Chapter 50
Samar knew the stages of acceptance in theory.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
But he had practically been stuck on anger ever since Amaal had left him.
He told himself every time that she had not left him, that she had just gone for work.
But that was the four-year-old him consoling his adult self so that he wouldn’t go off the rails.
Samar knew he was falling into old patterns.
Some that he had already discovered about himself, some that Amaal had pointed out and rightly so.
He had bitten her head off then, too. Because it had thrown him into the deep end, into that memory of his mother that refused to go.
If only he could forget it. If only he could move on.
If only he could stop blaming the entire world but himself for what had gone wrong in his life again and again and bloody again.
Mummy, then Atharva, then Amaal.
His therapist, the one who had known about so much of his trauma from SFF and treated him then too, had helped him piece this pattern tighter.
And because he was a doctor too, he knew it was clinical.
Early maternal loss. Insecure anxious attachment.
Unresolved grief. Attachment trauma with repetition patterns.
He also knew the exercises, had completed a few with his therapist every fortnight.
Writing letters to his mother. Thinking about her for fifteen minutes and then stopping cold.
Writing down his fears of his safe place leaving, then reading them back.
Those exercises had helped. Until the next day, when his anger would come hurling back. How had Amaal left like that?! She brought him back to life and then turned her back?
He reached the gate of her Jammu bungalow and honked twice.
The day watchman that she had thankfully agreed to without much of a fight came to open the gate.
Samar hadn’t met him in person, but he was Faris’s pick.
He saluted him, apparently informed about his arrival.
Samar nodded, turning the wheel and speeding through the long driveway.
The March afternoon looked heavy but felt cool.
Holi was around the corner and things were slowing down.
Maybe that was why Atharva had hosted this little dinner at his house.
Samar was not even curious to find out what or why.
He wasn’t as… dependent on Atharva anymore.
Because he had transferred it all to Amaal. He needed to stop.
Samar parked the car outside the main door and took a deep breath.
He was meeting her after 3 months. He didn’t want to meet her after so long with a frown.
Samar shook his head, pulling the cuffs of his shirt down, then realised what he was doing.
He stared at his covered wrists. He took another deep breath, then unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled the sleeves up.
The scars were glinting in the sun, lathered in sunscreen.
He opened the door and stepped out. The birds were chirping, there was a quietness to the Sunday afternoon, and everything was still.
He inhaled. The vast gardens were blooming, the kind of bloom that Amaal deserved.
She had wilted in that flat in Srinagar where everything was suffocating. More so now, with her gone.
Samar strode to her door and pressed on the bell.
His heartbeat spiked. Excitement, nervousness, anxiety, joy, fear like he had never felt before coursed through him.
They had spoken over calls and video calls regularly, at least once a week.
But those had been limited to check-ins and routine talks of work, life, domestic things like geyser woes.
They had both, consciously, stepped away from going any deeper.
The only exception being his health. She had taken constant updates on his physical recovery, his slow transition from remote working to part-time office, and then his half-day sprints to the KDP headquarters.
He had driven to Baramulla this month, attended an event with Atharva, and even taken his car to Matayen in Dras for a karyakarta meet.
Even if it was taxing, he was officially back to work. And ready to go to Himachal and throw himself back into the gruelling party building that he had abandoned.
Samar stared at her door. No answer. Was she not home?
He had told her he was coming in the afternoon.
He raised his finger to push the bell again when the door pulled open.
The wind from outside threw her hair off her face and there she was, a sight for his sore eyes.
Samar stared. Her hair was wet, pyjamas clinging to her body where water dripped, a towel in her hands.
“Hi.” She whispered, those blue eyes suddenly smiling, then going wary.
Samar adjusted his specs. “Hi.”
“Come in.”
He stepped inside as she made way for him and closed the door. The inside of the house was cool, calm, balmy, smelling of her shampoo and whatever creams she used after her bath. His flat used to smell of it once. Now it didn’t. And it was only now that he realised it.
“How was your flight?” She walked inside the house.
