by Shilpa Suraj
“She’s a psychology student.” His mother’s voice broke into his bitter thoughts.
“Who?”
“Sonia, of course. Who else?” she asked, impatiently.
“Who Sonia?” His mind still teeming with images of Alisha and Arjun riding off into the sunset together, Vivaan struggled to recall what his mother was talking about.
“Vivaan, what is going on with you? Is it work?” Her voice softening, his mother abandoned the dusting cloth and reached over to touch his forehead.
“Nothing. I’m fine.” Jerking his head back, he walked to the sink and deposited his coffee mug.
“You don’t look fine. You look,” she seemed lost for words. “Unhappy,” she finished at last. “You look unhappy.”
“I’m fine, Ma. I have to get to work.” Grabbing the medical bag he’d left slung over the back of his chair, he dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and left before his mother could interrogate him further.
Her sons thought they were too smart. She watched his hasty exit in silence before going in search of the older one. If she couldn’t get the information out of one, there was always the other. She was their mother after all.
“Arav.”
She found him hunched over his laptop at the writing desk in his room. Seven in the morning and both her boys were already working. They were workaholics, she thought with a mixture of pride and worry.
“Ya, Ma?” He took the mug of coffee she held out to him. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry about things not working out between Pooja and you,” she said.
“Don’t bother about it,” he laughed. “Isn’t that the advantage of an arranged match? No emotions involved, at least, in the beginning. In my opinion, we wouldn’t have been compatible anyway.”
When his mother didn’t make a move for the door, Arav took a sip of his coffee and watched her. She had her mom look on which meant either Vivaan or he was in trouble. His bet was it was Vivaan since he was wandering around the house like someone had just run over his pet dog. He took another sip of coffee and waited. She didn’t disappoint.
“Is your brother okay?” Straight to the point and no mincing words. That was his mother.
“Vivaan?”
“Do you have another brother I don’t know about?” Eyebrows arched, hands on her hips, she looked ready to smack him upside his head.
Laughing and evading her raised hand, Arav said, “I don’t know, Ma. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Because you and I both know that he won’t tell me anything.”
That was true. Arav wished he wasn’t the one everyone decided to interrogate about Vivaan and his complicated love life.
“What is wrong with him, Arav?”
The worry in his mother’s voice had him sighing. He seemed to be sighing a lot these days. A lot like a heroine in a Victorian melodrama. What he needed was a break from all the drama going on in his home.
His sister was married to a man who loved his work more than his wife and newborn child. His brother was falling for a girl who was marrying their cousin.
And he…He cut the thought off. He’d opted for an arranged marriage for a very specific reason. He wasn’t going to start having second thoughts because of one disastrous alliance.
“Arav.” His mother’s impatient voice cut through his thoughts. “I’m talking to you.”
Hesitating because he didn’t know how much to tell his mother, Arav chose his words carefully. “He likes a girl and-“
“He does?” Delighted, his mother sat down next to him, visions of a wedding in the family dancing before her eyes. “Whom?”
Maybe he should test the ground for his brother. “Alisha.”
She blinked. The visions vanished.
“Ma…”
“Alisha?” His mother squeaked.
“Yes, but honestly, I don’t know if there is anything between them,” Arav added hastily. “He gave me the impression that she wasn’t interested.”
“She isn’t?” His mother looked like she might faint.
“He likes Alisha,” she repeated, disbelief and a trace of horror lacing her voice.
“She’s a really nice girl.”
“Yes, she is.” She dabbed at her face with her saree pallu and stood. “I should go.”
Arav caught her before she reached the door. Pulling her into a loose embrace, he asked, “What’s going on in your head?”
“I like Alisha.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I do. It’s just-“
“It’s just?” Arav prompted when she stopped.
“This won’t be easy. She’s divorced, older than him and –“
“And?” Vivaan’s hard voice broke into their conversation. Starting, their mother pulled back from Arav.
“I thought you’d left for work.” Flustered, she started dabbing at her face with her pallu again. Was it just her or was it an uncomfortably hot day?
“And?” Vivaan repeated, ignoring the remark.
The compassion in his mother’s eyes made his own sting. Clenching his jaw, he waited to hear what she had to say.
She didn’t speak for a minute leading him to prompt. “I’m waiting.”
“Both you boys have had relatively easy lives,” she started, “and I thank God for that every day, but I wonder if sometimes you don’t completely comprehend the harder side of life. From what little I’ve heard, she’s gone through some very hard times during her marriage and she’s going to have some issues because of that. She’s…” His mother’s voice faltered at Vivaan’s expression.
“Damaged?” He offered to help her complete her sentence.
Squaring her shoulders, his mother said, “Yes, for want of a better word. Hard times damage us in ways we don’t even realise and they end up leaving us with emotional baggage that is hard for our partner to deal with. Your view of the world is so bright, so optimistic, Vivaan. I don’t want to see you lose that.”
“Scarred,” he said.
