‘Do you?’ I asked sternly.
‘Yes.’
She fished out a whisky and a vodka bottle from beneath her bed. I grabbed the bottle and unscrewed it like lovelorn alcoholics in the movies.
‘You are not drinking from it,’ she said. By the time she had said it, I had already taken a ten-second gulp from it. It was bitter.
‘Here, all yours,’ I said and passed on the bottle, hoping she would get drunk, kiss me, and then I would have a story for Avantika. Maybe I would even exaggerate a bit.
‘I don’t want to drink,’ Malini said.
‘Please?’
‘Come. Sit here.’ She pulled my hand and made me sit on the mats on the floor in the corner of the room.
‘What happened?’ she asked. I took another huge glug, my head spun a little. I half wondered if Kabir was in her room right then, caressing her neck, kissing her, laughing at me.
‘They made out,’ I said and my tear glands went into overdrive.
‘But, Deb, you forgave her for kissing Kabir, didn’t you?’
‘She told me she had just kissed. She lied to me! Now she says they have done more and they have done it more than once. When do the lies stop?’
‘But didn’t she take you back after you cheated on her? You kissed me twice, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Moreover, I just kissed you. I didn’t make out or sleep with you,’ I defended myself.
‘Fine.’ She dangled the bottle in front of me. ‘This will help?’
‘Yes,’ I said and took another huge glug, which made me a little disoriented.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘I like you, Malini.’ The words turning to mush in my mouth, my tongue flapping around like a fish out of water.
‘No, you don’t,’ she said.
‘Yes, I do. Mittal says you are sexy. I think so too.’
‘You are drunk.’
‘I am?’ I chuckled. ‘I think we should make out. Yes, we should! And then I will tell her that I slept with you. That would be great, wouldn’t it?’
‘Deb, get a hold.’
‘Nobody loves me.’
Her tone was stern and I could get it despite my drunken state. She asked me to get up and pulled me up.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Nowhere. You are going to bed,’ she said and helped me up. She tried to steady my wayward steps.
‘Are we making out?’ I smiled stupidly at her.
‘No, we are not. Just sleep here.’
‘I don’t want to sleep yet. Maybe we can make out just a little bit?’
‘You need rest,’ she said as I clambered on to the bed.
‘I need you and I am not drunk. Have you ever explored the possibility of us together? You are hot and I am ugly. It makes perfect sense. Opposites attract, Malini!’
‘You should sleep.’
‘I am not sleepy.’
‘No, I have not considered the possibility,’ she said.
‘Why haven’t you?’
‘You are not my thing,’ she said.
‘You haven’t seen my thing.’ I smiled. ‘It’s a monument really.’
‘Not interested,’ she said.
‘I was lying anyway.’
I took another huge sip from the bottle before Malini wrested it away from me. Black. Blank. Darkness.
39
I pulled the blanket over me as the morning sun poured through the curtains and pierced my eyes. My head was hurting, and I felt terrible. The bed did not feel familiar. The room did not feel the same. I wasn’t in Avantika’s room. I woke up, my head hurt, and my lips were dry. Malini’s room, though kitschy and fun, wasn’t anything like Avantika’s room. Bits and pieces from last night came back to me and I felt rather stupid. The alarm clock beeped and I realized it was twelve. Straight ahead, I saw a note stuck on the mirror.
Good Morning. Water—Table. Breakfast—Table, leave it if it gets cold. Leave the room unlocked when you leave. Don’t make it look like you stayed over. Take care. I will ask Mittal for your proxy.
P.S. You drink like a little girl.
I drank the water and had a bite; the eggs were cold and the water was warm but I didn’t mind. I hadn’t eaten well in the last few days. I washed up a little and left her room. On my way back, the same thoughts clouded my mind—Kabir and Avantika. I checked my cell phone. There were twenty messages; all of them were from Avantika. I read them one after the other. They all said the same things.
I am sorry, Deb. You mean everything to me. You can leave me if you want to, but … I love you and I will always be yours. Our relationship meant everything to me. It was the only beautiful thing in my life. Try not to hate me. I love you and I will always do. I am sorry for what happened and I regret it more than anything in my life. I love you so much, Deb. Your leaving me is the worst thing that ever happened to me. You were my only family.
Though I cried, I felt no pity. She slept with someone else and a few messages would not change that. I felt so repulsed, hurt and humiliated; the sickness returned to the stomach.
I didn’t attend any class that day. I waited outside the classroom after the last lecture and saw Avantika leave the class alone. Kabir left with his guys in tow, laughing. Avantika’s eyes and mine met briefly; her eyes were swollen and red.
I walked right past her and hugged Malini. Avantika looked away and walked into the girls’ hostel.
‘Going somewhere?’ Malini asked.
‘To see you and thank you!’ I said.
‘For?’
‘The breakfast, the note … I was a mess this morning, and last night as well.’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Better. Slightly. I am sorry for being so stupid last night. I was having a hard time and I dragged you into it.’
