Too Good To Be True

January 2024

JANUARY 2024

Avani

And that’s that.

I finished my make-up with a little lip gloss and looked at myself in the mirror of the guest bedroom at Maya’s apartment. Though I’d argued with Maya endlessly about booking a salon appointment that morning for my hair to be done, I was glad she hadn’t listened. I’d never thought it could look this shiny and set. Hmm … and she was right—the new powder-blue salwar-kameez really brought out my eyes. I slipped on my Kolhapuris and sprayed on a bit of perfume before looking into the mirror again.

Big day today, I told myself. Almost thought I wouldn’t make it, didn’t I? Almost gave up midway. But now I could take a bow. The journey, they say, is more important than the destination, but I quite liked the destination and could do without the excruciating journey, thank you.

‘Ani, we’re late!’ I heard Rhea shout through the door for the sixth time in the last two minutes, like I didn’t know how to tell time. I let out the breath I was holding.

‘Well done, Avani,’ I told my reflection in the mirror, picked up my tote and walked out to the living room.

Aaji sat on the couch in the living room looking regal, as usual, in a pink chiffon sari and pearls.

‘Arre, Rajmata.’ I bowed low before her, my palms together, and received a fake slap on my shoulder from her.

‘Ready?’ she asked, smiling happily.

‘Ready.’

Maya was waiting downstairs in the car with Dhruv as the three of us slid into the back seat. (Rhea and Dhruv were a thing now, by the way. Fina-fucking-lly. They refused to give us clear details of how they got over their nerves and managed to tell each other how they felt, but Maya and I suspected a drunken night of wild sex had something to do with it. They’re cute together, I have to say, and we’re thoroughly entertained, so it’s all good.)

‘Where is that strange boy … Martin?’ Aaji asked.

‘He’s meeting us there, Aaji,’ Maya clarified. ‘All aboard?’ she asked as she put her car into drive.

‘Yes!’ we chimed in unison.

The drive was a quiet one and I stared out the window thinking of the past few weeks of late nights and early mornings. Of hard work and then some more. Of therapy and good food. And of finally coming to terms with my life and putting on my big-girl pants.

A lot had changed in the past 121 days …

Here’s what happened.

Three Months Ago

I landed in Pune that night, every wound that I had stapled shut split open like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Haemorrhaging emotionally like I probably should have a year ago or maybe twelve years ago. Feeling everything and nothing at the same time. Confused and lost because life had thrown me enough chances to make things better for myself, but I had taken none of them. Denial is a funny thing. It works like a charm, till it doesn’t—and when being that way stops making sense, the waves come crashing down on you. You can swim or you can drown, baby.

I chose the obvious option and drowned. Hopelessly. With no mercy whatsoever. I didn’t bother showing myself compassion. I didn’t tell myself that it was going to get better. Hell, I refused to even let myself believe there was ever going to be a day when I’d leave my bed, take a shower and breathe fresh air. It was full and complete surrender. And the further I let myself sink into doom-thinking and night terrors, the better I felt when I woke up the next morning. The oppressive guilt of putting in absolutely no effort towards the betterment of my mental and physical health felt oddly liberating. I’d allowed old metal chains to be tied around my limbs for so long that they had now started digging into my skin. The pain was killing me, but I had also started enjoying it—liberation, laced with excruciating neglect.

Aaji had taken me in, again, and tended to me like I was a lost, homeless puppy. Every meal arrived at my bedside, my devices went missing for the first few days and were magically replaced by romance novels. And I was left alone to wallow in my little puddle of sadness.

And then, just at the right time, I wasn’t. Aaji had given me nine days to stew in my emotional juices. Nine days is all it takes, she’d said. Not one day less, not one day more.

‘Unpopular opinion, but okay,’ I’d told her.

There was no proof for the theory that nine days were all I needed to get over everything plaguing my thoughts—my parents’ broken marriage, with its baggage of abandonment issues, trauma and loss of trust, the shock of losing them both at the same time, the PTSD and guilt that had followed, and then the heartbreak of losing the man I had so deeply fallen in love with. But it was all I was given, and now I could say that it had worked, in whatever fucked-up way. Seems like a lot when I list it out like that. But something about Aaji’s refusal to let me sink shone like a very, very, very, very, VERY faint silver lining around the dark-as-fuck cloud of my life’s fuck-ups. Impeccable sentence formation, I know. I’m sorry, I went to therapy for mental wellness. Grammar lessons weren’t included.