“What?” Arav and his mother both looked confused.
“Scarred is a much better word than damaged. You get hurt, you get a scar….it doesn’t leave you damaged for life. A scar shows you’ve healed. A little different, maybe, from whom you were before but stronger. I work with dying children day in and day out and you think I don’t understand hard times? Alisha survived a dead marriage and built a strong, stable life for herself. I don’t see a damaged person when I look at her, Ma. I see a survivor. A little scarred, battered and bruised but magnificent.”
“Incandescent,” Arav added with a smile.
“Yes. In every possible way. It’s a pity you don’t see her the way I do.”
He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and made to move past them but his mother blocked his way.
“You feel so strongly for her?” she asked, softly.
“Yes.” His anger drained away leaving him unbearably tired.
“Then what is stopping you?”
“She is.” The pity in their eyes was more than he could bear. “Unfortunately, she sees herself the way you see her.”
---***---
“What is going on with you?”
Alisha didn’t answer. She kept her eyes on her laptop screen and ignored the annoying friend hovering by her desk.
“Alisha,” Nisha had moved from hovering to sticking her face between the screen and Alisha’s face. “I’m talking to you.”
“I have work,” she answered, irritably.
“The rest of us aren’t sitting around playing marbles but we still find time for a conversation with our friends,” Nisha snapped back. When Alisha didn’t reply, she pushed away from the desk in a huff and stormed off.
Alisha scrubbed her palms across her face, exhaustion both mental and physical pulling at her.
“Shit,” she muttered, before getting to her feet and following her angry friend.
“Nish, hold on.” She caught up with her near the elevator bank. Pulling her to one side, she said, “I’m s
orry. There’s a lot going on.”
“I figured that much out. It’s the rest that I don’t understand.”
The caustic reply had her sighing. “Do you have time for coffee?” She didn’t want to do this, but she wasn’t going to hurt the only friend who’d been there for her through everything life had flung at her.
Fifteen minutes and two coffees later, Alisha was talked out and Nisha was speechless.
“So, they want you to marry Arjun.”
“Yes.” Alisha kept her eyes trained on a fly that was wandering the wall behind Nisha.
“But you like Vivaan?” Nisha seemed to find the words hard to get out.
“Yes.” Like. What a simple word but so complicated because of the context. The fly was just about to take off when a lizard appeared from seemingly nowhere and nabbed it.
Alisha winced in sympathy or was it empathy as the insect struggled frantically in the lizard’s mouth. She was half out of her seat when she realized it had stopped moving. Too late. As always, she was too late. Empathy. It was definitely empathy.
“What are you doing?” Nisha asked her.
“Trying to rescue a fly.”
“What??” Nisha looked more than a little alarmed at the reply. “Alisha,” She grasped her arm and tugged. “Sit down.”
Alisha sat, the fatigue still dragging at her bones making it feel like every movement was in slow motion. She’d felt like this once before. Sad, defeated, hopeless.
The thought was enough to jolt her out of the lethargy seeping through her. Never again. Words she’d repeated to herself for years like a mantra rang through her brain. Never again was she going to spiral like this. Never again was life going to get the better of her. Never Again. She didn’t realise she had said the words out aloud.
“Damn right,” Nisha snapped from across the table.
Alisha stared at her friend’s flushed and angry face. Fury on her behalf, a fact that she’d known was a given but hadn’t had the energy to deal with.
Her mother’s angry tirade from this morning still rang in her ears as she watched Nisha steam and fume across from her. So much anger, so much distress, either for her or against her and all because she was attracted to a guy. She’d been better off frigid and squiggle-less. Lust and libido weren’t all they were hyped up to be.
“You’re not just going to lie down and let everyone walk all over you, are you?” Nisha demanded. “Please tell me you’re going to stand up for what you want.”
Alisha didn’t answer. She didn’t know what she was going to do. The idea of upsetting her parents who were the bedrock of her existence went against everything she wanted in life. But she also wanted more. Like always. Her singular fault. Wanting more.
She wanted Vivaan. She wanted his smile, his belief, his adoration, his confidence. Why couldn’t she be happy like others with what she had? She’d had a peaceful, content existence and she’d wanted to feel the squiggle. Now she felt it for one man when she wanted to feel it for another.
Why couldn’t she just follow the path laid out for her? Arjun was a great guy. She knew that. He would never do anything to hurt her. Then why was she hesitating? She wasn’t a child to be swayed by grand romance and grander passions. She was an adult who’d been through the fires of hell and come out the other side craving peace. And with Arjun, she’d have peace. So then what the hell was her problem?
Somewhere in the distant recesses of her mind, she knew Nisha was still talking but Alisha let her mind wander.
“What do you want?” Nisha’s simple question finally did what the rest of her lecture hadn’t. Alisha focused on her friend again.
“What do I want?” she echoed.
