by Durjoy Datta
36
I had two options. Option one was go to Kabir’s room, tie him to a chair, slowly pull out his fingernails and toenails one by one, break his ribs and get everyone who hated him to piss on him. And then I wanted him to kill himself.
Second, I could go into Malini’s room and sleep with her. Avantika had been a slut, and I could be too. I knew I had kissed Malini but it was a mistake, a drunken mistake. She should have tried to make things better, not go and kiss another guy, more so the guy I hated with all my heart.
I texted Avantika instead.
Drunk? You bloody took a picture after it!
Deb, I am really sorry, it meant nothing.
It was different, right? He was better, I am sure
Why don’t you go to him? I won’t be messaging
you from now on. Bye, baby. Take care.
I am sorry. Nobody makes me feel the way you do. I did not even feel like kissing somebody. I don’t even care how it was. It really meant nothing. It felt nothing.
Didn’t you feel guilty?
It killed me. It still is.
That is why you still hung out with him even
after it happened? Bullshit. Just go away,
Avantika. Isn’t he seeing someone?
No, he broke up a month back.
So you were celebrating your break-ups! Nice!
Is that why you kissed him? You were waiting
for him to break up or what?
It’s nothing like that, Deb.
I know nothing about you. You didn’t miss me.
You were kissing him. Please don’t message
me after this. I won’t. Bye.
I threw my phone away from me, and held my bursting head, cursing her for having made it worse. I thought of talking about it to Malini, Shashank … or Mittal but it felt so wrong telling them. No one needed to know Avantika had kissed someone else; it wasn’t their business to know.
Kabir and Avantika kissing.
How would I ever get that image out of my head? I talked to myself the entire night, trying to think like her, think like me, advocate both sides and do something to soothe myself. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop it from hurting.
She was just alone, and frustrated, tired of my immaturity. There have been times when you have wanted to kiss Malini again, haven’t you?
No, I have not. They were just passing thoughts.
No, they weren’t. That was just because you wanted to feel a little different, a little better. So what if she did?
But she kissed him. I didn’t kiss Malini.
But you wanted to.
But I didn’t, that is the point. She did and she didn’t even feel guilty about it. She was still talking to him after it. How can she do that? Didn’t she feel guilty? Didn’t she think what it could do to our relationship?
How can she lie so blatantly? I fucking told her the moment I came from Mumbai about what happened. How can she not tell me? So many days passed? How can she not? I was not even in my senses when that fucking happened. She is such a …. No, she is not … She did everything for me. Things that I wouldn’t do for her. But why this? Was she getting bored? Why did they take pictures?
I can’t see him. I can’t see her. How can I possibly see her walking around with him? Or how can I just see Kabir? That bastard! Strutting around, feeling good about himself. He kissed the girl I was dating. He must be laughing behind my back, calling me impotent, less of a man, and what not.
But is it his fault?
Not really.
Who wouldn’t kiss her? Who wouldn’t want to kiss her? Fuck man … What the fuck should I do? I want her. I so want her right now. I wish she would just hug me and tell me that everything will be fine. And tell me that I was better. Tell me that she missed me.
I had to forgive her; she had forgiven me too. I was just being revengeful and sadistic and foolish and, in general, a pig. I still loved her, and she still loved me. I had to go back to her. I just had to. I could not let Kabir come between us.
I called her up.
37
‘Hi,’ I called her up.
‘Hi, Deb. What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Was reading the newspaper and I don’t remember the last time I read it.’ We weren’t very good at small talk; our relationship had started with a random kiss and since then we had never talked about the latest movies we had watched or the weather or exam schedules.
‘I know about that, Deb,’ she said.
‘Look, Avantika … despite what you told me, despite what happened, I have missed you. The past few hours have been quite traumatic, to put it lightly. I have never felt more suicidal. I just want you back. I miss you …’
‘I missed you too … and I am sorry about what happened. I really am,’ she said, still crying.
‘I know, Avantika. It’s just that it’s hard not to think about it.’
‘I know, Deb …’
‘I am sorry for acting so immaturely, Avantika. I should have understood. I mean even I kissed Malini and you understood. I am sorry for being such an ass.’
‘Is that why you have forgiven me? Because I forgave you for kissing Malini? Is that why you think you should come back to me? Because you kissed her and I kissed him and that makes it all okay?’ she asked.
‘I just understand. I love you too much to leave you like that. It would be foolish and unfair.’
‘I am sorry, Deb, but I don’t think we should be together.’ She still silently sobbed.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I don’t deserve you, Deb,’ she said. ‘You told me everything and believed in me. You didn’t hide anything from me.’ She added after a pause, ‘I did.’
‘So-w-w-what do you mean?’ I stammered.
‘Nothing.’
‘TELL ME. Did you hide something?’
‘I lied. Yes, I did. Since you forgave me because we both had kissed someone else, I don’t think you’re going to forgive me for what I didn’t tell you.’
The pain came rushing back and my head pounded like it was imploding inside. ‘What? What did you lie about?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want to hurt you any more,’ she said. ‘You should just leave me.’
