Shikwe

Chapter 6

Present

My sister stares at me with such disappointment, I wish to dig a hole and jump into it. Since I've returned to India, I've been living with her, in her house. She lives alone and so it's better. I've been telling her how I met Reyansh from the start. My memories are hazy, I don't exactly remember everything but I think I get my point across nicely.

And even though I don't remember the little things, I haven't forgotten everything he did for me. Or a single word of how he proposed to me. I remember it all. My sister stabs her fork into a piece of mushroom in her pasta. I am pretty sure she wished for it to be my head.

"What happened next? You made him your 'friend', then what?"

God, she is crazy. I take a deep breath. "Then I absolutely ignored everything that happened and went back to work. He took care of me. And I mean special care. He tried to not let it show so I don't feel awkward but I noticed. And it somehow wasn't uncomfortable."

Her eyes soften. She seems to be on his team. Good for her. "What did he do?"

I shrug. "Small things. He got me coffee every morning. We had shared alot of elevator rides but now instead of standing in silence, he made conversation. He asked how I was, where did I study, how I came to stay in London. Anything other than my condition and I liked that. He didn't throw my disorder in my face everytime me met. He didn't change the way he looked at me, or talked to me, and that, for the first time in years made me genuinely happy.

I started liking him. I started dreaming. What would life be, if I wasn't sick. If I was perfectly fine. Would I be able to have a man like him? To marry him, have a family? I dreamt of it all, but then the morning came, the sun blazed in my face everyday, telling me how stupid it was to dream of such things. I wasn't normal, I couldn't be normal."

A hand covers mine. "We all think this. That we aren't worth it. That there is someone better out there for them. Someone who can give everything we can't." Her hollow eyes speak volumes. My sister has been through something. She doesn't share, doesn't tell us, but a broken relationship is as many shards piercing your skin as much as that of glass. I know. I've seen it myself.

I've walked on those shattered pieces of glass and I've seen my husband walk on those right beside me. I've bled on my own and I've made him bleed too.

"What happened, di? Why did you divorce jiju?" She shakes her head. "That isn't a story for today."

I let her be. She will tell me when she is ready. I am sure she would. "What then? What happened next?"

"Nothing. My life was miserable as it is, I didn't want to make someone else's too. I kept to myself. My responses short to every question he asked. I liked him and I needed to save myself from the heartbreak. Schizophrenia was enough for me, I did not need more issues.

He didn't like it. He confronted me one day. Asked me what is wrong. He always talked to me so calmly, with so much patience, it always grated on my nerves. It's hard to hurt people, but it's harder to hurt good people. I knew I would be a disappointment to him and I didn't want to be. So I lied.