Marry Me

Chapter -9 FRUSTRATIONS

The condo instantly feels too quiet, too lonely. It's not because of him, it's because you are alone at this plaintive place, I convince myself.

I end up, pathetically trying to watch the share market news for half an hour. When I feel like I will go crazy with the effort to not think about him, I groan and switch it to Netflix, putting on Money Heist.

It doesn't work.

I get up from the lounge, switch off the TV, bring my first draft of the script from the bedroom, throw the pillow he was holding in his lap, pick it up again, cursing myself I put the laptop on it and force myself to edit the draft.

It's, afternoon when I am in the middle of my script and my mind decides to not cooperate anymore. I almost bite myself due to frustration, so I shift my notes and pages away to the coffee table and just lie on the chaise lounge staring at the ceiling. The anxiety starts to creep in, all the thoughts, all the doubts banging on my head at once. By the time my phone pings on the coffee table, I have stifled through thousand different scenarios of what is happening with my life.

Thankfully it's a text from my dad, "We are going to Australia v/s India finals right? You're not bailing out on me?"

I smile and text him back. "No, we are going."

He texts me back instantly "I am making you your favourite breakfast, come to home on Sunday before the match please? You can bring Kiyansh with you."

I close my eyes and deflate, it's been a month since I have been making excuses to not go home, I will have to deal with my mom and Kiyansh on the same day. "Okay." I text him, and rub my head with so much force that a nails dugs in my forehead. "Oww" I scowl at myself.

"Love you kiddo" he responds.

"Love you Dad." I text him back and throw the phone away from me, trying to port to another dimension by denting my head on the pillow world.

***

It's Saturday evening and I am standing in front of the mirror in a Reiss off white button down jump suit, contemplating the fall of my own existence. It's in, I can't breathe and I have sweaty neck sense, when my phone rings, and the caller ID says Ayan.

I can't do this.

I ruminate to let it go to voicemail, but then I think about the time that I asked Ayan to come and he did in fifteen minutes. I can't do this to him, you are over thinking.

By the time I get down fifteen minutes later I have wiped up my face and neck three times and I am still sweating.

I inhale and exhale several times before heading towards the main gate.

"Going somewhere with your best friend madamji?" Ramakrishna, slinks out his head from the small window of his security room smiling at me.

My gut plunges, "No Ramakrishna, another friend."

"Oh Okay madamji. Have fun." He adjusts his head then raises his thumb at me.

I smile weakly and slide out from the main gate towards the Black Sedan waiting at the curb. "Thank you Ramkrishna."

"And madamji!!" Ramkrishna yells from behind me.

I turn my head and stop midway to find him jogging towards me in his black uniform. He huffs a breath when he reaches me. "Say thank you to Kiyansh sir madamji." He says, his eyes twinkling.

"For what!?" I ask my brows furrowed.

"Oh he didn't tell you?" he asks excitedly, his round cheeks flush with happiness. "What a kind man he is. Tuesday, when he came in the morning, I told him you went to running. So he stopped by my office and asked about my wife and my village Khaga and also he told me you fed him the Sandesh, which he really liked. I told him about my younger sister for whom we were finding a husband, he asked me why we were marrying her at such young age. When I told him.. " his eyes casts a little bit down, "When I told him that we couldn't afford her college fees, he said that his foundation will fund her for education and all her living expenses till she gets a job. Also," the gleam on Ramkrishna's face was so precious when he took out a card from his pocket and showed it to me, one could paint all the happiness of world on his face right now, "he gave me his card madamji, he told me he would open a school in the nearby villages for girls in English medium and he would provide them scholarship for college in cities."

And just like that, my heart feels too much. My breath stops and I burst, I burst out in so pathetic tears that I am sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of a road.

I don't even realise when Ayan comes out of the car and he is holding my face in his hands. He is saying something I can't even decipher, it's all a blur and I just know that I want to blow my nose and Kiyansh isn't here to offer me his handkerchief, it goes to the single text he sent me a day ago, 'Please tell me if you decide to be with him.'

I am enfolded in a hug somehow and it's after a long time that I stop and realise that I made myself a mess in front of Ayan and Ramkrishna. Oh my god, what they must be thinking about me?

"Hey..." the first words that enters my brain in a haze is Ayan's concerned voice. "Take deep breaths, long deep breaths." I listen to him and breathe and breathe again. Inhaling in, exhaling out.

"Good, just like that."

I nod and follow his instructions. "I... I feel okay now." I say after a long time, exhaling a long breath, I turn towards baffled looking Ramkrishna. "I am so sorry, I..."

"Hey, hey Shanvi it's okay," Ayan makes me look into his eyes, "let's find you a place to sit first." He motions towards shocked Ramkrishna.

A car comes honking down the road, flashing it's light. Ramkrishna flusters and waves us towards his guard room. Ayan gently takes my arm and guides me to the room. It's a box like room with only one source of light a small LED, two chairs and one brown table with a bottle, a penholder, some papers and a metal lunchbox on top of it. It feels so lonely and dim that my mind goes back to the condo upstairs, about how similar they are in feeling, the only difference being it's size and light.

Ayan drags one of the chair and makes me sit on it, he bends down on his knees, his hands on my knees, he looks straight in my eyes, "Are you okay?"

"I... I am so sorry, I didn't mean to." I pant.

"Shanvi," he puts his hand on top of mine. "You were having a panic attack, you couldn't breathe, it's not something you have to be sorry about. Now answer me, are you okay?"

I nod my head, tears coming to my eyes again, "Thank you, I am okay. Thank you so much."

I turn my head towards Ramkrishna, who presses the button to close the main gate after the car passes into the buildings, and turns towards us, his face anxious. "Madamji, I am so sorry if I said something that upset you."

"No," Oh god, how do I explain this. "No Ramkrishna, I am so happy about your sister and all the villages, you did not upset me, believe me, you only made me happy."

He moves forward, his brow furrowed, "Did sir did or say something to you?" his eyes turn hard, "Madamji, I would decline all his help if you say a word."

"No, no." I smile gratefully. "He didn't do anything, let him help you, he will, he will do it very nicely, he is perfect at his work."

"Who is it that we are talking about, may I ask?" Ayan interrupts.

"Madamji's best friend, Kiyansh sir."

"Oh!" Ayan's mouth turns into an O. He looks at me as if sizing something. Then his eyes darken, "Seriously Shanvi, did he do something? That day.."

"Which day?" Ramkrishna's ears stand tall in attention.

"No, NO!" I interrupt before it turns into something it's not. "You guys are taking it all wrong."I look at Ayan bending down on his knees, looking so concerned, I think about the both times he came and handled me without complaining once, and at that moment I decide I can't lie to him.