“Good.” He slipped his hands inside his pockets because he wanted to gather her close.
“And the car?”
“I went to Jammu office first.”
“I thought you were coming at lunchtime.” She rubbed the towel over her hair, swinging droplets of water around her, but not at him.
“I texted you last night that I will go to the office first.”
She turned, the towel frozen in her hands over her hair — “Shit, I just woke up.”
His mouth curled. It was after ages that he heard such a childish statement from her mouth. Samar stepped closer, but did not cross into her space. “What were you doing all night?”
She smiled shyly, then shrugged. “Watched two movies back to back.”
“Which ones?”
She widened her eyes at him, her cheeks red.
“Should I be worried?” He cocked his head.
“Fuck you!” Her smile widened, her cheeks reddening even more. “It was Fifty Shades.”
“What’s that?”
“A romantic comedy.” She rubbed her hair and jerked her head upside down to dry it. Samar inhaled.
“Do you want to eat something?” She asked, pulling straight and looking so fresh, so pure, so dewy that his hands twitched inside his pockets.
Her eyes were extra blue today, sparkly; but her words did not open up to him.
And he did not want them to open up because he did not want them to take a direction where the bad side of him got a chance to come out. Not today, not right now at least.
“No.”
“What did you eat?”
“Can’t remember.”
She scowled.
“I mean…” he raised his eyebrows, trying to come out of this trance. “It was rajma chawal.”
That dimple dented her cheek. He wanted his mouth on it.
“Sit down, why are you standing? Where is your bag?”
“Still in the car. It’s just a change of clothes.”
“Why?”
“My Himachal flight is pre-poned by three hours.” He took a seat on one end of the long sofa. “I will be leaving directly from Atharva’s house.”
“Oh.” She took a seat beside him, not too far but not close enough to touch either. “How is your knee after the Matayen drive?”
“Better. Not limping. You have the scanned files from last week.”
“And the numbness over…” her eyes roved his chest. “You had your appointment last evening, no? What did he say?”
“The sensation on my chest is about 70% recovered. Light touch, pressure and major temperature shift feels real. That’s as far as it would get now.
Back is at 40%, but Dr. Gill has hope. The scar tissue has not hardened yet.
There is scope for nerve endings to regrow.
Physio and massage has helped, but now he suggests we explore steroids and temperature therapy. After I come back from Himachal.”
“You are ok with steroids?”
“Yes, if they help this recovery.”
“Side effects?”
He stalled. Their eyes held.
“Not that.” He managed. “Erectile dysfunction is a result of shock, systemic inflammation, kidney problems and hormonal imbalance. My opioids have been reduced to negligible now. The next two months are crucial to see how things respond.”
“You are talking to me about this.”
“Wasn’t that why you left me?”
Amaal sat up — “No! And if that’s what you thought all of the last three months then what were we even doing!”
“Amaal!” He sighed, pulling his specs off and pinching the bridge of his nose. How had this messed up so bad so quickly?
“Samar, I did not leave you. I gave you the time to grieve on your own so that you could come to terms with this new reality. It was clear that you couldn’t do that with me there.
And I was going crazy thinking why wouldn’t he share it with me, why wouldn’t he tell me, why would he hide his scars from me? God, what a waste of three months…”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“What else do you want me to say? You called me back from death for you and then you left me to live like that. I am stuck in hell now with everybody gone off to live their own lives, including you! I talk to the therapist, I do my physiotherapy, I go to appointments and all I think about is, would this make her come back?! I want to call you every second of every day to see if you are ok, to check if you are still with me, to get over panic that you may have moved on and then it hits me that that’s exactly why you left.
Because you couldn’t take this loser version of me… ”
“Stop right there.”
“No, listen, now that you started it.” He raised his voice. “I cannot function like this! I don’t know what more to do. And then I come back to you after three months and you call the last three months a waste.”
Her eyes fell shut. He caught his breath, looking at her face. It was fresh and dewy, and now suddenly tired.
“What is the therapist saying?” She finally opened her eyes.
“A lot of stuff, that I know the theories of.”
“Like?”