If you're here, enjoy.
* *
Nandini
A few finger snaps brought me out of my trance the next day, and I blinked rapidly to focus back on the man sitting in front of me.
"This is the third time I am finding you lost in your thoughts, and you were the one who insisted we hold a session today because you needed it." Aryamman looked at me pointedly.
I sighed, glancing at the wall clock. My hour was almost up, and I had requested my therapist to give me his time after his working hours got over, and he had.
"Nandini, what's going on?" He sighed, "This is unusual...even for you."
I gulped. "I and Manik are getting a divorce. Officially."
"Oh." Aryamman clicked his tongue, "I am sorry to hear that."
"No," I shook my head, "I am sorry to waste your time. Manik and I spent the day together yesterday for Mia, and it was a good one, and I...I let myself think of the past a little too much. When the lawyer called about the divorce papers, it was a slap from reality."
"This happened yesterday?"
I timidly nodded. "I couldn't sleep all night and that's why I asked you to see me today if you could. I.. thought I needed help processing everything, and I do, but... I don't think I'm ready to talk about it yet. I'm seriously sorry I wasted your time, Aryamman."
He looked at me for a moment too long, and then pulled a little smile to his lips, "It's okay... that you're not ready to talk about the divorce yet. I know it hurts."
"Like a bitch."
"At least you accepted that you might need help getting through it. That's progress." He nodded, "Whenever you're ready."
"Thank you," I mumbled, "And I'm sorry for the inconvenience again."
"You apologise a lot." Aryamman chuckled lightly, getting up with me. It was late in the evening, and it was time for him to pack up, so I did the least I could, waited for him till he locked doors. I had made him sit beyond his working hours after all, and then wasted his time.
Walking down from the building, another sweet surprise awaited me: it was raining.
"No umbrella?" Aryamman asked, probably noticing my horrified stare at the stormy weather.
"Nope." Shaking my head, I looked at him and his empty hands. "You don't have one either?"
"The weather app is a traitor." He mused, making me laugh. "I guess I'll just have to wait it out in the café."
I frowned. "Aren't you running late already?"
"No time is late when you have no one waiting for you at home, Ms. Murthy." There was amusement in his tone, but the sentence itself was sad. "I assume your daughter would be waiting for you?"
I shook my head. "Mia is at a sleepover. I just dropped her at her friend's place after work."
"Hm.." He buzzed, "Well, I couldn't comfort you as your therapist, perhaps I could do it as a friend?"
My eyebrows creased as I looked at him in confusion.
"For a girl so smart, you're awfully dense sometimes, Nandini," he chuckled. "I'm asking if you'd like to have dinner with me in the café next door."
"Ouch." I pretended to be hurt, "That's not how you treat a friend."
"My friendship includes a lot of sarcasm. And insults."
"Good for you that you have a pretty face, or else you'd have ended up lonely with that tongue of yours."
"At least you think I'm pretty." He grinned, and my laughter echoed in the silence between us along with thunder as the storm got intenser.
*
Manik
Every time I watched it rain, I remembered Nandini. I remembered the fifteen year old version of her who wanted to skip standing in the museum to go get wait in the thunderstorm at the risk of being deemed a mad woman who liked dancing in the rains, not the twenty-something year old lady who didn't even let a drop of water damp her, who was simply the ghost of the woman I fell in love with.
As thunder boomed and dark clouds filled the sky outside, I looked outside from my glass windows at a city that felt like was falling apart because of one simple storm.
I had been working for twelve hours straight to not think any more of the divorce papers lying on my desk, but I was tired now. And I was aware of the change in weather forecast that afternoon that predicted heavy rains and thunder all night, with a possibility of flooding. Having no interest in the staying the night at my office, I shut my laptop, ready to pack for the day.
As I collected my car keys and phone from the drawer, the doom of the unsigned divorce papers still lingered in my head. I wondered why it was so hard for me to go through with it this time when I was the one who wanted the divorce so many years ago. My hands were shaky as I picked it up, my mind galloping back to the woman I still called wife.
It was raining outside. Was she safe? Was she sound?
I considered calling her. I hesitated. I decided against it.
The irony of our relationship was, I was holding the papers to permanently end us in my hand while my head kept replaying the moment she had hugged me just a little more than twenty four hours ago. I hadn't even realised how much I had craved to have her in my arms again over the years until she was in them and I just wanted to break down.
Pushing those thoughts in the back of my head like I had done all day, I went down the hall to Cabir's cabin, and knocked on the door before entering. I had just come to drop off some files, not expecting to see him still working.
"You're still here?" I questioned, surprised.
"Yup," he replied with a yawn, looking up at me. "Just trying to get as much work in as I can before all the marriage stuff starts."
"Might wanna take off for the night. Forecast says it might flood."
He paused, looked outside, and then at his watch. "Maybe in 15?" He read out, "I need to pick Navya from her friend's."
I hesitated. This time, I couldn't stop myself. "Is... Is Nandini with her?"
"Don't think so, no." Cabir shook his head, "Although it is raining really bad. You might want to check on her."
I sighed. "Could you call her for me?"
"Manik...it's okay to show you care."
"Yeah, but that's the thing, isn't it?" Uninvited, I make myself comfortable on one of the chairs in his office. "I'm not supposed to care."