‘What? TELL me clearly, Avantika. Please don’t play games with me,’ I said.
‘Kabir and I didn’t stop at the kiss,’ she said, her voice icy cold.
‘W-what?’
‘Just leave me, Deb. I slept with him. You don’t deserve me. You don’t have to forgive me for it.’
‘Just tell me what you did with him. EVERY fucking THING,’ I said, banging my fist against my forehead, crying.
‘Please, Deb, just leave me. I am fine. I am sorry. We should not be together …’
‘It is not about you. It is about me! I want to know. Tell me EVERYTHING.’
‘I don’t want you to know.’ She was still crying. ‘I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have.’
‘I WANT TO KNOW,’ I shouted. ‘What part of I WANT TO KNOW did you not get? WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?’
‘Something more happened … Deb …’
‘How many times did he fuck you? Just tell me. When did it happen? Where did you do it?’
‘We went to his place,’ she said.
‘You went to his place that day? I saw you in college. I fucking saw you in college later that day. You had fucked him before that? And you swore on me … but you swore on me that nothing happened after the kiss. You swore?’
‘I lied,’ she said.
‘Tell me what happened … when … please do not fuck around. I want the truth, right now. Did you guys make out more than once?’ I shouted.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You kissed him twice?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You’re such a slut, Avantika. You’re still sleeping with him, aren’t you? Are you?’ More than angry, I felt like dying.
‘No, I’m not!’
‘You ar
e still fucking him. I just know. I just know that you are.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Why did you do it, Avantika? Why?’
I sat in the corner of the room, defeated and sad; I was no longer angry, just betrayed. My love had no meaning for her.
I did not know what to say to her. This was over. She had slept with him twice—or more, who knows. She was not drunk and it was not a mistake; they knew what they were doing, Avantika knew that she was sleeping with him while I lay rotting in my room. Malini and I might have kissed, but this wasn’t what I deserved.
‘I think this is the last time we are talking, Avantika. Thank you so much for sleeping around. I never thought you would.’ I found it so hard not to cry.
‘I am sorry, Deb. Please don’t cry.’
‘You don’t have to be. Why didn’t you just tell me that you wanted someone better? I would have moved out of your life. I wouldn’t have asked you a single question.’
‘Please don’t cry, Deb. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?’
‘Forgiveness? I hate you, Avantika. Of all the people I hate in my life, I hate you the most. You are pathetic.’
‘But I promise—’
‘Do you love him? Kabir?’ I asked. The words felt like searing embers of coal on my tongue; the images of Kabir and Avantika naked imprinted on my mind.
‘I don’t love him,’ she said. ‘I love you.’
‘Oh, so you love me and still you sleep with him? What are you, Avantika? Did he fucking pay you?’
‘Deb! ENOUGH.’
‘Fuck you, Avantika,’ I cried out loud. I felt dead and numb. ‘Nothing you say makes a difference now. You’re just a whore and a liar.’
‘Deb, I will always love you. I always have,’ she said. ‘Can’t we just get past this? I promise I will make everything all right,’ she begged. ‘We will get past this. Can’t you forgive me? For all that we have shared, can’t you let this go?’
I stayed shut, and I imagined them in Kabir’s hostel room, wrapped around each other, Avantika telling Kabir how good he was, how he was better than me, and Kabir saying that she deserved someone better, someone who could take care of her needs, inside the bedroom and otherwise. ‘He was better than me, wasn’t he?’
‘Why are you asking me that? Does that matter?’ She was still crying as she said that. I did not care about her tears; I cared about mine.
‘It does matter. Of course, it matters. It matters. You sleep with him. Not once, but twice and you say it shouldn’t matter? I want to know why you did it!’
‘I am sorry, Deb.’
‘Why did you come back to me? Why? He is single, and he is good in bed. Why don’t you go back to him? Why don’t you? Just go and make this all go away.’
‘Please stop crying, Deb.’
‘How many guys have you slept with in the last three years? Two? Three?’
‘No, Deb, what are you talking—’
‘How do I believe you?’
‘Why would I lie now?’
‘I don’t believe a single thing you say, Avantika. You are just … You love him, right?’
‘Please don’t say that, Deb. He does nothing to me … I was just …’ She was barely audible because of all the crying. And I wanted her to cry more. ‘Why don’t you just say it, Avantika? Why won’t you say that he was better than I ever was?’
‘I am not comparing an awful mistake with what I have loved the most.’
‘Have a great time with him. Go. Sleep with him. I do not give a damn. Our relationship was the biggest mistake. I regret every day that I have ever spent with you. I should have never …’
‘Listen, Deb. It was nothing. It meant nothing. You know that. I do not care what happened. Just listen to me. Nobody can make me feel like you do. That is what matters. That is all that matters,’ she cried aloud. ‘It was nothing. I do not want to compare anything that I had with you with anyone else. I cannot. I don’t care about anything else. Can’t you just forgive me?’
‘You are not mine any more. You are no longer my Avantika. Just go.’
