After All This Time (5 page)

Shourya shook his head slowly, repeatedly, his cell phone stuck to his cheek. He was amazed at how neatly Deepti had summed up the situation, as if there wasn’t a storm rising inside of him every time he remembered that she belonged to someone else. All he did was shake his head. He did not trust himself to speak. He would simply remind her of all she had put him through, and he knew how pitiable it would sound. For once, inflicting pain on her to make himself feel better held no appeal.

He really did miss her.

So he let her speak, and just listened as she tried, and failed, to make him feel better, as she broke down several times, trying to explain, to justify everything. At one point, he almost bought into it; he almost felt as if she had been the helpless, clueless victim in the situation, that she still loved him and cared for him as much as she had before. Just not more than she loved and cared for Avik, of course not. The way she put it, it felt as if she really did not understand his point of view. Listening to her side of the story, Shourya felt like she was talking about somebody else, so different had the experience been for each of them.

For the next hour, she spoke mostly and he listened. He thought he felt better than he had before he had called her; that’s how he justified the phone call to himself. He was not going to deny himself that relief just because reaching out to the person who ripped you apart to help put you back together was a pitiable thing to do.

But just when he thought he was arriving at a better place, he heard Avik’s voice in the background.

‘Why are you crying? What’s wrong?’ Avik was asking.

Shourya heard Deepti mumble, ‘I’m okay, it’s nothing,’ before Avik took the phone from her.

‘Hello? Who’s this?’

‘It’s Shourya. Hey.’ It was twisted. It was complicated. But it was how it was, how it was going to remain. Avik really was not to blame for any of this anyway. Maybe Shourya was finally ready to let go and move on.

‘Shourya! I knew it. I knew it was you. Why do you keep calling her? This has been going on too long. Why won’t you just leave us alone? Look at her—she’s crying. Stop torturing her, man!’ Avik barked.

‘I did not do anything.’ Shourya ground his teeth together, suddenly furious too.

‘It doesn’t seem like it. She’s mine, okay? She decided that months ago. I take care of her now. You need to get the hell out of our lives and get one of your own.’

‘Avik!’ Shourya heard Deepti cry out.

‘She can decide whether she wants to talk to me or not. You don’t
own
her,’ Shourya snapped.

‘But I do have a say in what she does and doesn’t do. And I’m telling you—stop bothering my girl. She has been through enough al—’

‘Shourya,’ Deepti shouted, ‘don’t listen to Avik. He’s just upset because I was crying—’

‘Damn right I am. Why do you have to talk to him—?’

‘He’s my best friend—’

‘No, he isn’t. He
was
your best friend,
and
your boyfriend, once upon a time, but isn’t any more. Or have you forgotten that?’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Of course you didn’t mean it! You do nothing; things just happen around you.’

‘Avik, please—’ Shourya heard Deepti plead.

‘Tell me, Deepti, do you still love him?’

‘No, I don’t! I’ve told you a million times—’

‘You made your choice. You swore to me that you don’t love him any more—’ Avik said angrily.

‘And I don’t! I don’t love him. I told you, I fell out of love with him a long time ago, I was just . . . I was stuck with him. I didn’t know how to tell him . . . we’d been together for such a long time . . . I didn’t want to hurt him.’

‘But you did. It had to happen, and it happened. It was a long time ago. Then why are we still here—talking about this?’

‘It’s not that easy. There’s so much history . . . it’s so complicated . . .’ Deepti cried.

‘It’s complicated only because you make it complicated. I’ve told you a hundred times to put him in the past. Just forget about him already, damn it!’

‘I have! He means nothing to me. I love you . . . Avik, listen to me, look at me—I love you. Only you. You know that. No one else matters to me any more . . .’

Shourya pulled the phone away from his ear, and disconnected the call.

I fell out of love with him a long time ago.

I was stuck with him.

He means nothing to me.

Denial requires a lot of work. Your brain has to actively keep you away from something, every minute of every day. That takes work.

