I ran straight into him in the corridor. I could not even look into his eyes, somewhere within me there was a guilt. Though everything could have been justifiable I knew that there was something wrong in what i was doing. I walked past him with a ever so slight nod of my head… I could see a slight flicker of a smile to me, I tried to do the same back though I knew that my eyes would let me down. I met her inside the office, and she told me exactly what was going through her mind. She was afraid and scared. She didn’t know how to face him… But we both knew that we had to face him and tell him what was happening. There was no way out.
The next twelve hours was of confusion, emotions and prayers. We told him what our relation had been over the last some months. Furthermore she told him of her decision of marrying me. All the while his mental state switched between rage and sadness, I was finding it more and more difficult to keep myself composed.. I just wanted him to leave as I knew that he being here would only damage all of us. I subtly kept hinting the same to him even offering to book him his ticket. But somehow it did not seem likely until finally he asked me to take him to a nearby church. He told us to wait in the car while he went in.. Ten minutes later he came back and told us that he was ok with our relation and that he would step out of the whole story as he understood what was happening. I don’t know if relieved would be the right word to use here as I could feel his pain within him but for me, silence was the best bet. Towards the evening, things were almost sorted out and they wanted to talk for a few minutes together. I let them do that.
Fifteen minutes later, she came out and told me that she wanted to give him a final kiss. Shaken as i was, I didn’t ever want not to give her anything she asks, so I agreed. How could she even ask me that was beyond me that the whole question of how I could permit her seemed irrelevant. She went into back and came out around five minutes later. This time she had another request, that he had asked her, if she could talk with him over dinner that night. Unknown to him, myself and her were to travel to another district that night and then I was to leave her at her home the next morning. So I asked her why was she lying to him yet again and that too even after he had agreed on our relation? “I don’t want to hurt him now”, came the answer. So yet again I dropped them both off at a restaurant near her hostel and without him knowing proceeded to wait in my car a bit away for the next two and a half hours. Finally at around ten in the night she called me to tell me that they were on the way to her hostel and I could come and pick her up once he left from there.
After picking her up, i asked her what they were talking about. I got the answer in the form of another request, She wanted to spend a day with him in his city of work to listen to him and his issues. With a slight pause she added “but as a friend. I know I cannot even ask such a thing but I wanted to be truthful to you…” Even while I could feel the shock of the request I heard reverberating through my body, I heard myself say “Do you want me to book your tickets?”… I could tell that she was shocked by my response too. We both we really tired and sad after the whole ordeal and I had to once again keep in control while she talked over six times with him over the phone. I trusted her more than anything on earth.
The following week went ahead with us deciding on a date to actually get married. We planned to go and get a court marriage in case her parents had some problem, this was a backup especially since they were oblivious to all what was happening amongst us. Once we fixed upon a approximate date, we were out to celebrate with some friends, when she told them that she would like it if they could sign at our wedding as the main witnesses. For the first time in our life I was seeing her take the upper hand in steering the ship. Then that weekend, we decided that it was time to let her parents know of the story and of the bare fact, that she wanted to marry me. I was quite confident about getting a go-ahead from her parents, primarily due to my relation with her parents which was really wonderful and secondly due to the word which her mom had given me when i confessed about my love for her daughter. That Sunday, as usual I picked her up from her hometown. I could see that she was a bit disturbed. Once in the car, I asked her gently what was happening.
Though she hesitated at first, she started narrating what happened at her house. It seemed that when she told her parents about wanting to marry me, her dad had replied “He is a great guy, a good person. I am sure that there is No one in the world who can look after you, take care of you, Keep you happy and love you like him. But since you are a person who believes in Jesus Christ your life should not be happy. You should be in Pain like how jesus’s life was. Moreover He is very hardworking and has achieved everything in his life with that and his skills. That is wrong, you should pray and accept only what god gives you, since if you use your skills then it is the devil that is playing. Due to this, I do not want you to marry him…” For a minute I thought I had misheard her. That was the stupidest argument I had ever heard in my life. I knew that her dad was outrageously religious and that he actually kept his entire six acres of Prime land uncultivated since he believed that Jesus would grow food for him there once the world ends, effectively almost starving his family in the present. I had always considered the whole thing as a joke but here I was in the middle of this joke and I never could even feel the slightest hint of humour in it. In every single probability i had calculated on how this would end, this was definitely not one of it. Every single parent would have used the exact same argument to convince their daughter to marry that guy ASAP. But here somewhere, somehow the tables were being reversed and there was no logical reason for that.