Two Months Ago

‘That does feel better, doesn’t it?’ Dr Sneha Kumar, my Indian-American therapist, who also happens to be smoking-hot, in her mid-forties and gay, said as we took a stroll on the stretch of lawn behind her clinic.

I’d spent a whole session bawling my eyes out till I could feel every blood vessel from my brain to my eye sockets throb. I had started therapy again, after many months, on Maya’s incessant nagging and self-driven initiative to locate a recommended therapist close to home in Pune, and now I wanted to hug her and tell her I couldn’t thank her enough. She does make good recommendations, that girl.

It took us about a week to finally get the fucking dam inside me to burst. How predictable, isn’t it? It took the poor little broken girl seven days and a good chunk of her savings to start getting normal-people feelings again.

By then, I’d given up my cute flat in Mumbai and moved in with Aaji again. Martin and Rhea had packed up my life and shipped most of my stuff to Pune by mid-October. I missed Mumbai, I missed Shanta Tai and the neighbour’s obnoxious cat. I missed uni, I missed the bookstore and Meera Aunty and my friends, but Aaji’s presence, and all the deliciousness she served up with so much love, Pune’s relatively pollution-free air and my conversations with Dr Sneha had made me feel comfortable again. My department head at uni was kind enough to let me attend classes remotely, so there was that escape from my demon mind. I was grateful for it and I grabbed it with both hands.

It really is surprising how much we underestimate the connection between our mind and body. I’d started the month feeling like I was standing at hell’s door with a bottle of champagne for Satan (never go empty-handed to anyone’s house, Aaji had taught me), but ended it with only a partially numb mind and the renewed ability to sleep through the night without waking up to cry on my balcony.

Progress.

You’re waiting to hear about what happened with Aman, aren’t you? I can practically hear you violently nodding your head in agreement and egging me on to wrap up my sob story and tell you about the hot guy.

Ugh. Rude.

The last time I saw Aman he was in his impeccable blue suit, staring at me, shock, sympathy and regret written large in his gorgeous brown eyes even as I packed my stuff and walked out without one backward glance. If everything I’d read in the books were true, the only hope left for us was in that last look, but I couldn’t get myself to face him. Much like everything that had hurt me till that point. Walking out seemed like such a well-rehearsed move, it came to me naturally, with no effort whatsoever.

Aman must have called his parents as soon as I walked out that door, because there was a helicopter waiting for me at the helipad when I exited the Raina home. The party had moved to the pool area by then, thankfully, and I’d been able to slip out of the service exit when Ramesh emerged from the side of the lawns to take my bags from me. I don’t remember much after that, other than being strapped into the chopper seat and flown to Pune like express mail. I didn’t cry a drop until I got out of the SUV, courtesy of what I should call the ‘Raina Courier Service’ that dropped me to Aaji’s apartment. And then I felt a hand on the side of my face and Aaji’s familiar scent that rushed to my brain as she pulled me into a hug. The tears came then.

Aman had evidently called Aaji as soon as I’d left and told her everything that had transpired in Mussoorie. He’d also texted Maya, who had texted Rhea and Martin, and they’d taken the bus out to Pune the following morning to be with me.

One evening as I sat on Aaji’s balcony after a really helpful session with Dr Sneha, evaluating what I was hurting about the most, I tried to file my life events chronologically in my mind to identify which one was making my chest feel like a demonic child’s rattle toy. Turns out, it didn’t matter how recent or how old the trauma was, it kind of haunted you the same. Just at different times and places.

Like thinking of my parents’ death always gave me a very distinct migraine. The kind that hampered your audio-visual settings and sent currents down your spine. Memories of their separation always gave me a panic attack or a nightmare that lasted a few minutes every few weeks. My abandonment issues surfaced when I had a high-achieving day, like the day I graduated from high school, or the day I cleared my law college entrance exam, or when I learnt how to drive a stick-shift, or when I opened my first bank account all by myself. It always hurt in some hidden nook of my chest to think that they would’ve been proud of how I’d turned out—if only I’d reached out to them in time.

But walking away from Aman—that hurt me right in the centre of my chest and in every nerve ending that began there and spread to the rest of my body. It hurt to blink. It hurt to think. It hurt to feel. It hurt to breathe. Every breath came in just fine but left very, very slowly, like the air was taking its time to ensure every inch of my being hurt before it left my body, only to return and repeat the whole process.