The mornings were long. Lavanya found herself wide awake before 4 a.m. almost every day since she’d come home. By the time her parents woke up and started their day, she had already spent hours thinking and worrying about what she was trying so hard not to think and worry about, and getting her head twisted in a knot—one she then tried to untangle all day. Being around her father only made matters worse. So she made an excuse of needing fruit juices and fat-free milk and what not to get out of the house.

‘Mom, I’ll be okay, really!’ Lavanya said for the fourth time. ‘It’s just five minutes away, I think I can handle driving there on my own.’

‘But I can drive you there. It really is no trouble.’

‘No, Mom, you have to take care of Dad’s breakfast before he leaves for work. Go back inside, he must be getting late.’

Mrs Suryavanshi looked at Lavanya and then back towards the house. ‘Okay, be safe. You know how people drive around here,’ she said and rushed back inside.

‘I do.’

But it turned out she really did not. She had been a teenager, not eligible to drive, back when she lived in Delhi. She had occasionally ‘borrowed’ her parents’ cars for midnight escapades, but never regularly. And driving in the States did not prepare her for driving in India, not even close. To begin with, she had to drive on the left side (which was a big adjustment), there were a hell lot more vehicles on the roads, no one seemed to care about lanes, people were overtaking her from either sides, no one giving a damn about pedestrians, and unless it was a main road with traffic signals people were basically driving without laws and regulations.

‘What the . . .! Seriously?’ Lavanya muttered, as a guy on a bike cut into her lane and braked suddenly. She stopped just in time to avoid a crash. She rolled down her window, stuck her head out and hollered, ‘Hey!’

The rider ignored her; he was too busy fishing out his cell phone from his pocket—large phones and tight pants don’t go well together. Having squeezed it out, he fixed it in his helmet somehow and rode away.

Lavanya sighed loudly and started the car again. It took her half an hour to cover the five-minute distance. Between keeping an eye out for wayward drivers and pedestrians, and remembering that she was now driving on the opposite side of the road, she briefly considered abandoning the car and walking back home to fetch her mother. But she knew she would never hear the end of it.

When she eventually parked outside the grocery supermarket, she knew it wasn’t worth the effort she had put in getting there. But she was there, so she went in. She picked up a box of corn flakes and compared it to another box. The one with strawberries promised eight essential vitamins and iron power. But then again, there was another box of cereal that had chunks of chocolate in it. Since Lavanya was in no rush to go home she started reading from the back of the second box, leisurely, like it was the most interesting piece of literature in the world.

‘Lavanya Suryavanshi?’

She spun around at the sound of her name.

The first thing she noticed was the hair. Oh God, so much hair. Long strands of thick black hair that fell to his shoulders in waves and framed a thin, angular face. It was everywhere—on his forehead, covering his ears and even his eyes somewhat. Then she noticed the beard, which, as if in contrast with his hair, was light, and scattered, more like a stubble really.

Apart from these two glaring changes, he was the same. Exactly the same. The same deep-set dark brown eyes under mismatched eyebrows (one slightly lower than the other, and more pointed towards the tip), the same straight nose (slightly nicked at the base, the result of a childhood injury), the same almost perfectly square jaw, lips that formed deep creases around his face and revealed a set of straight teeth when he smiled, like he was doing then.

‘Shourya Kapoor!’ Lavanya exclaimed. ‘I
cannot
believe it’s you! What are you doing here?’

Shourya pulled her into his chest and hugged her tightly, his arms wrapped around her as he rocked her from side to side, the way he always used to do. ‘God, how many years has it been?’ he pulled away and held her at an arm’s distance to examine her.

‘
Years
,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘Like a decade?’

‘No, not a decade. Trust you to exaggerate facts.’

‘Three years short of a decade; it’s not that much of a difference. Trust you to undermine facts.’