‘I understand.’
‘Coffee?’ I asked her.
She did not say anything and we headed to the canteen. I saw Mittal and Shashank cross us; they looked at me with questions in their eyes, and I met their eyes with no answers in mine.
‘So?’ she asked as she sipped on the coffee.
‘How was the class?’ I sighed.
‘The usual. And we are supposed to talk about classes?’ she said sarcastically. ‘You can’t run away from this. You have to deal with this.’
‘Running away? I am not running away.’
‘Yes. You are,’ she said. ‘You were going back to her when she said she just kissed. But now that she took a few clothes off and made out, you can’t take her back? That’s just being shallow and hypocritical.’
‘Listen to me. It was different. I was not in my senses. She was and she kissed him twice. They were deliberate decisions.’
‘You kissed me twice, Deb.’
‘I was sloshed the first time. And I didn’t lie about it,’ I said.
‘You haven’t considered the possibility that she did it because you hurt her. She lied because she didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Hurt me? Didn’t she think about that when she kissed and made out with him?’
‘Deb, you are such a loser.’
‘Why?’
‘Imagine. She made out just once. Not twice just once. Would you have taken her back?’
‘Umm … yes … totally.’
I was not so sure.
‘You’re just a jealous, chauvinistic guy,’ Malini said.
Maybe I was. But Avantika should not have made out with him.
Period.
40
‘Now what?’ Shashank asked.
‘Nothing. I am just taking a break from the relationship business.’
‘What the hell are you doing? Placements are in a week and you are doing such stunts in your life. Don’t fuck them up, man. She could have helped you way better than I can.’
He gave me a list of companies he had applied to on my behalf and a bundle of forms I had to fill up before the next day. He mailed me
a file that had notes on things such as recent financial events, new marketing jargon and landmark campaigns to brush up before the placement week. He was a lifesaver and a constant reminder of my stupidity.
He kept telling me that I should be with her—at least till the placement week—but what did he know about how tough it was for me?
On my way back to my hostel room, I crossed Mittal, who was as usual on the phone; he had cupped the phone in his palms as if to whisper into it. But I was too occupied to care. I grabbed a few books from my room to prepare for the placement week. Shashank, Avantika and even Mittal had offers and didn’t need to study, I had to. I concentrated hard enough to kick her out of my mind for a few moments, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
The evening was more productive after Malini joined me in the library and marked out the exact things that would be useful. Over the next week or so, Malini took up Avantika’s role; she made herself responsible for everything I did. She made sure I studied, and I know she did well because even Shashank was impressed with the kind of preparation I had before the placement week.
Two weeks had passed since that day, and the hurt was still there. But the days became a little more bearable. I got placed within the first few hours of the placement week in a reputed FMCG with an enviable package and I made more enemies because of it. I spent entire days with Malini, and so that kept my mind off Avantika.
The messages, the mails and the missed calls kept pouring in to tell me how much she still loved me and cared for me. Avantika told me how hard it was for her to live without me and that she would understand if I leave her, but she hoped I would forgive her.
She forwarded me the mails and chats we had exchanged over the past three years. She reminded me of everything that had happened, everything that we had seen together, every happy moment that we had spent smiling and every sad moment we had spent in each other’s arms.
‘Are we never going to talk?’ Avantika had called me up.
‘No, Avantika,’ I said, dryly.
‘Can’t we sort it out?’ she said.
‘No, we can’t,’ I said and cut the phone.
She cried. She mailed. She wept. I replied when I wanted to and rejected every call of hers; sometimes I picked it up and then cut the call. It gave me a sadistic pleasure to see her go through what she had made me suffer a few weeks earlier. I was yet to see her with Kabir in college, but I figured they still met when no one was looking.
Shashank and Mittal had asked a million times what had happened between the two of us, but I could not bring myself to tell them.
‘Male ego,’ Malini used to tell me. I didn’t want to be a lesser man.
‘Your girlfriend goes out and makes out with someone else. Where does that leave you? It just says that you’re not good enough.’
‘That’s nonsense.’ I fumed. Though that may be a part of the reason, but I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want others to gossip about her. ‘Can we stop talking about her?’
‘I talk about her?’
‘Whatever. But don’t encourage my conversations from now on.’
‘As you say,’ she responded and we ran out of things to say to each other.
‘See, we have nothing else to talk about,’ she said and smiled. ‘The only reason we talk is because you love Avantika and you need her in your life. You might hate her now, but you won’t be able to do without her for long.’
‘Whatever,’ I said.
41
With a month left for college to end classes were far and few. The professors no longer cared about attendance or quizzes and made our lives a lot easier. No surprise tests. No hang-ups about attendance. No negative marking for latecomers.
Slowly and steadily, Avantika’s messages took a different tone. The number of messages increased but they were no longer ‘I’m-sorry-please-take-me-back’ messages. They were just messages that said how much she missed me and what my love meant for her, about how much she would treasure me and all that bullshit that only girls can come up with.