You’d think that death would hurt more, right? But there was a strange sting in knowing that the person you loved continued to live in the same world as you, but without you. I don’t know if the two feelings are comparable. But I felt them in such quick succession every time that I couldn’t help but wonder if I should feel guilty for comparing the two events. Death was so final. It didn’t hold out any hope. I missed my parents, no matter how troubled our relationship was, but they left when they left. Their funeral was the last postage stamp on any hope I had of ever seeing them again. But Aman was very much here. Living, breathing, smiling, smelling great. The heavy weight of regret started settling in when the fog of unease started thinning with therapy.

‘It was, after all, a ME problem, then,’ I heard myself say at the end of a session. Both Dr Sneha and I raised our eyebrows in sync and let out a breath. It had cost me a lot of money to say that stupid sentence. I should have just listened to my friends.

I resumed living my life the best I could. My final term exams were coming up and the voice in my head commanded me to shut the fuck up and start paying attention in classes. Every minute I spent in my therapist’s office, every chai I had with Aaji on her balcony, every new book I read, every class I started getting better at, every minute I slept longer and better began to make living a little easier.

My days started to go into a slow but steady routine—waking up at 8 a.m. to the scent of Aaji’s milky masala chai brewing in the kitchen, freshening up to study for a few hours before my classes and, after they were done, spending the evenings with my books and then kitty-party gossip about everyone in Aaji’s apartment complex. I spoke to Rhea and Martin often, but only when they called to check if I was still a functioning human being. Maya and I spoke every single day, though. She told me things that had nothing to do with my life—a much-needed respite from my very busy mind.

‘How’s the prep for the finals going, Ani?’ she asked one night as I strolled in the green patch near Aaji’s building after dinner, phone to my ear.

‘It’s going well, actually.’

‘When’s graduation?’

‘29 January.’

‘We’re all coming, okay?’

‘You don’t need to. Aaji said she’ll be there.’

‘Are you crazy? Of course we’ll be there. You have to come here a couple of days before that, so we can go together. Stay at mine!’

‘Oh, okay. That might be good, actually.’

‘So proud of you, Ani!’

Something about those words hit me at a spot that nothing but despair had touched in the past few weeks. My eyes welled up. It was a new feeling, and as emotional as it made me, I also felt strangely exhilarated.

‘Thank you,’ I replied, sniffling and smiling at the same time.

One Month Ago

December flew by.

As my finals inched closer, the focus tunnel in my mind started getting narrower and narrower. Days seemed shorter as I spent most of my time cooped up in my room with my books, only occasionally surfacing for air. The nights got shorter too, though I’d have to credit that to the luxury of real sleep brought on by the absence of nightmares and ugly thoughts that had been crowding my mind. I had begun to smile more at Aaji’s taunts and laugh more at Martin’s inappropriate jokes. I started going for walks in the evenings when I needed a change of scenery and on some days I surfed Instagram a little more without feeling much guilt.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t go to Aman’s profile every time I opened the app, but the last photo was the one he’d taken of me after our coffee date in Mussoorie. The day life had flicked the finger in my face and fucked off.

At least he hadn’t deleted it.

Every once in a while, I played that last conversation out in my mind and thought about everything I should have done. I should have given him the answers he had deserved to know the whole time. I should have heard him as much as he heard me. He heard me when I asked him to back off, he heard me when I pulled him closer again and he heard me when I needed the space and asked him to leave me alone. Would he hear me if I asked him to come hug me one last time?

I’d walked over a lot of good intentions to reach this golden peak of mental wellness in my very eventful life. I’d trampled on every last bit of hope I had, just so I could shelter myself in my little pity palace. I knew I’d burnt some very sturdy bridges, but at least I’d got here without losing any more than I already had. Just the most perfect man in the world. No big deal.

I’d walked away from him knowing that a part of my world was dying. A little voice in my head had let out a huge sigh, like I’d been waiting for this to happen only so I could move on to fixing everything else that was fucked up in my life. There was a finality in that last breath I took in the same room as him. Like God was telling me to breathe in as much of him as I could, because I would never breathe the same again.

Are twenty-three-year-olds allowed to feel heartbreak like this? This early in life? Don’t we have to go through numerous smaller heartbreaks, so that by the time we’re sixty we can tell the twenty-three-year-olds in our lives that heartbreaks weren’t the end of the world?

I don’t know. And I hate not knowing.

But, then again, you win some, you lose some, right? Dealing with trauma and getting better, but losing love in the process? Stiff deal. But I’ll take it. Hell, I’m just twenty-three. I’m sure I’ll meet a lot of great men.

Who are you even kidding, Avani?

Present Day: 29

I drew in a long breath as Maya pulled into the convention centre behind the university building where the law department—my department—had its offices and classes. Rhea squeezed my hand as I slung my tote bag on my shoulder and unlocked the door to step out.

