some days,
it's hard to see,
if i was a fool
or you a thief;
made it through the maze
to find my one in a million,
and now you're just a page torn
from the story i'm living
and all i gave you is gone.
Manik
Massaging my temples gently, when I picked my head from the bundle of papers I had been reading since afternoon, the first thing that caught my eye had to be the framed picture of me and Nandini from our college days that I never had the courage to remove from my desk even over the years.
However, this time, it didn't make me feel the nostalgia or the emotions like it usually did. Instead, it made me take a sharp intake of breath and take my eyes away and out of the glass windows to my left to stare at the glimmering lights in the evening sky instead.
It had been a few days since our argument, and I had been an irresponsible person since. It was a Friday that day, but I couldn't bring myself to go to Nandini's after our talk to pick Mia up.
Mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to look at my daughter and not think of Nandini instead. And that was one thing I had been consciously avoiding for the past two days.
At least until my eyes landed on this picture and I found myself spiralling back to our conversation. It could barely be called a conversation. To our fight.
Still breathing unevenly, I got up from the chair behind my desk and walked to the window, leaning behind the glass to stare at the pink skies better. Back at my desk, I could hear my phone vibrate.
It was probably the lawyer. The evening I returned home two days ago, I drowned myself in as much alcohol as my liver could take, and in that very drunken state of mind, also ended up calling the lawyer for the divorce papers that Nandini had wanted. Call it fate, luck or misfortune, he didn't answer the call then. But since the next morning, he's been calling me back and in the seven times he did, I couldn't find it in myself to pick the call even once to ask him to re-make the divorce papers.
Seemed much easier the first time.
Opening my pack of cigars, I picked one out and lighting it with the pocket lighter I'd began carrying everywhere, I placed the lit cigarette between my lips.
I felt the peace wash over me– or lack of it thereof– as I forced all those scattering thoughts out of my head, using the minute to calm down, at least until the office door went flying open and my best-friend walked in ignoring my judging eyes.
He, however, stared at the cigarette which was now between my finger tips instead until I put it in the bin. I huffed. "What?"
His eyebrows remained furrowed. "Since when did you start smoking?"
"Cabir." I gave him an obvious look, "How long have you known me for? I smoke since college days."
"Yes, but you'd quit smoking for all those years, hadn't you?" He answered in a question, then pausing as if interrupted by his own thoughts. "Oh, I forgot. Nandini was in your life for all those years."
There it was. That name again. The one name I had been trying to erase and forget for days now and the more I tried ignoring it, the more it somehow got popped up everywhere I looked. My life was surrounded by things connected to her, and I don't think I had realised how many of them until today.
"Cabir, your point being...?" I raised my eyebrows unamused.
"Right." He thankfully let it go. "I came to check in if you're ready to leave?"
"Ready to leave?" I knit my brows.
"You forgot... didn't you?" He accused feigning offence as he crossed his hands across his chest, his gaze setting on me firmly. "Tonight, Navya has hosted a dinner, remember? She already called and invited you last week?"
I pressed my eyes shut as realisation struck me. "Right."
"You are still coming, right?" He looked at me crossly, his voice hopeful.
"Um, Cabir." I turned back to him with an apologetic expression. "I don't think I can make it, buddy. I've got a headache that-"
"No. No. No." He cut me off. "I'm not having any of that crap excuses, especially not the headache one. It's the most non-innovative and crappiest of them all. Besides, don't you miss your daughter?"
Mia. I felt selfish. But again, if Mia would be there, then so would Nandini.
I felt the urge to reach out in my pocket again and light another cigarette.
Cabir didn't wait anymore for an answer. "I'm going to go and get the car out until then. See you down in five."
Saying that, he left my cabin. I sighed, turning back to my desk and opening one of the drawers to wear my watch, but amongst the many there, when I didn't find the one my eyes were searching for, I felt a pang in my heart as I remembered where it was. Probably at the bottom of that lake I had ended up throwing it into.
For the first time in the past three years, I sighed picking out another watch to wear on my wrist, just like for the first time in all these years, the picture of me and Nandini that sat on my desk was put back into a drawer.
And then, I made sure the drawer was closed and the keys were hidden well away from eyes reach to avoid any temptation whatsoever, for you cannot turn the pages of a book and read ahead until the previous chapters are flipped over and shut.
*
My daughter had an unhealthy obsession with strawberries. I fairly knew whom she got it from as well, and the answer to that was not me.