‘I—’

Before she could say anything else, Shourya pulled her back into another hug. He was six-feet tall, towering a good eight inches over her. So when he hugged her, her face burrowed into his chest. He smelled of cologne and mint and man, strong and warm and somehow still familiar after all these years.

She looked up at him. ‘What are you doing here? And where have you been?’

‘Where have
I
been? Where have
you
been? You completely disappeared. There’s no trace of you on social networks!’

‘Are you seriously lecturing me right now for not being active on Facebook?’ Lavanya rolled her eyes. ‘We are meeting after such a long time, and of all the things we could talk about you are choosing to criticize my social media presence, or absence or whatever!’

Shourya grinned. ‘No, but at least show your face sometimes, so people can know what’s going on in your life.’

‘It’s all very by-the-book and dull. You’ll get bored.’

‘You could never bore me, Lavanya Suryavanshi.’

‘In that case, why didn’t you call some time to ask what was going on in my life?’

‘Hey! I did. Several times, but you were always caught up with one assignment or the other. You wouldn’t take my calls, wouldn’t respond to my texts. Not that I’m blaming you or anything . . . but eventually, I had to give up.’

‘So that’s what not blaming me sounds like!’ Lavanya raised an eyebrow.

‘Come on! I’m not. The time difference!
That’s
the real culprit,’ he winked.

‘Uh-huh. And what about when you came to the States? Then the time difference was only three hours. You could have called me then.’

‘Now who’s blaming whom?’ he narrowed his eyes.

‘Okay, okay!’ Lavanya held up her fingers in a sign of peace. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here for Shreela’s wedding. We went to your place—Mom wanted to invite your parents in person. Your mom told me you were here, so I decided to follow you.’

‘Shreela is getting married?’ Lavanya exclaimed. ‘To whom? How did they meet? Is it a love marriage? What does the guy do? How did this happen? When’s the wedding? Tell me everything!’

‘I will, I will! Slow down, woman! Didn’t know you were such a fan of weddings.’ Shourya laughed. ‘But do you really think a grocery store aisle is the best place to catch up?’

‘Oh, right.’ Lavanya smiled and looked around sheepishly. For a moment, she had forgotten where she was, what had brought her there and all the other sad details of her life.

‘We have to catch up properly. What are you doing here anyway?’

‘I just . . . needed a break . . . and it was the holiday season, so I flew home.’ She did not look at him. He could always sense when she was lying.

‘No, I meant
here
, the grocery store?’

‘Oh, nothing. I thought I’d go for a drive.’

‘Thought?’ he raised one of his eyebrows and smirked at her.

‘What, I didn’t realize it would be so hard to drive on these roads after so many years! It’s tough, man. Everything is opposite and messy.’

‘Yes, blame the system. We all know what a great driver you are!’

‘I was a good driver! I mean I am.
I am
a good driver,’ Lavanya insisted. ‘I only need to get used to the roads again. You will see.’

‘Sure. If you don’t need anything, let’s get out of here?’ Shourya grasped her elbow and guided her towards the exit.

‘So what have you been up to?’

‘I graduated from UC Berkeley, did an internship at a financial company in Fremont for three months and now I’m working with SQ Inc.’

‘Impressive. In Berkeley? How is the Bay Area?’ Lavanya asked. ‘I have always wanted to travel to the West coast.’

‘You should. It’s beautiful. But I guess you’re used to the bustling New York life by now. I hear you’re working at Paxton-Stark-Meester?’ Shourya said, and before she could decide how to respond to that, added, ‘Funny name, though, isn’t it? Abbreviation sounds like PMS.’

‘Wow. You always have been classy!’

‘I know, right?’ he grinned.

They walked out of the store together. As the sunlight hit his face, Lavanya saw his eyes change shades—they looked much lighter than before.

‘Did you walk here? Please say you walked here,’ she said.

‘I walked here.’

‘Oh, thank God! Then you can drive the stupid car back to my place. I don’t think I’d be able to handle another half hour driving back.’

