Meet Me in the Middle

Chapter 14

August 2015

"You're very maternal!" Anuj whispers into the dark, petting the horse.

"I don't touch babies. You know that. I'm quite unlucky."

"That's not true. You have endless love to give."

"Yeah right."

He holds my wrist and forces me to look up. "Aish, I mean it."

"What?"

"Okay I'm gonna say something to you and then we're gonna pretend I never said this okay?"

"Okay..?"

"Aish, someday, someone is going to love you, heart and soul. Not just on the good days, but equally on hard days too. Who will love you, like you love others. They will knock down these high walls you've built around yourself. And they're going to look at you, with that light in their eyes and it's just going to click. You'll realise that everything was building up to that moment. And this is the person who you're supposed to come home to, for the rest of your life. There won't be a gentle breeze, or rain or some shit. It's like a puzzle that will suddenly click into place. They will be you, more than you are yourself. And he, she or they won't be able to fix your problems, but they'll be there for you. And that will be the only thing that matters. After everything, you deserve to be loved, Aish. You deserve that."

The impulse to make a snarky comment is strong. But what actually comes out of my mouth is, "Despite everything?"

He looks at me with so much conviction in his eyes and his voice is really sincere as he replies, "No Aish, because of everything."

I clear my throat and look away and say after a while, "I like that you said 'he, she or they'. "

He huffs, "Of course, I'm not an ignorant moron."

*******

15 September 2018

I look towards the blackboard as Dev continues to scrawl, "Happy Engineer's Day" with multi coloured chalks. Puri (the other Ayesha) stands beside him with chalks in her right hand and duster in her left. Simran sidles up to them and says something and they erupt into laughter. I try to ignore the pure loneliness it makes me feel. There are more than fifty people in this room, all from Aeronautical department. Everyone is gathered here to celebrate and participate in the activities that our Super seniors have planned. My phone vibrates with a text.

Sicko to me:

I don't think you remember. It was the day you were sick and me and Tiwari came to see you.

To Sicko:

Well, I remember that day.

Sicko to me :

Okay so... We were descending the stairs, right? And you just had the needle removed from your hand. And I remember that you swayed on the spot. And I immediately tried to get a hold of you. I moved to grab you, stop you from tripping. But Tiwari moved in immediately and he sort of, stared at me. You know, one of those, "back off" stares! And I felt bad for a minute before I realised that there was nothing to feel bad about! I was genuinely worried about you! And you would fall and I didn't want that! But the way he looked at me, it felt so wrong. And I realised that he does that a lot. Make you feel bad for things that aren't, just because they don't align with his wishes.

As much as I'm down to discuss these things, I'm simply not in the mood for that today. I woke up, deciding that I will try to be happy. Also, there was the treasure hunt and quiz that I had signed up for. And despite everything, I did want to win those. I felt excited in a way I hadn't in a long time.