“Don’t you dare let that bastard you were married to take more from you than he already has. He’s wrecked your past, done an excellent job of screwing up your present but I’ll be damned if I stand by and let him take your future from you too. You chose to walk away from that despicable excuse of a human being but you’re still letting him dictate your choices. How long are you going to pay for his mistakes? For his evil, twisted decisions? How long are you going to punish yourself? Aren’t you done? Haven’t you paid enough?”
Alisha’s heart raced, her blood roared in response to Nisha’s words. She wanted to refute the words she slung at her but the truth in them resounded in her head.
“So, I’m asking you again,” Nisha said, impatiently. “What. Do. You. Want?”
“More.”
“And what is more?”
What was more? It was time for Alisha to finally find out.
---***---
Alisha stared at the interview answers she’d drafted and redrafted until the words swam before her eyes. It was terrible. She would need to rework it again.
“Alisha?”
She looked up at her manager’s voice.
“Why are you still here in office?”
“Just needed to take another stab at these answers for the magazine interview. It isn’t punchy enough.”
Leaning in, he read the page displayed on her screen.
“Looks nice to me,” he said, mildly.
“Nice isn’t good enough,” Alisha said, unconsciously echoing Vivaan’s words from that eventful night. She winced as she heard herself. Shoving the memory of that night out of her mind, she focused on her boss’s next words.
“No? Sometimes it is. It’s a minor online news site and I don’t see anything dramatically wrong with this. It’s good. Just not great.”
“But I can make it great. I need a bit more time to work on it and-“
“Go home, Alisha. It’s past nine at night and you look exhausted and washed out. You can work on this tomorrow if that’s what you really want.”
“I have to send it in first hour tomorrow morning,” she said, stubbornly.
“Then work on it from home.” Pulling her chair back from her desk, he turned it around so she faced him. “Go home! Now. It’s an order.”
She was supposed to be meeting Arjun for dinner tonight and she really didn’t want to leave the office. Work gave her a nice excuse. A valid excuse. But her boss didn’t look like he was going to budge.
Admitting defeat, she pushed up from the chair and mumbled her goodbyes. Head down, mind whirling with the complicated mess her personal life was she didn’t see who was standing near the elevators until she was almost there.
Her heart sank at the sight of Venkat and Lakshmi standing side by side in front of the only elevator still working at that time of night.
She eyed the stairs longingly but wondered which would be worse, an uncomfortable elevator ride or eleven flights of stairs in stilettos? Fashion over pain, she thought grimly. Although at this moment, the pain might be worth it.
The elevator doors opened putting an end to her dilemma. An uncomfortable ride seemed like the perfect end to her already crappy day. Stepping in after them, she chose a corner and stared at the console flashing the floor numbers. If it was possible to will the damn thing to go faster, she would.
“I’m sorry,” Venkat’s abrupt apology had her closing her eyes in resignation. She really didn’t want to do this. His fiancée’s only reaction was to glower some more.
“Don’t, okay?” Alisha shook her head. “I just want to be left alone to live my life. Congratulations on your engagement and I hope you guys have a fabulous married life together.”
“No, you don’t,” Lakshmi burst out. “And I don’t need you to pretend to be nice after ruining my life.”
The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Automatically putting a hand out to hold the doors open, Alisha asked, “How exactly did I ruin your life?”
“Even knowing how I feel about you, he,” she gestured angrily at the miserably unhappy Venkat in the corner, “still takes your side.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that he may be doing that because your thinking is wrong?”
“I am not wrong,” she hissed. “Just because your husband left you and you ca
n’t find another-“
“Hey sweetheart!” Alisha stumbled at the sound of Vivaan’s cheerful voice.
Laxmi’s venomous tirade came to an abrupt halt as she took in the new entrant. In crisp formals, tie loosened around his neck, he looked like he’d stepped off the cover of a magazine.
Stepping out of the elevator, Alisha asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t wait to see you.” A determined glint in his eyes, he stepped closer and drew a resisting Alisha into a hug.
Acutely conscious of the fact that they were at her workplace, Alisha pulled back and out of his embrace. Undaunted, Vivaan wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her up against him so her back was flush against his chest.
The rampant speculation in Laxmi and Venkat’s eyes had her flushing. Although, she had to admit a small part of her enjoyed the moment. A very small part. Okay fine, it wasn’t that small!
Laxmi looked like she was going to throw up. Alisha pulled her favourite stilettoes out of vomit range.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?” Vivaan flashed her what could only be called an adoring smile.
Fighting a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, Alisha replied, “You met them at the lounge bar the other day.”
“Did I?” Frowning, Vivaan said, “Sorry. Can’t seem to place you guys. I’m Dr. Vivaan Kapoor and you are?”
“Nobody important,” Alisha answered from the side. It felt like a weight lifted off her shoulders in that moment. It was true. They weren’t important and she didn’t need friends like them. Her true friends, like the one standing with an arm wrapped around her waist recognized her for who and what she truly was. Was it any wonder she adored this guy?