She said she would always wait for me and that there would be no one, absolutely no one, who would ever be as important as I was for her. I couldn’t say these messages didn’t affect me. They killed me. It was not a break any more. It was a break-up. And it hurt as much as I had heard it does.
Sometimes, when the nights fell, I used to give in and decide to crawl back into her life. But the mornings used to bring back all the bitterness with them and I used to find myself filled up to the brim with hate and disgust. There were times that I desperately wanted to talk to her, but the presence of Kabir around the campus ensured that I didn’t talk to her.
She had done wrong, and she deserved it. Everyone around me would have agreed. Or not. I did not care.
Late one night, tired of being without her, I called her up, and as soon as I heard her voice, my heart melted and spilled on to the floor. I nevertheless tried to be stern.
‘How are you?’ I asked her.
‘I am fine. How are you doing?’
‘I am doing okay,’ I said. I am dying without you, Avantika.
‘How did the exams go?’
‘They went okay,’ I said. Malini had taught me this time.
‘…’
‘…’
‘Avantika?’
‘Yes?’
‘Just tell me something?’
‘Say?’ she said.
‘Did you not think of me while you were doing it?’ I tried to sound very soft even though my temper was through the roof and I could have strangled someone.
‘I told you that I missed you while I was with him. I am sorry.’
‘Is sorry going to work, Avantika? After all that we had seen together? This is what you give me? This?’
‘Why is it so important, Deb? Can’t we see through this? I’m sure we can. I’m sure we can look past this, think of how we had been together and move on.’
‘See through this? What are you talking about? How am I supposed to let this go? If I go and sleep with Malini every day from now on and come back to you, would you have me back? Would you?’
‘I would. It wouldn’t make a difference to me, Deb. I love you and I always will. You can go sleep with anybody you want to. But if you love me, I would still take you back. That’s how much I love you.’
‘Is that why you broke up for a month when I kissed Malini?’
‘Trust me.’
‘You disgust me, Avantika. You disgust me. You were such a mistake …’
I disconnected the line. I knew I said what I said to hurt her and make her go through the pain that I was going through. Sometimes, the pain is so constant and deep that you learn to live with it. At certain levels, she did disgust me. I was disgusted at the fact that she was with him. I was disgusted that she lied to me. I was disgusted that I had to find out everything that she had lied about to my face.
42
‘How long do you plan to stay away from her?’ Malini asked.
‘Fifteen more days and college will end. She will go her own way and I will have a new life. I will get over her. So, I plan to stay away from her forever.’
‘Why do you want to get over her when you know you could be much better with her?’
‘I am good. I am doing well. I’m doing great in fact. Like super good.’
‘Is that why you had to say that four times?’ She smirked.
The exams had just got over and I had done surprisingly well. Avantika had not done too great. She had done terribly in fact. Kabir was the batch topper and he would collect his fake-gold gold medal for his all-round performance over the past two years.
Fifteen more days … and back to the world of endless cups of coffee, horrible bosses, short weekends and horrible Mondays. Just a few formalities were all that was left of our college life. It sucked. Two years … gone, just like that. Time had simply whizzed by. The first one and a half years had been awesome to say the least. The last part of it pretty much sucked.
I had received the offer letter from the FMCG I had to join and I still had a few months before I would join the company. That meant I would have nothing to do for that time and it scared me. Nothingness will consume me, I thought.
Earlier when we were together, Avantika and I had already decided how we would stay together, once again, if our jobs took us to the same city. But these were the least important of our plans. I was already twenty-five and had started to feel a little older than usual. We had never explicitly talked about it, but we knew it was on our minds. We had talked about it in undertones. We had to plan long term—better sooner than later.
‘Why don’t you call her?’ she said when she saw me making circles in the dirt on the canteen table.
‘It’s not helping. I called Avantika five times in five days, and it is all the same. I can’t get it out of my head, I never will. We can never be together again.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t forget what happened. There’s nothing more to it. I have tried and I have failed. It doesn’t work. I can’t get over it,’ I said.
‘What does she say?’
‘… that she loves me, that whatever she did was a mistake, and it shouldn’t matter if I love her.’
‘Isn’t she right?’
‘No. The bitterness will stay. It will always stay. I will never forget what happened and I will never love her the same. I wouldn’t ever be able to trust her again. She lied to me. It’s better for her that we don’t get together.’
‘For her? All you are thinking about is yourself. You and your male ego is all that matters to you.’
‘I don’t know what it is but I just can’t be with her. Not right now.’
‘Don’t make it too late,’ Malini said.
‘I don’t care.’
‘You do care. Have you seen yourself? You are a shadow of the guy you once were. Where is that smile that used to be on your face? Where is that cute goddamn dimple? You don’t jump around and do the stupid things you used to. You have changed.’
‘…’
‘Just stop being such a jerk. Look at her! Don’t you feel sorry for her? She is alone and she cries all day. Why are you doing this to her? She loves you, Deb,’ she said.