‘Half hour? Your place is five minutes away!’

‘Darn it. I didn’t need to tell you that.’

‘No, you didn’t. Hand ’em over.’ Shourya’s lips stretched in another wide smile as he took the keys from her and walked towards the car. ‘It’s so good to have you back in my life.’

As he drove away from the parking lot, Shourya looked at Lavanya’s hands, clasped together in her lap, her knuckles nearly white. She kept picking at her cuticles with her nails, and chipping away her nail polish. Something was up. He wanted to ask her what it was, but they had not spoken at all to each other in so many years, he did not want to inadvertently put her in an uncomfortable position.

‘The past four days here alone almost killed me,’ he continued instead.

‘But you’re here for Shreela’s wedding! Isn’t she around?’ Lavanya asked, her eyes shifting to his mane.

Shourya ran a hand through hair self-consciously. ‘She’s always around. Always. And Mom. They’ve both made it impossible for a man to survive in the same house as them.’

‘Wedding disagreements?’

‘Disagreements? They are more like wars! I can’t wait for all of this to be over.’

‘That bad, huh?’ Lavanya stuck out her bottom lip in a half-sympathetic and half-teasing gesture. ‘How is everyone? It’s been so long since I saw them.’

‘Don’t worry; you’re going to see them a lot from now. I’m officially appointing you my buffer, starting now. Your job is to make my life at home bearable,’ Shourya declared.

‘Because I do not have anything else to do in
my
life?’

‘Do you?’ He looked at her challengingly for a second before turning his attention back to the road. ‘Please, enlighten me about your grand plans.’

‘I do not need to have any grand plans; that’s the beauty of being on a vacation, isn’t it? I get to have no plans.’

‘You always have a plan, Lavanya.’

He had meant that as a light-hearted comment, but she went quiet. There was an awkward silence in the car, which was broken only when Lavanya whispered, ‘Maybe this time I don’t,’ just as he pulled into her driveway.

He nodded, not knowing what she meant. What kind of response was that? It wasn’t
what
she said, as much as the
way
she said it that struck him. She was the kind of person who contained a lot of silent drama. She had called
him
dramatic on occasion, but it was she who hid a mountain of theatre inside. Like she would not ask him to shut up and mind his own business. Instead, she would go all silent and brooding on him for a while, and then whisper something softly.
Who does that?

Shourya had always hated it when she hid something from him. Not because he thought she was obliged to tell him everything, of course not, but because she did not do a great job of hiding anything successfully. So he’d always ended up knowing that something was up, but not what it was. And even when he could ask her what the matter was, he preferred to give her time. If and when she felt comfortable enough to share, she did. It was better that way.

When they got out of the car, Shourya said, ‘I don’t see my parents’ car around; they must have left. I’ll walk home from here.’

‘What, no! You can’t do that!’

‘Whoa,’ Shourya said. He looked at Lavanya over the hood of the car. Her face was flushed. ‘Why . . . what’s up?’

‘I just . . . I mean, why don’t you come in for a while? You cannot go away so soon. We just met!’

‘I was going to take your number and call you later. I need to get back home. I have a meeting with the florist; it’s urgent.’

‘Oh . . . right. There is a wedding in your family. There must be so much work to do . . . What was I thinking . . .?’ Lavanya shook her head, her face reddening.

Shourya laughed. ‘I was kidding! I would use any available excuse to avoid going back into that battlefield.’

‘Then come in for breakfast.’

‘I’ve already had breakfast, but okay. I do miss your mom’s cooking.’

Shourya walked up the three steps on the small porch that led to the front door. He had sat on these steps with Lavanya innumerable times as a teenager. He used to walk her home on their way back from school every day, and every day she would insist that he stay for just a few more minutes, always trying to delay going inside for as long as she could. The afternoon sun would be scorching and he would be tired from his cricket practice, but he always stuck around, preparing her to go inside and fight her battle.