Chapter 26
Aisha Kapoor
The truth slips out of my mouth faster than I expected.
Something about him showing up when I least expected him to makes me feel…
vulnerable. I know he said that he would wait and come, but I didn’t believe it wholeheartedly even if I wanted to.
My heart just wouldn’t, and I don’t blame it, to be fair.
He stays silent on the call after I just admitted that I dream about him. What I didn’t tell him is that he is the only one I have ever dreamed about. I either dream about him or nothing at all.
I can hear my heartbeat and his too, and I know that these three words meant a great deal to him.
“I—” he starts, and I cut him off.
“I am coming downstairs,” I tell him before hanging up.
I collect my bag, clutching it close to me like a shield, and in the elevator taking me down, I keep staring at my reflection to see if I look good.
My hair is a little frizzy, and my lipstick is barely there, so I touch it up slightly with a liner.
I don’t know why he is having such an effect on me right now.
I don’t care if he finds me attractive, is what I keep telling myself because realistically speaking it doesn’t matter because I plan on leaving him at the end of this three-month tenure.
But even if I keep telling this to myself right when I wake up and before I go to sleep, the truth remains that the way he looks at me matters. The way his eyes light up when he looks at me matters.
I take a deep breath as I walk out of the office building, and there he is, standing outside his car with his arms crossed at his chest. Even after working all day, he looks so handsome.
Like an angel. His eyes are warm when he looks at me, his hair a tousled mess, the top two buttons of his shirt are open, giving me a peek at his chest, and there’s a soft smile on his lips.
You won’t be able to catch a sight of it if you don’t pay much attention to him.
“Hi,” he says, as I near him before taking my bag from me.
“Hi,” I let out, and it comes out as a sigh. Like I am seeing him after a very long time.
His eyes roam all over my face, as if searching for something, before he brushes my hair slightly, and I let him do it. I tell myself that tonight is the only night I will let him do this, let him be close to me in this way that feels less physical and more emotional.
Once satisfied with whatever he was doing, he leans down to kiss my forehead, and I close my eyes, not only to soak up the feeling but also to not let the tears gather in my eyes.
“Let’s go,” he says, before rounding the car to open up the door for me, and I smile in gratitude.
He gives me one last look before shutting the door and going towards his seat. His cologne wafts through my nose, and I am instantly given the feeling of home. Whenever he is near me, I lose all my rational thinking. His presence comforts me, and I can’t let go of that so easily.
But after spending more than ten minutes with him, I get flashbacks of the past, and all of it confuses me so much.
He looks at me once he has his seat belt on, and the smile from him never goes away.
He tries to take my hand in his, and in a moment of awkwardness, I busy it with trying to fix my already perfect saree. He must have seen the hesitance on my face because he doesn’t comment on that and instead gives me another smile before starting the car.
But even a stranger would have noticed the pain in his eyes that I so deliberately gave him.
* * *
“Oh shit,” I say in the silence that took over the car after me pushing him away.
“What?” he asks, worried.
“I totally forgot to tell Mom I’d be home late.
I told them I’d let them know how late I’d get.
” I bury my face in my hands. I have never told anyone that I will be home late—considering the fact that there was no one other than me and Reyansh.
And we didn’t just stop taking care of each other; we stopped talking to each other altogether, so I never bothered.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he says, and I roll my eyes. “I told them we both will be late, so don’t worry.”
“You did?”
I am half-surprised, half-shocked. He keeps pulling this responsible act out of nowhere, and I am getting whiplash now.
“Yes,” he says, giving me a look. “Why are you surprised?”
“Well,” I bite my tongue, thinking whether I should take a jab at him or let the poor soul go. I go with the jab. Where’s the fun in being nice to your husband?
“Well?”
“It is not my fault you are rarely this… responsible.”
He scoffs, and I hold back the urge to smile. I love getting under his skin and being mean to him. It is my favorite thing to do.
“You are so mean to me,” he says, keeping his voice soft, and I chuckle.
“Should have thought about it before marrying me,” I say with a smile.
“Lucky for you, that’s exactly why I married you. I need someone to keep me humble.”
I laugh at that, and the way his eyes light up makes me want to do it again.
These three months are going to be torturous.
* * *
I tell Reyansh to keep it down when he enters our house, and he tells me he isn’t a baby, but I plead the fifth.
He is the biggest man-baby I have ever seen. If I were to show his pictures and videos from the past of him being the biggest “baby,” he would quickly lose his “being an asshole” reputation.
“Okay, now be quiet,” I whisper to him as I unlock the door.
He is carefree because he doesn’t know the fear of coming late to your Punjabi mother without informing her prior.
It is scary, and I am not even ashamed to admit that even at twenty-eight, I get cold feet thinking about my mother’s wrath.
“I am quiet,” he whispers back, and I slap his chest to shut him down.
I expect silence as we step into our empty hall, but the lights to our moms’ room are on, and we pass each other a curious look.
They should have been asleep by now.
“Mom?” Reyansh calls, taking steps towards their room. My eyes widen as we take the scene in, music filling in the unusual silence.
“What are you guys doing?” I ask, looking at our moms’ who have a tissue in their hand, wiping under their eyes while looking at the TV screen in front of them.
“Oh, you guys are home,” Mom says, and Maa quickly wipes her tear-stricken face.
“What’s going on?” Reyansh asks.
“Meher found your wedding album,” Mom says, and my stomach falls. “We were just going through them.”