I didn't hesitate in stopping at one of the local supermarkets below Navya's house and taking a box of fresh strawberries to make up for the lost weekend. For my daughter, I had to remind myself, not my wife.
I knew they were highly scented with it's typical vanilla and strawberry smell when I had only entered Navya's house and already heard Mia's voice from inside.
"Strawberries?" I knew it was followed by a giggle from both the ladies and audible footsteps towards us making me smile to my fullest and my best-friend shake his head in disbelief as my daughter ran towards me and I picked her up in my arms.
"Hello, baby love." I cooed smothering her with kisses and for the first time, she didn't already begin to wriggle out of my grip.
Seems like someone had missed me just as much as I had missed her through the weekend...
"Papa, I missed you." She told me holding my face in her tiny hands and managed to place a kiss on my nose in return too.
"I missed you too, Mia," I answered, holding her firmer as we walked inside. "So, what new do you have to tell me about last week?" A standard question I always ask her to make sure she grows up feeling validated, that her talks and thoughts and opinions matter to her father.
"I punched someone," She giggled proudly.
My mouth hung open. "You what now?"
"Punched." She repeated herself with a smug smile.
"What did Mom teach you about punching your friends though?" Nandini's voice rang through the living room as we walked inside, making me straighten up and my walk more consciously now that I was aware she was here and listening to my conversation with Mia.
"But he's not my friend, Papa." She looked towards me with puppy eyes.
"That doesn't give you the right to punch someone, sweetheart." Nandini said, and while my eyes flickered towards her sitting on the floor and leaning on the table while helping Navya set plates on it, she didn't even look up or bother to turn her eyes at me as she candidly spoke to her daughter.
Mia's eyes, however, were focused at me. That same puppy look in them. "He stole my cookies! I had to punch him."
"You should have told the teacher-" Nandini began, but I cut her off this time.
"He stole your cookies," I told Mia, "It was only fair that you punched him. If he does it again, don't hesitate to punch him again, alright?"
Mia giggled.
"Manik!"
I avoid Nandini's glaring eyes at me, giving her the same deaf ears she was offering me earlier. "And, what else happened?"
"I went to a birthday party." She told me, her eyes now flickering to the box of strawberries that I kept on the table as I settled on the couch with her still on my lap.
"Really," I hid my smile, "Who's?"
"Divya." She replied. Ah, that same kid who keeps bragging to Mia about her parents being soulmates. I was so tired of Mia asking me the same question every weekend.
"Wow." I instantly let the topic go.
"She told me again that her Mom and Dad are soulmates," Mia looked up at me with big, inquisitive eyes. Ah shit. Here we go again.
"And you, darling, don't even know what soulmates mean," I remind her.
"I don't want to know what it means." She shook her head. "Just, are you and mommy soulmates?"
I sigh. My eyes involuntarily flicker to Nandini who was looking at me with an unfathomable expression in her eyes and the second my eyes caught hers, she looked away instantly and her cheeks tinted red as if she were a little school girl caught staring at her crush.
Still sighing, I turned to Mia to tuck her hair strands behind her ears. "Maybe, who knows?" The same answer as I always give her.
She pouts, and before she could ask another one of those questions roaming in her head, I give her a generous smile and put the box of strawberries in front of her lap, watching her eyes sparkle.
"You are the best Dad." She places a quick kiss on my cheek getting down from the couch before I could catch her, the box of strawberries intact in her little hands as she runs away inside with her caretaker behind her afraid one of us would stop her from eating strawberries before dinner, but all we did was laugh- except Nandini, who although followed behind Mia on the pretext of a phone call, we all knew went inside only to steal some strawberries for herself too.
After all, Mia did get her insane liking towards strawberries from Nandini.
*
Dinner was made of small talks. We spoke about Navya's new book's launch, work, and just the world in general, ranging from the unpredictable weather these days to politics.
It was later at night when Mia was tucked into her bed at Navya's, and we lied sprawled across different corners of the couch. All the strawberries from the box that Mia couldn't eat lied in a plate in front of Nandini and no one even dared to take one from it.
Besides the four of us, there was only Jeff, holding some cards in her hand, a little game she hosted for the four of to play- assuming I and Nandini were a couple as Cabir and Navya. I didn't have the courage to correct her and announce to all three of them that we were not just separated but now on the verge of divorce, and from Nandini's silence, she didn't either. And so we just played along.