"Says who?"
"Says the divorce papers in my hand." I answer, keeping them on his desk in front of his eyes. I see his eyes widen before he covers it up.
"You both are getting separated? Officially?"
"I guess."
His eyes and tone showed the hurt he was trying to desperately cover up. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why let her go when you love her like a mad man, Manik?" Cabir's voice grew louder. "I thought the divorce was stupidity and I still supported you. I..I had hope that at some point you'll realise what a dumb man you've been and go back to your wife and beg her on your knees for her to take you back. Man, I had hope you'll get your family together, not throw away the remaining pieces... Fuck. Man, fuck."
"Cabir..."
I didn't know what to say. I was at loss of words.
"Did you ask her this time? Or are you planning to shove it into her face like all your other decisions?"
Cabir's words hurt. His tone hurt. His rudeness hurt. But he wasn't wrong.
"She asked for it."
"Oh." I heard the change in his voice. "She wants it?" I nod. He paused, and then added, "And what do you want?"
"I don't know."
Cabir drew in a deep breath. "It's time you figured out what you want, Manik, because once there's a sign on that paper, that little ink mark is going to make this separation permanent."
"I'll see you at work tomorrow. Get home safe." I didn't meet his eyes. Grabbing the papers from his desk, I left his work space and then the empty office.
Working after work hours, that was usually what I did because I had nothing better to do at home. If I didn't know better, I would say my workaholic nature was rubbing off on Cabir. It wasn't. He was just planning to take a big break for his marriage, and then his honeymoon.
I and Nandini never had that. We never had a big marriage, and we did not have a honeymoon at all.
Instead, we had Mia.
I drove through the empty streets carelessly, the city drowning in water and me drowning in memories I'd kept locked in the farthest parts of my heart.
"Have you ever thought of marriage?"
Just a year into dating, her eyes widened. "With you?"
I chuckled. "No, just marriage in general."
"A little."
"What have you thought?"
A small smile spreads over her lips, almost unnoticeable. "I want to be married in India. Bangalore, maybe, where my Amms was from. Maybe...just maybe, in the temple where my parents got married. Appa used to often say it overlooked the prettiest valley in the country. I don't have much of them left, and I guess this way it would feel that my family attended my marriage despite not being there."
"We'll get married in India then. Bangalore, with every thing you've dreamt of."
Her eyes widen again as she tries to hide a blush. "We?"
"We." I repeated as firmly as a promise I meant to keep.
"Manik, I want a big house someday. Warm and cozy, with a room overlooking a pretty view so I can paint looking at it."
I smiled at my lady love. "Noted. Anything else?"
"Mh-hm." She nods. "A varanda. Green grass with a swing so I can sit and watch the little one make herself dirty in mud while you're busy at work."
"Having you as my wife and my little Princess growing up at home? I don't think I'm going to be busy at work at all. I'm going to be as around as I can be, always."
She didn't seem to have much faith at my reply. "You say that until you're busy and don't have time for me."
"No," Holding her hand in mine, I kissed it. "I know we're very young...and we didn't plan this. But I promise, I'm going to do everything I can to be with you every step of the way. You'll never feel alone, Nandini. I promise."
Ashes of dead promises and memories blurred my vision as I abruptly pressed the brakes of my car realising the signal was red, the car coming to a halt with a jerk after the speed it had been running on despite the roads being wet and slippery. I skid ahead on my seat, almost banging my head to the steering wheel, and my phone and the legal papers that were lying freely on the passenger seat also made their way tumbling down, the papers jumbling up.
I felt like a mess, the papers falling down getting on my nerves. I was overwhelmed with emotions– sadness, guilt, frustration, anger.
Even though I had enough time to pick the papers up before the signal turned green, I let them be down on the car's floor along with my fallen phone. Thunder boomed overhead, the rain getting louder.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter until my knuckles got white, feeling a burst of unexplained anger in me.
I was so tired of feeling sad, I felt angry. I felt passive in my own life, like I had no say in it except it to just let things go the way they were.
My engine roared as I waited for the signal to turn green, uneasiness filling my chest as I looked away on the empty streets, impatient to speed back up when my eyes fell on a familiar figure sitting in the café to my right.
The glass windows perfectly showed her short hair and wide smile on her lips as she actioned her hands with excitement like she usually did when she talked about something that made her happy. The uneasiness I was feeling in my chest turned into quick suffocation as my eyes fell on to the man sitting across my wife, her 'friend' I had met earlier. One who had dropped her to Mia's school.
Aryamman Khurrana.
I honestly didn't know what I felt any more or which emotion amongst the many I was feeling was winning.
All I did feel was suffocation.
The signal turned green and I stepped on the gas, speeding up like I had planned to, my vision blurring as I tried maintaining steady breaths. I didn't remember the last time I had truly cried, but I knew my anger, tears, roaring speed of the car and thunder overhead was a dangerous combination as I unexpectedly turned the car to Nandini's house instead. Of course I knew she wouldn't be there, but I could at least drop off the divorce papers for her to come home to.
While my heart burned at the thought of it, I pondered about the turned tables, knowing she'd only feel relieved to be freed from this monster's clutches.