Chapter 9 Aditi
Aditi
The soft buzz of my phone pulls me from a dream I can’t remember. I open my eyes. The rain is back, but not like yesterday. This is steadier, calmer. A soft pattering blanketing everything outside the glass. It’s lovely. For a moment, I just listen.
My phone buzzes again, this time with a soft chime.
Aman.
At the security now. Finally.
Aman.
Flight’s on. Weather’s clear here. I’m sleepy.
The words on the screen are simple, but they feel like a starting pistol.
The final part of the journey is beginning.
And suddenly, I wish it wasn’t. It’s like the world doesn’t want me to wake up too fast. Do I want to wake up?
Why not keep dreaming of a world with no kinks?
I never saw the point of those movies—the ones like The Matrix, where every human is plugged into some machine and they are kept drugged and in dreams, and then one stupid human wants to rage against the machines!
Why? I crave an altered reality. Who cares if AI takes over?
Honestly, I’m okay. Wouldn’t it be incredible for someone else to take my decisions, keep me in a neutered state of being? Happy, content, managed?
I don’t want to live in this alternating state of euphoria and sadness.
I don’t reply to Aman. Just hold the phone in my hand for a while and look at his DP.
I’m about to reply to him, but my phone beeps again. A different notification sound. A direct message. It’s Tejal.
Tejal: Your brother called. I told him we don’t talk.
I stare at it for a while. I’m hoping she would write something more.
My fingers hover. What can I write that will prompt her to call me?
What can I write that she apologizes, but not too much because I don’t want to make it weird, and then everything goes back to normal?
She’s online but she’s not writing anything.
And then, another message.
Tejal: You’re at the airport?
Me: Yes.
Tejal: Best of luck.
And then, nothing. Every few seconds, I open up her chat to see if she’s online, but she isn’t. When Tejal and I stopped talking, Aman had seen me through that time and told me, ‘The only difference between your girlfriend and me is that you’re not attracted to her.’
It was the truest thing about Tejal and me. I loved her like I hadn’t loved anyone.
I give up and finally message Aman.
Me: Can’t wait for you to be here.
I press send, and the finality of it settles in my stomach.
This is where it begins. Everything before now was just practice, a dress rehearsal.
The life you live with your parents isn’t real, not completely.
It’s a simulation where you get multiple lives to attempt the same thing.
When you move away, that’s when the game truly begins.
Aman’s moving to a hospital here, and it’s paying him well enough, but I can’t sit at home waiting for him.
In the past three months, since college wound to a halt, I have shot my CV across to hundreds of companies and recruitment agencies and have only gotten disappointment.
There’s a hiring freeze everywhere. Even the handful of people who had placement offers are sitting at home, their offers now rescinded.
I look at Raghav again. My thoughts feel loud, and I wonder if I’ve woken him.
He is still asleep on the other end of the bench, half-slumped against a hand rest, his mouth slightly open, his neck so craned that for a moment it feels like he’s dead.
Still breathing slowly, eyelids twitching like he’s mid-dream. He looks deathly uncomfortable.
The jacket he put on me—and that I returned to him sometime in the night—has slipped off his shoulder again. Such a chivalrous thing. But some things are sacred. Boyfriend jackets and hoodies. Liking food only your girlfriend cooks.
I pull out a small pouch from my backpack. Toothbrushes. I took them all from the house. I had bought them three months ago—five toothbrushes in a money-saver pack. Like the pack knew I was going to need them.
I pluck two out and nudge his shoe lightly with mine.
He stirs, groans and then half-mumbles, ‘Five more minutes, Megha . . .’
‘Wrong girl,’ I say.
His eyes flutter open. He looks at me. Then the toothbrush.
Then me again. Then blinks his eyes open.
Then he sits up, stretches and straightens.
He takes the toothbrush from me. We walk to our respective washrooms without saying anything.
I look like a drunk rat. I wash my face once, and twice, and thrice, and yet I look the same.
You need your nine hours of sleep, my sister had commented once.
By the time I leave, he’s already waiting outside, looking as though he has taken an entire bath. Back in the visitor’s area, the Chaayos has just opened. They serve us chai in paper cups. We sit down at our bench again.
‘They are taking off now,’ he says. ‘Megha just texted.’
‘They were taking off ten minutes ago too,’ I tell him. ‘That means she’s using the phone even after they’ve been asked to shut it down. Taking risks.’
‘Oh, c’mon.’
‘I’m joking, of course,’ I say. ‘I’m just nervous.’
‘So am I.’
The rain is louder now. We both look outside. I hold the cup close to my lips but don’t sip. The board in front of us announces that the flight is expected in another forty-five minutes.
‘I don’t want to cry when I see him,’ I say softly.
Raghav sips his chai. ‘Don’t. It’ll worry him. That’s your thing, right?’
I roll my eyes. ‘But I’ve already used up my monthly cry quota.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think it resets monthly. It rolls over like mobile data.’
I laugh. A real one. Small, but unfiltered. It’s not even a good joke. When you start laughing for real at jokes like these, it’s a sign that you’re becoming friends. I fish through my bag again and pull out a small hairbrush.
‘Is my hair okay?’ he asks.
‘Megha will fall in love with you all over again.’
‘She better. I’m counting on it.’
We fall silent.
The rain thickens again, almost on cue. We both glance at the big clock.
I’m sure the countdown to the old life and the new is ticking in his mind as it is in mine.
He’s staring out the window. Outside, somewhere high above the rainclouds, the plane must have started its descent.
We smell our chai and listen to the sound of rain.