It wasn't like it was a heavy game. Just a little fun thing for Cabir and Navya since they were to be married soon.
"What was it like when you first met your partner?" Jeff asked.
"The worst day ever," Cabir jumped to answer a little too quickly.
Navya glared at him and I stifled a laugh. Cabir went on, "I mean, I had failed a Math test and the teacher had appointed the nerdiest student in our grade to tutor me for an hour every day! Of course it was the worst day ever for me when I was a kid, but now that I think back at it... best day ever. Totally."
Navya rolled her eyes knowingly, "I wasn't exactly happy to tutor the joker of the grade either. I mean, who fails in a trigonometry test?"
"A lot of people." Cabir pouted and Jeff shook her head, turning her eyes to Nandini.
"What about you, Nandini?"
I reluctantly looked at her, knowing her eyes were fixed at Jeff as she answered. "It was a rainy day, lightning outside and I was returning home from the cemetery with my Chacha-Chachi when she decided to stop at an art gallery to see some paintings for our new house. That was when I met Manik, we were sixteen at that time."
"You were fifteen, I was sixteen." The words flew out of my mouth before I could second think them. An old habit. Always retaliate.
She huffed some air from her mouth, still not turning her eyes to me. "Let me tell you Jeff, he was equally arrogant about our few month age gap then as he is now."
"I am six months elder to you." I said, directly addressing her.
"We were still in the same grade!" Her voice was hysterical as she turned to me, "And you didn't even know we were in the same class."
"I did the next day." I replied sheepishly.
"The next day." She huffed.
Jeff cut in. "Alright but... how was it like? When you first met him?"
"Peachy." Nandini answered, and then sighed. "I was having a bad day; catching him in his failed attempt to sneak out from the back door was the highlight of my evening-"
I cut her off. "It wasn't a failed attempt, okay? I decided to stop to hold a conversation with you. And I'm pretty confident it was the front door."
"See, he never let's me complete." She huffed, complaining to Jeff. I swear, will this girl melt if she decides to directly look at me? "I'm pretty sure he must've spoken the same way when we met for the first time, hence... it was the highlight of my day."
"I'm flattered you think so." I feign a smile.
I knew she was controlling the urge to roll her eyes. "Yup, that sums up when I first met him," She tells Jeff, "He was arrogant and cocky."
"And she was talkative and enthusiastic," I added, "So much so that she dropped a painting."
Nandini's cheeks flustered. "...And he took the blame."
"And I took the blame," I mumbled.
"Alpha-man move?" Jeff teased.
"No," I chuckled, "I had nothing to prove."
Nandini's eyes manage to flicker from Jeff to me, licking gaze with me properly for the first time I was here. "He just wanted to protect me," She says in a whisper, her eyes softening considerably as she pulls a little smile on her lips, "I think that was my real highlight of the day. He protected me."
I snort, my eyes still holding hers. "I always only ever wanted to protect her."
She looks at me with the same unfathomable expression in her eyes and I look back at her until Jeff's voice cut in again.
"Wow. Sounds fairytale-ish. Moving on, name one materialistic thing that reminds you of your partner?" Jeff said, her eyes fixed at Cabir and Navya.
"Books." Cabir said. I smiled. Navya was a writer, so that made sense. Also that she was a nerd since school days, always burying her nose into her books.
Navya smiled knowingly looking at Cabir. "I'd say... Food. Definitely food."
We all chuckled. Cabir and food, well, that was a love story in itself.
"Manik, Nandini... you both?" Jeff turned her eyes towards us.
I gulped, my eyes wandering around for an answer until they landed on the plate in front of my wife. "Strawberries," I answered.
Nandini just rolled her eyes as everyone laughed. "For Manik...," She thought aloud, "Um, Cigarettes."
I was... startled. I hadn't expected her to catch the very light smell of cigar that trailed my breath when I first came here, but she had. Or maybe it was the pack of cigars in my pocket that I had accidentally ended up during dinner while searching for my car keys instead. Either ways, I hadn't expected her to notice. For a person not meeting my eyes, she sure did keep me in the corner of hers at all times.
"Strawberries and Cigarettes?" Jeff commented cocking an an amused eyebrow, "Interesting."
*
Even though Jeff was a friend to us all, she was Cabir's cousin, which was why Navya and Cabir went to drop her off after dessert. Since it was already past midnight, Navya insisted all of us to stay (because Mia was long asleep too), but Jeff had to leave for some work early tomorrow.