I hadn’t been on campus since September last year, but I’d attended every class from home. Strangely, most of all, I’d missed the half-cooked, bland food the university canteen served.

I walked towards the auditorium, the venue for my convocation. I saw my classmates walking in with big smiles. Some of them came over to catch up with me. ‘Where have you been!’, ‘It’s been so long!’, ‘How are you?’, ‘Did you lose weight?’ I politely shuffled between ‘Good’, ‘Thank you’, ‘How are you?’ and ‘Yeah, long time’, and exchanged a few awkward hugs. As the alarm rang for everyone to be seated, I turned to look at Aaji and the gang, when it hit me. Like a truck.

Aftershave.

My limbs froze. I turned to Maya, my eyes wide, expecting her to be able to give me no answers whatsoever. But she knew something I didn’t. I saw the tiniest tear forming in the corner of her eye as she broke into a wide smile and nodded at me.

Was I supposed to know what that meant?

I looked at Rhea and Martin and Dhruv and Aaji, and realized they were all looking at me like I’d just won an Oscar. I held the strap of my tote bag in a death grip and blinked a few times before I let my eyes wander in the direction of the scent.

My heart beat faster than I knew it could as I scanned the crowd. Rows and rows of students and their families settling into their seats, ugly maroon carpet and drapes, emergency exit door signs glowing lazily, huge speakers hanging off the walls, the projector room, more rows of people, the door I had just walked through …

And Aman.

He stood a few feet away from the door, looking at me. Smile, dimples, eyes. I parted my lips to take in what felt like an actual breath, and, suddenly, nothing hurt. Seeing him there, in the flesh, made me feel like I’d been walking through life in a smoky haze of uncertainty and doubt these past few weeks, and now someone had finally opened a window.

I stared at him without moving a muscle. I don’t think my brain could code any instructions in that moment and, even if it could, my body wouldn’t follow. Aman must have picked up on that, because he took one tentative step towards me and then another and then another, and before I could really prepare myself, he was standing in front of me.

I stood rooted to my spot, scared that if I blinked, whatever this dream was would shatter.

‘Hi, gorgeous.’

An instant urge to duck arose in me but my brain somehow registered how useless that would be.

‘Hi,’ I barely managed to say.

He was within touching distance. Up for grabs. Mine if I wanted. Speak, I told myself. But the words wouldn’t form. There was too much to ask and yell about and apologize for.

‘Can we talk?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes.’

He nodded politely at Aaji and the gang, and stepped back to let me lead. I walked towards the exit like I knew where I was going.

Then we were at the parking lot of the convention centre. I stopped when I reached a corner where the buzz of the convocation ceremony seemed like a distant hum. I turned to see Aman right behind me, looking at me with crystal-clear brown eyes and hands held together like he was the next up at his school’s fifth-standard elocution competition. When he didn’t break the silence and it started ringing in my ears, I said, ‘Talk.’

‘Hi.’

‘You said that already.’

‘I know.’

‘Okay.’

‘I know you’re upset,’ he said after an excruciatingly long pause.

‘What gave that away?’

‘Avani …’

‘Say more and say quick, Aman.’

The reality of the situation was suddenly beginning to dawn on me and all the feelings that I had carefully folded and piled away in the deepest corners of my mind were springing up like the vacuum seal had finally snapped.

‘I know I should have heard you out. I know I should have been a little more considerate before reacting the way I did about what went down between Gagan and—’

I cut him off. ‘You think that’s what I’m upset about?’

He blinked at me like I’d spoken in Dothraki.

‘Sorry … what?’ he asked after a medium-long pause.

‘What?’ I almost shouted back. ‘WHAT? I left your room with my suitcase in September and you walk up to me in your perfect fucking suit and tie in January asking “WHAT?” I’ll ask you … “What?” First, WHAT the fuck were you doing all this time? WHAT is the meaning of taking me to your home and into your life and then shoving me aside like last evening’s newspaper and going MIA on me? WHAT is your reason for thinking that no matter how bad things got, giving up on us completely was an okay way of dealing with it? WHAT was going on in your mind when you decided to grace me with your presence on such an important day of my life? WHAT did you think was going to happen? And lastly, WHAT gave you the fuck-all idea of not being with me when I needed you the most?’

Anyone passing by must have thought: Oh, another lovers’ quarrel. But only Aman and I knew of the quicksand we were both standing on at that moment. My temper was running wild and only when I shut up after the last sentence did I realize how loud and screechy my voice had got. This, I thought, is why I can’t believe this man. I’d just yelled at him in this smelly parking lot and he was looking at me like I’d just finished singing the most beautiful ballad.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ he said.

