THE ONE YOU CANNOT HAVE (10 page)

Chapte
r
14

Shruti

I don’t know what to do with Rishabh anymore. How much more patience must I show? It is almost a month since he spoke to me like the old times. The new Rishabh is excessively polite. At least if he yelled at me, I could yell right back and we could sort it out. His passive-aggressive anger is now getting to me, wearing me down. I have been trying my best to get things back to normal. But his ‘silent-treatment-and-talk-only-when-needed’ policy is now grating on my nerves. After office stress, this tense atmosphere at home makes me want to scream. I do not know when I will snap. I cannot handle it anymore. I detest the new Rishabh. I want the old one back.

Of course, I mention nothing of this to my mother when she calls. I pretend everything is happy-go-lucky. I pretend I am having a great time. I tell her about work and we chat about the latest movie. My mother every now and then hints about a baby and I deflect the topic time and again.

If I go by Asha’s words, having your in-laws with you is even worse. I comfort myself saying that at least I don’t have to deal with that. Rishabh’s parents hate Mumbai. They have lived in Hubli all their lives and are comfortable in the huge palatial house that they have built. His business is very successful and there is no way they will wind up all that and move in with us. So to that extent, I am glad I will not have ‘in-law problems’ like Asha or some of the other women at work who share horror stories about their in-laws during lunch-breaks.

On Monday morning I wake up feeling like my stomach is on fire. When I sit up in bed, everything spins round and I lie back, unable to focus on anything. I turn towards Rishabh and he is still asleep stretched out on his stomach like he always is.

‘Rishabh...’ I call out to him.

He stirs in his sleep but does not wake up.

‘Rishabh, I feel horrible. Please wake up,’ I say again and nudge him a little harder this time.

‘What?’ he sits up.

‘I feel sick, Rishabh. Something is wrong,’ I tell him.

‘What happened?’ he asks, fully awake now.

‘I don’t know. If I sit up I feel dizzy,’ I say as I prop myself up in a half-sitting posture on the bed with the help of pillows.

‘Lie down, let me get you something to drink. Maybe you will feel better then,’ he says as he gets out of bed and heads towards the kitchen.

He emerges ten minutes later with a cup of tea.

This is the first kind act he has done for me ever since the reading the emails fiasco. Even though I feel sick, his act of kindness registers and I am grateful for the tea and I gulp it down. Ten seconds later, I feel bile rising to my throat and I rush to the bathroom and throw up in the toilet bowl. I am unable to even stand and I half-squat and half-sit, clutching the closet.

A worried Rishabh emerges behind me.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

I am not even able to reply with the awful taste of puke in my mouth.

But the retching has now stopped and I feel slightly better as I rinse my mouth and flush. Rishabh holds me as I make my way to the bed.

‘Shall I call the doctor?’ he asks.

‘No, let’s wait. I don’t know what this is,’ I say.

‘Let’s just go. Why wait?’ he asks.

‘It’s probably nothing, Rishabh. Maybe last night’s dinner didn’t agree with me. Let’s wait and see,’ I insist. Somehow I detest hospitals after spending so much time in them when my mother was undergoing treatment for her cancer. The smell of hospitals depresses me. I will do anything I can to avoid going.

Rishabh fetches me a bottle of cold water from the fridge.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

‘Positive,’ I say. I am feeling better already but I don’t want to say that to Rishabh just yet. I am enjoying his attention and concern after being deprived of it for nearly a month.

‘I will call in sick today and rest. I will be fine,’ I say.

‘Should I stay at home too? Are you sure you will be okay?’ he asks.

‘Yeah. Don’t worry. You go to work. If I feel worse I will call you up.’

‘Hmmm… okay,’ he says and then he hesitates a bit and looks at me. I am unable to make out his expression despite knowing him so well. ‘Do you… you know… do you…?’ he says.

‘What?’ I ask him, puzzled.

‘Do you think you could be pregnant?’ he blurts out.

I almost laugh. ‘Ha. We haven’t had sex for the past one and a half months at least. It is more than a month since you even spoke to me. How will I conceive? Divine intervention?’ I snap at him though I don’t mean to.

He looks crushed. Then gets up and walk out without a word.

I should have remained silent. This was the perfect chance for a truce and I have ruined it.

I hear him pottering about in the kitchen and I do not budge from bed. I just feel exhausted and tired.

Before leaving, Rishabh comes to the doorway of the bedroom and says, ‘See you,’ and walks off. The unfriendly, sullen, angry Rishabh is back once more.

‘Aaaaaargh,’ I scream after I hear the door shut. I fling a cushion off the bed and it lands a few feet away. I am so angry with him.There is a limit to punishing me for something I did—or rather didn’t do (which is to not have told him about Aman before marriage). Honestly—what was there to say about a relationship that was over?

But why then were you unable to answer him when he asked you if you still loved Aman?

Do I? Is it possible to love two people at the same time? I do have a special place in my heart for Aman. But I love Rishabh. Or is that what I have conditioned myself to believe? What is love? These questions go round and round in my head.

