Ugly Woman Handsome Man

Too Long To Shorten

Present

“You gonna answer me anytime soon?”

His amused voice should have made me at ease but his question still made me feel like a rug was pulled from under my feet. Difficult to imagine when you are pregnant but there you go.

I just stared at him like a child who had been grabbed by a stranger in a crowd. His face fell and he rose from his seat to kneel before me. I gulped, reminded of unpleasant memories. A shadow crossed his face. Clearly he remembered them too.

“Come back with me.”

I was sure my eyes were hanging out of my head.

“What?” I whispered around my dry throat. I winced from the raw pain.

“Be my wife, Jeni. Forgive me for what I-”

If he said anything after that, I did not hear, for my world only had me, my child and the never ending darkness.

*

Then

 “What did you talk with him?”

It was lunch break and I had finally met with Lallu.

I could not meet her the entire morning for I was in Arts stream and she was in Commerce. Apparently Arts is costly and dad would never have sent me if mom had not lied that it was Lallu who was joining. He was in for a shock when we give our report cards at home. So anyway, most of our classes did not match. In my class, there were very less women. I did not know why until I heard that this college had high standards for Arts.

There had been only fifteen students in all and of them only three were women, including me. As expected, I had bobbed over to them and settled in the bench beside them. They had looked at me like I had electrocuted them.

“Sorry,” I tried to move away.

“Wait!”

It was the shorter girl. She was too curvy, her chest almost a rack. “We are sorry. We did not mean to scare you off.”

I blinked.

“Sit down,” said the other girl who was almost as thin as I was.

“What’s your name? We just were shocked that someone new joined this class.”

“I was ill,” I muttered, eyes on the desk. They were both very pretty.

“What’s your name,” asked the booby girl, “I am Lakshana.”

“You have a pretty name,” I gushed genuinely, “I am Janani.”

“I am Mekha. You have awesome hair.”

I dropped the pen I was placing on my desk. I stared at them with wide eyes before realizing what I was doing and quickly looked away.

“What is the matter?” asked Lakshana, sounding concerned.

I floundered with my pen but I could not answer her. An awkward silence filled the place until we heard someone rap a wooden scale on the desk.

“Good morning, class.”

“Good morning, sir,” we sang back. I studiously avoided the side glances the girls were giving me. I hoped they would not ignore me now.

“Finished your project?” he proceeded. I was gobsmacked. This entire week it had not struck me to ask Lallu the class details.

“Sir,” I stood up, shivering to my toes, “I only joined today. I have no idea-”

“Ah! Janani, right? This is just a group project. Your team mates agreed to doing your work too. It is alright. Settle down.”