I thought November 2020 was going to be the worst month I had survived in my entire life. After that incident at home and my parents breaking me and my relationship apart, I felt I would never be able to pick myself up again.
We had already become exes. I knew after whatever happened, she wasn’t going to come back. Yet, deep inside my heart, I wanted to fight back. A week later, after the incident, I took a flight to Hyderabad. I made it look unprecedented. All of a sudden, I woke up in the morning and packed my bags. “What? Where are you going?” – my mother looked at me, surprised. “Hyderabad… its office… I need to go”. She looked at me suspiciously. She wasn’t able to believe it. She hurriedly woke my father up. They looked grave. I hurried and took a cab to the airport.
It was a 2-3 hour-long journey. From the moment – leaving my home, later boarding the flight, then taking the cab to the flat in Hyderabad.
“Will I be able to face her? What will be her reaction upon seeing me?” – I had kept thinking all the way.
I called my aunt to ask if my parents had spoken to her. They had asked her about me. I had no words. Those events that had happened a week back kept running in my head. It was as if I was being pushed and pulled. How could I have accepted that had happened?
After a while, my ex was back in flat. She was out shopping. “You are here!” she was shocked. She stood frozen for a couple of seconds. “Have you eaten anything?” she asked. I hadn’t since morning. She quickly prepared some rotis, and there was some leftover curry. We sat on the couch with her friend. He sat adjacent to us and watched us as we started our conversation.
“What have you said at home?” she questioned. I wanted to have some alone time with. I asked her to wait and gulped the food as if I was starving for days. The past hours were mentally exhausting. In a way, I had left my home; more or less, I had made up my mind if we could get to decide and get married. I was trying to collect my words when her patience ran out. “What have you said at home!”- she screamed. I finally broke my silence and told how I was there. Her friend hinted her to cool down, but she didn’t. “Can we talk in private?” – we went to our room… or that used to be ours.
She wasn’t completely aware of what had happened that day, after the call got hung up; how everything escalated, and how my father got hurt… “I don’t care. My parents were humiliated. That’s the last thing I would tolerate, I had told you that”. She was crying and smoking. She used to smoke in such situations. It had also affected her health.
“No, I am done” – she didn’t let me finish my sentence.
She left to visit someone. I went back to my room. I started collecting my things. Most of my belongings were in another room.
We had a common friend. She was the person I went to when we had some dispute. She knew about us from the very beginning, how everything had started and what problems we were facing. She sometimes helped in bridging the gap between us. Even till today, I thank her for the efforts she had put in to make things better between us when things seemed to have fallen apart. Though everything didn’t end well, yet she had genuinely tried.
When I narrated everything, she thought of talking to her. After some time, my ex was back in the flat. It was a coincidence; her mother had just called her. “He is here” – I heard her mentioning about me. “I have made it clear… the discussion about the marriage is over”. It was clearly audible.
“All of these efforts… all this fight… for nothing?” – I thought.
“I am having a party tonight. So please stay in your room. I don’t want to feel embarrassed before my friends,” – she told me after the call. I was speechless. I hadn’t expected this. It seemed justified in her case as she wanted to get out of this loop. But what about me?! I had two options to choose from – either stay or go out . . .