Scenes from my wedding with Rishabh flash before my eyes. I think of the time with him. Though we have got along well, I have never felt as alive with Rishabh as I have done with Aman. The time spent with Aman was simply magic. We used to laugh so much. With Rishabh, it has always been polite ribbing and teasing. Not the kind of easy familiarity and wild abandon that Aman and I shared. Aman understood me perfectly and I, him. There was nothing in the world that was too trivial to share with Aman. We even told each other what we ate, how long we slept and what we were doing throughout the day. We used to speak to each other on the phone for hours, whereas, with Rishabh, even during the time we were engaged to each other, conversations never lasted more than a few minutes. Rishabh is indeed a nice guy but it is Aman who made me feel that the whole world is mine for the asking.

With Aman, once we talked to each other over the phone the whole night. Finally at five am, we had said goodnight and fallen asleep. I couldn’t of course, wake up in time for college. My parents had been worried and my mother had presumed that I was ill, and had let me sleep. Aman on the other hand, had been woken up by his hostel-mates and had promptly fallen asleep in class and been sent out. I smile at the memory.

Being in bed the whole day with nothing to do but rest gives me a lot of time to think and my thoughts keep rushing back to Aman. God, I miss him so much now.

I wonder how he is and if he is happy. I wonder if he thinks of me as much as I think of him. I wonder if he is single or has a girlfriend now. The very thought of a girlfriend causes a sinking feeling in my stomach. It is ridiculous to feel this way, because I am already married and I was the one who walked away from him.

How could I ever make him understand that it has broken my heart as much as it had broken his? I did what had to be done at that time. My mother’s health was most important. Heck—we did not know if she would even live and I wanted to do everything to make her happy. One crazy illogical part of me even believed that if I perhaps sacrificed my love and did what she wanted me to, perhaps her cancer would go away.

And strangely, after her breast had been removed, it had. I knew logically that it was supremely foolish of me to think that way—that my action had somewhat played a part in curing her. But the illogical part of me still felt maybe there is something like a ‘pay-off’. And when the person who is closest to you, your parent, is fighting for their life, what choice do you have other than make it as easy as possible for them? That is what I had done.

Aman was a single child too, just like me. He should have understood. Perhaps if he was in my place, and it was his mother who had been battling for her life, he would have done all that she wanted, who knows.

I am overcome by a sudden urge to know what Aman is doing right now and how he looks and what is happening in his life. My laptop is right beside me on the chest-of-drawers next to my bed. I sit up and reach out for it and I log in to Facebook. I had blocked him on the day that we had broken up. I go to my profile and see my blocked contacts. Then I unblock him. Instantly I have access to his profile but he isn’t on my friend list anymore.

I look at his profile picture. A sharp pain passes through me. A deep sense of loss. A dull aching longing. A desire. Memories. A million emotions.

My Aman
.

Except that he isn’t mine anymore.

His profile picture is one of him alone. It is one which I have never seen which means it must have been clicked after we broke up. I look at his cover picture which is different from the profile photo. He seems to be in some foreign country now, judging by his cover picture which shows him and four of his friends, all foreigners.

I am surprised. They seem like good friends too as one of the foreigners has his arm around him and he is laughing, looking straight into the camera. There is a girl in the picture too, right next to Aman. She has jet black hair, she is wearing a strapless dress and looks like a super-model. She is gorgeous. I burn with jealousy. I wonder who she is.

This is ridiculous, I tell myself. You can’t expect him to
not
move on with his life. You were the one who got married and stomped all over his heart and now you deserve it. Burn!

And burn I do.

How can a person still live on inside you for two years?

I wish now I hadn’t opened his profile and looked at his pictures. I wish I had just let it be. God knows what came over me.

I feel even more miserable than I did when I was sick. And then once again without warning bile rises to my throat and I run to the toilet and throw up violently.

I wish now Rishabh had stayed back home to look after me. I wish Rishabh had at least spoken to me and been there for me. Who knows, then, I would not have even bothered to look at Aman’s profile.

But now I have and the ghosts of the past are back. They are dancing all over my brain. They have overtaken my very soul. Jealousy, longing and desire are very potent to handle even one at a time.

And now all three are attacking me simultaneously and I have no place to hide.

In desperation I call up Asha.

She is in the bus, on the way to work and has all the time in the world to talk. I hear myself pouring out my whole story to her. I tell her every single detail about me and Aman. I tell her about how close we were. I tell her about the four inseparable years. I tell her about how we never envisaged this twist of fate. I tell her how much I miss him and how I long for him. I tell her about how Rishabh has been treating me for the past month ever since he read those mails. I tell her about how I am burning with jealousy ever since I saw the foreigner chick with him in the snap. I am dying to know who she is. I just want someone to understand what I am going through. I just want Asha to tell me it is fine and to hang in there.

Instead Asha does something that adds fuel to the already blazing fire.

‘Hey, babes, there is only one way to get over him,’ she says.

‘How?’ I ask.

‘Meet him,’ she says.

‘What nonsense. How can I meet him? And why should I? And even if I do, how will that help me get over him?’

‘You will see for yourself that he has moved on. He will perhaps tell you about his life in whatever country he is in. Right now you are holding on to a chimera. A memory which belongs in the past. He is a different person now and so are you. Once you realise that, you will let him go and be at peace.’

Maybe she is right, I think when I finally hang up.

Maybe I should contact him and make a final closure.