I and Nandini had retired to our different respective rooms, deciding to take a shower and change into our night wear until Cabir and Navya return.
When I was done changing into Cabir's spare clothes lying around Navya's house, I headed to the roof to catch some quiet time, only to find Nandini sitting there already.
I debated for a whole minute, wondering if I should join her or just return into my room. Even though it had been a couple days, the argument we had had was still pretty fresh, as were the wounds it inflicted, making me wonder if I and Nandini could co-exist civilly for the next few hours like we did for so many years or would it once again lead to the divorce talks that I spent my weekend running away from.
In the end, I decided to play it safe by asking her, "Can I join you?"
She slightly flinched in her place, the sudden noise startling her. She half turned to me. "Mh-hmm." Her voice was a whisper as she nodded scooting over to one side of the three-seater swing, leaving plenty area for me.
Respecting her private space, I went ahead and sat in the other corner, leaving decent amount of space between us. And yet, this was the closest I had been to her consciously since the past couple years.
When comfortable silence spread over us, I leaned my head behind, staring up at the stars in the midnight sky. I let myself get lost in the stars, which were scientifically speaking, mystical balls of gases thousands of miles away from us, and illogically speaking, just another portal for dreamers to look at in wonder.
"Still love star-gazing?" I heard Nandini chuckle from beside me.
"Somethings never change," I answer, without lifting my head to look at her as a light smile plays on my lips. "But it's been a while since I have had the time to look at them in peace."
"You used to do that a lot in college," She reminisced. "I remember sitting on the green grass with you one day on a field trip and we had watched the stars until fireflies..." Her voice trails, the excitement in it dying down as she probably realised she got a little too lost in the past.
"Fireflies," I pick up, "You always believed they shone for true love."
"I still believe that," She answered in a low voice. "They glowed for us."
"Do you," I hesitate, buy decide going for it nonetheless, "Do you think that your fireflies will still glow for us?"
She didn't answer for the longest time, giving me a dreadful moment to dwell in the memory of the day she was talking about, when we'd sat on the grass talking about the stars and watching the fireflies. It seemed ordinary when it happened, but enchanting today, now that nothing was left of our best days except being fragments of our memory that we would carry to our death bed.
The reality was commiserating compared to the past. We had aimed at making a fairytale with lush green trees and colourful rainbows and butteries and a happily ever after, and what we did end up creating was far from what we had started out for, for the leaves of our trees had wilted and the skies were too dark to spot rainbows. Even the butterflies had broken wings and where we had planted seeds of hope, only ashes of burnt dreams remained.
"Divorce is a decision taken from the head, and love from the heart. I believe if we loved each other yesterday and all the days before that, then even though it's not the same today, I think we still would carry a part of what we had into tomorrow, and sometimes, those little pieces that we carry are enough." She looks at me with a little broken smile, "So I think yes, Manik. The fireflies will still glow for us."
"And if they don't?"
She snorted a smile. "Then I'll be damned."
I press my eyes shut forcing them to look away from her. "You knew who I was," I told her, "That I wasn't a good person. And you still chose to love me, why?"
"We don't fall in love with someone else because they are nice, Manik," she simply answers. "I, you, all of us have a darkness inside us- little or large. We fall in love with the one who's demons tend to dance with yours. There was a time I believed our pasts resonated each others , Manik. There was a time that I believed that whatever it is that our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same. I believed you and I were not so different after all. That is when I fell in love with you."
For me, it was never that way. I never believed that she and I are the same, or could ever be. There was always a stark contrast between the way she thought and I did, our ideals, our ways to love, they were always different. And I still took a chance despite knowing that opposites don't attract in real life, that such relationships are doomed to failure from the beginning.
Despite that, I managed to ask: "Do you still think so?" My voice was low, "That you and I... we are the same?"
When she didn't reply for a long time, I thought she was taking her time to. And later I realised, she doesn't intend to answer the question anyway- knowing the answer would only break our broken relationship more.
Look at where we started and look at where we are now.
Sweet but toxic.
Endearing but detrimental.
Loveable but noxious.
Just like... strawberries and cigarettes.
The unsaid words and haunting silence that hung between us was a constant reminder that this was never supposed to be a story of how we fell in love. It was always supposed to be only about how we ran away from it.
*
Happy 2021. May this year be everything you wish for and more. Sending love and light. x
Starting the new year with a promise of frequent updates.