“Why?” I ask.
I try to keep my voice steady and not show what kind of effect just the mention of our wedding tapes has on me. For the longest time, I have kept them buried in a corner of our house, where even I wouldn’t go to, just because I didn’t want to see them again.
They were my most prized possession at one time; now they are something that bring up a reminder of a life we failed to sustain. A dream that shattered painfully.
“We wanted to revisit the good memories,” Maa says, coming up towards me, and there is this warmth and pain in her eyes that I am too familiar with. She had the same look in her eyes when I once told her that I will not go to London for further studies because I wanted her close to me.
When I look at Reyansh, it looks like he has been frozen. The same distant look is in his eyes, and I am not that good at deciphering it anymore.
“You guys have focused on the bad for so long,” she adds. “Why don’t you guys try to look at the nice parts for once? Look at these videos; you guys were so happy.”
I want to emphasize the fact that we were happy. We are not at the moment. But I hold back because I don’t want to hurt her or Mom. They are doing what any other mothers would do—trying to fix their children’s broken marriage. What I don’t know is how successful they will be in doing that.
“Come watch this video with us.” Mom looks at me with a small smile, the one I always find hard to resist. It is the same smile she gave me during wedding shopping when she made me buy a ridiculously expensive pair of heels. I have never worn them again because they are so damn expensive.
“Ah—” I start, and Reyansh cuts in.
“We appreciate the effort, but not tonight,” he says, and I don’t know whether to thank him or be upset that he doesn’t want to watch the videos. I don’t even know if I should be upset or not.
After all, even I don’t want to watch them. But I am sure my reason is entirely different from his, and that doesn’t give me any relief at all.
“Yes,” I add with a short, forced smile. “I had a long day at work. I can’t sit in front of a screen anymore.”
“Just for 10 minutes,” Maa says. “It is a tape from your mehendi, and we are about to finish it. Just for us, please.”
Whoever taught moms to use emotional blackmail as their biggest weapon needs to be punished because how the hell am I supposed to say no when they say the words “Just for us, please”?
It is so unfair. And when we say these words back to them, they don’t listen.
“Fine,” I say. “Let me go change first. I can’t sit in these outside clothes.”
* * *
I dab my face twice before coming out of the washroom. I gave myself a solid pep talk. I let myself know that it’s okay, it doesn’t mean anything, and that it won’t bring us any closer.
I don’t know how much of that pep talk worked, but at least I tried.
When I walk back into their room, Reyansh is already seated between them, and I wonder how he can act so unaffected by all of this. How does he manage to be so nonchalant all the time?
“Come, Aisha.” Mom pats the space beside Reyansh. “We were waiting for you.”
I smile as I take place beside Reyansh, trying to keep my emotions in check. It is just a video. Just a video. Nothing else.
I am as stiff as ice when Maa resumes the video, and I am sucked into the past that I thought I had escaped.
“This is my favorite part,” Maa says excitedly as the music plays in the video.
Our wedding was full of my favorite Bollywood songs from my wedding playlist I had made years ago. I was never that keen on the idea of marriage, but I was delusional enough to think that maybe I could get lucky. And for a moment of time, even if short, I did.
Yeh Fitoor Mera plays in the video when Reyansh walks towards me, and I hold my breath the same way I did in the moment.
While he knows how to converse in Hindi, his knowledge of Bollywood songs was zilch.
How he managed to learn all the songs I wanted to be played at the wedding I cannot fathom.
But I loved the effort he put in to make my small dream wedding come true.
I feel Reyansh inch closer towards me, and I wish the bed was a little bigger because I have no space to go.
He has changed into a half-sleeved t-shirt, and his skin feels hot against mine.
“I love this song,” I whisper unknowingly, and he looks at me. I don’t have the heart to look up at him because I know I will break. All the nonchalant acts will fail, and I will become an emotional, sobbing mess.
“I know,” he says. “I have them all memorized by heart.”
I ignore his comment and the way it lights up my heart. Instead I focus on the video that is piercing through my heart.
He comes towards me in the video, and even through the screen I can see the way he looks at me.
Like I am the only one who exists in his world.
Like others disappear when I am in the room.
I smile up at him, my hands covered in mehendi, and he removes the hair that had escaped the chain that was tied to it, tucking it carefully behind my ears.
He cups my cheek, leaning down to kiss my forehead, and the adoration fills my heart.
The crowd erupts in cheers, and Reyansh pulls me up with him.
My eyes turn heavy with both sleep and tears, and I can’t look at the video anymore. Not only because the moment was so sweet but also because of how brutally it breaks my heart.
The video reminds me of what we once were and what we have become now, and I hate it so much I can’t express it in words.
I try to steal a glance at Reyansh only to find him looking at me with the same pain in his eyes as mine.
“I am sorry,” are the words he mouths to me, and I nod because I understand. I always did, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.
It doesn’t erase what has happened.
My attention goes back to the video when Maa’s face comes into view. She was a sobbing mess the entire time.
I feel my head getting heavier, but I can’t get up without hearing my mom go on and on about me not being nice to her. So, I sit with my neck stiff until Reyansh pulls my head onto his shoulder.
I look at him in confusion, the warm press of his hand against my face a surprise.
“Rest,” he whispers in my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. “I know you are tired. I have got you.”
The honesty in his eyes lets me trust him once, and I let myself have this moment with him.
One last time.