I disconnected the line and threw the cell phone across the room—it broke and the battery spilled out. The phone was dead, the screen cracked. And with that a part of me died within.
The tears stopped. My heart felt like it had been ripped out. How could I have not seen that before? Avantika always deserved someone better than me. She had finally given into the temptation. If I had a gun, I would have used it. I would have killed myself and relieved myself of the pain.
38
She sat on the first seat, alone, reading the newspaper, peering over the top of her anti-glare spectacles which she only wore to hide her reddened eyes. I took my seat in the third row. I felt no love, only anger and disgust and excruciating pain. Shashank was sitting next to me, swirling a pen between his fingers and I was thinking if I could cleanly pierce it through my heart, die a painless death.
‘Another fight?’ Shashank asked. He stopped swirling the pen; I would have hit the ribcage and missed and it would have been a waste.
‘I broke up.’
‘What? What did you do?’
‘I broke up and I don’t want to talk to about it.’
‘So does that mean you are going to start talking to Malini again?’ Mittal asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just make up your damn mind, Deb. She finally picked up my call yesterday. She even broke up with her boyfriend—a vulnerable moment for her. I don’t want to miss it.’ Mittal chuckled, his eyes twinkled devilishly.
‘I don’t know whether I am going to talk to her or not, but you stay away from her. She is a nice girl and she doesn’t deserve you treating her like that. Just leave her alone if you can’t be with her.’
‘Relationship advice from you? You just left your girlfriend, dude. That’s twice in two weeks, I think,’ he retorted.
‘Will you two calm down? Mittal, stay away from Malini, and, Deb, sort out your thing with Avantika,’ Shashank said, and just as he asked us to stay quiet, the professor saw the three of us talking, shot us a murderous look, threatened to fling a piece of chalk our way and asked us to shut up.
I looked at Kabir. He sat just behind Avantika and tried to initiate a conversation once or twice with her, pulling her hair and poking her with a pen on her back, leaving little blue marks. I saw no reaction from her side. I felt disgusted at the mere sight of him, that sneaky bastard. Every few minutes, my head spun around the same topic. Why? How? What made her do it?
The classes were a pain. I just waited for the ordeal to end, for her to get out of my sight. But how was I supposed to get her out of my mind? How was I supposed to shut my mind and not think about her? How? I thought and struggled, and it drained me; I felt physically unwell.
Sitting there on the wooden bench, burdened by betrayal and the obvious inferiority to Kabir, I weighed my options. Dying seemed very lucrative; jumping off the building was a great option, quick and painless. Turning to alcoholism was a viable option. Making her repent for the rest of her life when she would see me dead in a ditch with a bottle in my hand would serve her right. Alcohol made me think of the girl with tiny bottles of vodka beneath her bed—Malini.
I could use a drink and I sure needed a friend. After the classes ended, I almost ran to Malini’s room. Standing outside her door, I felt nervous; it had been years since I had last been single and tried to court someone other than Avantika. I ran back to my room, changed my shirt, sprayed myself with a wasteful amount of deodorant, and checked my face in the mirror. A scraggly, tired face stared back at me.
Her door was open when I got there and I closed it behind me. My face was wet, with tears and with sweat.
‘You want to talk about it?’ Malini said as she closed down a comic, Batman Retold, and threw it on the table. It landed with a loud thud.
‘Yes. Maybe.’
I told her what had happened, detailin
g every bit, trying not to break down into tears. It surprised me how clearly I recalled every moment of it.
‘Is that reason enough to leave her? That she slept with someone else? Didn’t she say she was sorry?’
‘I had spent a month without her before. I can live another one. And maybe another one. I can do without her,’ I told her. ‘You think it’s easy to live with the recurring images of her making out with someone else? That someone else is Kabir. That asshole.’
‘Don’t you think the images of you and me kissing would be troublesome for her?’
‘Yes, they would be. But I was drunk, crazy drunk, and secondly, I didn’t hide it from her. She did. I was wrong. But she is more wrong. She slept with him.’
‘There is nothing like more wrong. What’s wrong is wrong. And she took you back. She was ready to forgo everything. She also apologized to you and forgave your mistake. It takes a lot of courage to do that,’ Malini said, sympathizing with a girl who clearly didn’t deserve it.
‘She was sleeping with him all that time. Do you know what that means? While I walked around the campus like a madman, spying on her, trying to see her face, she was blowing some guy. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel about myself? Like a joke.’
‘I know what it means. But revenge is not the way to go. It’s your time to understand her and see this through,’ she said, holding my hand.
‘It is not revenge. It’s easy for you to say that everything is going to be okay and optimistic bullshit like that. You wouldn’t know what I’m going through.’
‘I wouldn’t?’ asked Malini, with her eyebrows raised.
Her hostile stance made me remember her break-up with her boyfriend. I tried to say that I was sorry for her, but she said I did not need to care and asked me to skip the topic. We fell silent and I flipped mindlessly through the comic, which was brilliantly drawn, though a bit dark for me.
‘So?’
‘Do you have something to drink?’ I asked her.
‘Why?’
