equation and inspect this situation, I still come up with nothing. I’m trying to believe you when you say that you know you have a valid reason, even though you don’t know what it is. From the years that I’ve known you, I trust you enough to know that you do have a reason.

  I also know that you loved me. And that you wouldn’t throw away everything we held so dear, for absolutely no reason. That just doesn’t make sense; there has to be a reason.

  If you ask me, I still believe that there wasn’t a reason big enough, a problem irreversible enough that we couldn’t have been together anymore. We’re both fairly reasonable humans; I believe we could’ve found a way. If both of us tried; but you didn’t want to.

  Going back to the big question, the only thing that I can think of that was big enough … is the one thing we decided never to speak of again. However, since we have already lost everything, I guess there’s nothing more to lose now.

  So … could the reason underlying this be that incident with Anamika? I might be way off on this, especially since it happened over a year ago, but it’s the only thing I can think of that was a line that was crossed, and is irreversible.

  I know that the damage caused by that break of trust was irreversible, but I thought that we controlled it as much as we could. I wanted to talk about it, and explain to you exactly what happened and that it didn’t mean anything or change how I feel about you, but you insisted we don’t talk about it, move on from it and never bring it up again.

  It’s the one thing we glazed over and never resolved. For weeks, ev
en months after the incident, there was a visible change in the way we were with each other. Something broke, and the crack has been visible ever since. Initially it saddened me, and I didn’t think we were ever going to go back to normal again, but then we did. At least I thought we did.

  Because we never talked about it, and because we are talking about it now, for the first time, I need to tell you something I thought about a lot during those days. Please know that I am not trying to justify my actions. I still take the entire blame for this. All I’m trying to do is explain it from where I stand…

  The way I see it, there are two types of cheating. There’s one where one person knowingly steps out of a committed relationship, lies, covers his tracks, plans his moves in order to continue lying. It’s like a lifestyle, a conscious decision to cheat. The other is a mistake. Nothing more.

  Reality is messy. It’s not as cut and dried, but if I can promise you one thing, it’s that the kiss between Anamika and me was a mistake. I didn’t plan it, I wasn’t attracted to her and acting on an impulse or anything. It was an office party, everyone was drinking, we stepped out to say bye to a couple of colleagues and she kissed me.

  I accept that I didn’t resist. That’s on me. I was surprised, and confused. I didn’t fully understand what was happening … but I didn’t resist.

  I take all of the blame for that. If I could go back and change things, I would. Without a second thought, I would do things very differently. It was the most terrible, unimaginably hurtful thing I have ever done to you, and for that I will never forgive myself. We were so in love. I couldn’t think about anything or anyone else, until all of a sudden, someone else was kissing me and I didn’t stop it. It threw me off too.

  Will you believe me, please, please will you believe me when I tell you it didn’t mean anything?