Anbum Aranum Udaiththaayin

Unmai Tharunam

"Seri sapida va", she said as soon as she saw the tired look on Mullai's face.

"Illa ma. Late achunu erkanamey saptutean. Tireda iruku. Naan poi padukarean", and almost rushed to the room before her mom found something amiss with her.

As soon as she closed the door of her room, tears flowed freely down her cheeks. In past relationship with Jeeva she fell too fast for him. She developed feelings only to have her heart crushed when he did not feel the same way. She learned her lesson and ever since told herself not to get attached too soon. However, with Kathir it has been slow and steady and without her control she got invested into him.

All the words that she has been called after her divorce; being worthless, will always been alone, will not be loved by anyone – echoed in her mind. Another piece of her heart broke today.

Next day was hard, very hard. She woke up and felt like crap. That day just was a blur to her. She still waited for his phone call to say everything was a joke but that call never came. After that night, she stopped trying to contact him.

2 weeks later

It has been 2 weeks since she talked to Kathir, but it felt like a lifetime. She had got used to him that she was going through some sort of withdrawal. She felt completely silly about how she fell for him, while nothing was right with their relation from the beginning. She was not hungry nor did she sleep well. According to her mom, she was continuously zoned out and apparently having been paying much attention to anything either.

She has broken her head trying to figure out a reason about his sudden withdrawal. After analyzing all angles, she figured maybe his family was not ok being friends with her and he choose his family over her. She felt betrayed. When she looks at all of this realistically, there was no way that Kathir and she could ever work out.  Whatever thoughts she had of confessing everything to him, died in her head.

She tried everything to forget him, his voice, his smiling face but she failed. There was not a day she did not miss him. Every time she remembered her memories, the times they had spent together, her heart filled with an unfiltered amount of rage. There were times she felt depressed and did not even want to come out of her room. She had to drag herself to work every day.

One evening, she went to grocery shopping so that she could prolong the time before she returned home where she stayed alone, depressed in her room, when she heard some one call her.

"Anni!"

She spent last two weeks avoiding Kanna too but now it was happening. She never knew she would end up meeting him at this place. She must have the worst luck in the planet.

Kannan had noticed the distress in Kathir's face. When he tried asking him, he brushed it off without any explanation. He later decided to stay in Karaikudi and never come home all this week. Kanna initially thought it might be some lover's tiff and did not bother. However, after a week, he wanted to make sure it was not something serious and decided to meet Mullai. Seeing Mullai's face, he knew something was terribly wrong between the two and he had no clue what. Without knowing if Kathir proposed his heart to Mullai, he could not ask it directly with his Anni too.

"Anni, sema pasi. Engayavadhu sapida polama?", he started the conversation hoping he could soon drift to their topic.

"Enaku pasikala. Naan vetuku poi saptukarean", Mullai avoided hoping she could leave soon before he started asking questions.

"Seri ponga. Apo namba coffee shop poi konja neram pesitu irukalama? Kathir anne varudhanu kekarean", Kanna said picking the phone in his hand and noticed Mullai's panic look.