We somehow managed to get through that crisis but there was something different. One difference was that , i had exhausted all my bank balance and was running low on luxury. But i always ensured that no matter what she could always have the best food and stuff even if it meant I would have to survive on ‘other’ options.. I ensured that she still gets to go for her shopping, she still gets her dinners and juices and her recharges. But something was always not right. One day she told me that her friend from another city was coming and that she was going out with her and will be probably staying with their friends quite far away from the city. Since it was someone i Knew i had agreed to it. But on the day of her arrival, I had offered to drop her at the railway station so that she could avoid travelling in a bus. But just before I was to pick her up, she threw up a tantrum, the reason for which was that I had jokingly stuck a small piece of blank paper on her dress earlier and she ‘somehow’ felt that everyone in the building was seeing her as a joker… She told me that she didn’t want to see me and that i leave her at the bus stop and not the railway station. I had to obey her but it raised some serious doubts in my mind. So once back at the office, I called up her friend’s number but found it to be switched off. So i called up the university where she was working and asked for her claiming to be a student’s brother wanting to discuss something regarding the performance of my ‘brother’. Though i really didn’t want to, I got through… She was at her college which meant the person whom i believed more than anything in the world was lying to me. I tried calling her many times but she didn’t pick up. My heart was pounding, my head was aching, i could not see clearly nor hear what was around me. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Finally she sent me a message in which she scolded me of not giving her freedom and that i was disturbing her conversation with her ‘friend’. Finally with absolutely no option left I sent her a message at around eight that if she does not call me back, I would have to call her parents up. Within seconds, she did call me back. I told her that about her friend and asked her to confess where she was and with whom. My worst fears were true but in a distorted way. She was at his relatives place in the neighbouring state and then went on to tell that he was on the way to meet up with them. The reason for going was to tell them herself that she did not want to marry him and the reason for lying to me was because she didn’t want to hurt me. For the first time in my life I ended the day drowned in drinks… Alcohol fuelled the night to move aside and she came to my house in the morning. We talked and ten minutes later I had forgiven her. Things were back to almost normal.
We still did travel around a lot. It was once during such a trip to Bangalore, and couple of other places that I got hold of her phone while she was trying on a dress. While browsing through it I saw a message, it read “Don’t worry dear, I love you so much I am there for you. I will not leave you…”. Reading further There were more and it was all addressed to HIM… I hoped dearly that it be some kind of a new fad where friends send these to each other. I knew I had to confront her so I asked her what was going on between them now. She did not reply, so i pressed further telling her about the message, to which she again kept quite. I was quite enraged by what happened. I told her that she has to stop it and that she was giving him hopes. She agreed and yet again twenty minutes later, I had forgiven her.
This incident was some kind of a spark which had found its way to the gunpowder which was leaking from a barrel. Multiple times for multiple reasons she told me that she wanted to leave me. Every single time I patched up. The stage where threats begin with “If you don’t want then just go” was setting in for her. I was unable to comprehend why this was happening. Things had gone way out of hand by then, Tons of people all around the place where we worked and lived had come to know, Our relatives, friends and family had become involved. I was starting to lose track of Logic here. I was hoping to she would atleast keep the relation alive if not for love but for logic. My love for her was not weakening at all but somehow she was blinded from seeing it at all. Even while all this happened we still used to go out, we still stayed together when we got a chance, i Still got my goodnight kisses and our five kids still had a chance to be born…She was still mine!!!
That Thursday, we went for a late movie and later I dropped her back at her hostel and bid her farewell after my goodnight kiss.. It was a good sleep. Around ten in the morning I woke up to the phone ringing. It was her, “Hey, please come to the Park at the city centre urgently “. I immediately wondered why she was at the park and not at her office, Nevertheless I quickly dressed up and reached the park.
I was greeted by her, and with her was him and another guy whom I had never met in my whole life. I walked over and asked her what happened? The simple answer she gave me was one I never wanted to hear in my life. “I want to live with him and not you….”. Her voice trailed off. There was just one word in the English vocabulary which could turn this whole sentence into a news I could bear… I waited for her to at least end that sentence with a ‘but’. But I realized It was never coming. She was putting me down, She was finishing me off, she was killing me. The first question which came into my mind was what did I do wrong during the seven hours I slept an hour back.
But even before I could even think about answering the question, everything turned gray and I found myself standing in a lonely street watching a young couple standing face to face a few feet in front of me. The place looked eerily familiar. I caught hold of a movement and saw the girl move slowly and rest her head on the guy’s shoulder sobbing gently. I watched as time slowed down, as the alley faded to blackness until It was only them that i could see. Then all of a sudden, as if out of a dream the guy moved back, looked at her, smiled and said something. I could make out that the girl was smiling now. Then they turned and walked away from me…
But as they did, the guy turned towards me and looked up letting the glow show his face to me… It was me from around three years back… As our eyes met, the glow in his face left him and I mouthed silently along with him “She was not mine…”
(Next: the final Part – Epilogue)
-Ninja-