I swear to God if I hadn’t taken all that therapy, my fist would have made contact with his perfectly pointy nose. I was sure to miss it by an inch or so, but it would be contact nonetheless. What was it with men and their audacity to constantly assume?

‘Avani …’

‘Aman. Answer the question before I turn and walk away.’

‘Which one? You asked a fair few—’

‘Why didn’t you call?’

‘Baby …’

‘I gave you every reason not to. But why didn’t you? You’re supposed to be the mature, reasonable person in this relationship. The bigger person. I’m the one with issues, who doesn’t see a good thing when it’s staring her in the face. But you know better. And you went missing. I asked you to leave me alone and you did. Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you come when I needed you?’

‘Because you didn’t need saving, Avani. You needed time.’ He took a deep breath and held my shoulders to sit me down on the concrete ledge behind us. ‘I wanted to go after you and ask you to stay that night when you packed your suitcase and left my room. But I knew that if I did that, I would lose you forever. There’s so much I wish I’d done that night. I wish I’d taken a moment to process everything before letting rage take over and landsliding into becoming a complete dick. I regret so much from that night. But the one thing I did know was that you needed to deal with a lot before you could even get to you and me. Life had pushed you around and given you no room to breathe. You needed space … and time … to breathe. People you loved and trusted had left you with no explanation and you needed time to learn how to trust again. You’d lost all faith in love and you needed time to know that it was there for you if you wanted it. I didn’t leave you, Avani … I only let you be with yourself. Nobody could teach you how to deal with life better than you. You didn’t need a saviour, you needed someone who would get out of your way so you could go be who you are. So you would look in the mirror and see what I see. And you would know that you make me want to be everything that you deserve.’

He took my hands in his.

‘I’ve counted every minute, every second, every breath until now. I’ve waited patiently for you to love yourself again, so you would let me love you. This morning, when Maya messaged, asking me to come see you at your convocation, I almost didn’t believe it would happen. In the past few months, I’ve walked to the bookstore and had coffee with Martin every day on my way back from work so I could hear how your day had been. I’ve worn my aftershave every day only because it reminds me of you. You’ve been my first and last waking thought every single day. How could you even think that I wasn’t going to be here when you were ready for me? I’ve been waiting, baby. And I’m yours if you’d like me to be. I loved you the day I first saw you at the bookstore and I love you today. I knew you would hate me if I hogged your attention immediately after you left. You know you would have. I didn’t want to lose you any more than I already had. Even after you ignored all the e-mails I sent you in October, I kept writing, hoping that someday I would hear back. Whenever you were ready. And when your replies nev—’

‘What e-mails?’ I asked between sniffles.

‘My e-mails.’

Wow. CEO of a company, and this is the answer he comes up with. ‘What e-mails, Aman? I don’t have any e-mails from you.’

‘Of course you do. I mean … I sent …’

He opened the e-mail app on his phone and held the screen up for me to see. He scrolled through hundreds of e-mails starting with ‘Avani…’, followed by a bunch of words that blurred out as he scrolled up and down. I took the phone from him and opened the latest one.

Avani, I don’t know when you’ll read this, but …

I scrolled through it like it was spam and went up to the top of the page to check the receiver’s details.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

I looked up from the screen with eyes as wide as I could stretch.

‘Where did you get this e-mail?’

‘From the feedback form you filled out at the restaurant from our first date.’

‘The day you told me you wouldn’t have added your actual number in the feedback register of a local bookstore?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you believed I would give my actual e-mail id to a restaurant I would never be able to afford going back to? And, an even bigger question, you thought my actual e-mail id is LET ME LULU YOUR LEMONS AT GMAIL DOT COM? You have a business degree from fucking Oxford, Aman! What the actual fuck?’

I threw the phone at him. He quickly moved to catch it while I smacked him on the shoulder, then his chest and was violently about to grab his shirt so I could hulk-smash him, when he held both my wrists and pulled me towards him and picked me up in a bear hug.

I’m not sure if I was laughing or crying in that moment. I buried my head in the collar of his shirt and wrapped my arms tighter around his neck even as he tightened his grip around me like he’d never let me go. And I let myself fall. Hopelessly, tirelessly, mercilessly and endlessly in love—all over again—with this fine, fine specimen of a man.

Finally—yes, finally—the other shoe had dropped. For real this time. There WAS something wrong with him, after all.

[email protected]

For fuck’s sake.