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Pairings in this chapter: Milind/Ayesha, vague Milind/Prachi,
#5. I did my best, it wasn't much, I couldn't feel so I tried to touch, I've told the truth I didn't come to fool you.
September 2008
Milind barges into her room a few minutes before her wedding, and looks at her with such intensity that she has no choice but to flinch. A series of barely-repressed memories flashes through her head, one after the other, and she desperately wants to reach out, touch him, anything, but she doesn't. It's perhaps the last time they will look at each other like that, perhaps the last time that the look will mean something, and she doesn't want to let that go.
He looks slightly hurt, a little bemused but mostly sad, like he's in the final stage of grief. She tries to gauge his reaction to her dressed in bridal attire, but somewhere along the line he's become so good at hiding his feelings. It should hurt, she figures, that she can't read him anymore, but the dull ache inside her is more of a combination of everything else.
"Don't get married," he says, and for a moment, she's happy because that's what she's ever wanted to hear, but now the words mean nothing and all she can do is desperately wish that they do.
"I…" she stutters, because she was never good at replying back anyway, and settles on just shaking her head. She remembers the times, long, long ago when she had vowed to get him back, vowed to be only and only with him, but now that seems a lifetime ago. She still doesn't know why she's going to get married, except that it was the sheer result of her self-destructive behavior and a unbelievably high level of optimism that she no longer has.
"When did you start caring," she says and it seems unbelievably harsh, slightly childish and extremely uncalled for, but she needs to hurt him so that he doesn't hurt himself (and when did her logic become just so screwed up?). His shocked expression conveys everything, and for a moment she feels so guilty that she wants to throw up.
"When did you stop?" he asks, and his voice is soft and aghast with something she can't quite pinpoint, but she can't reply because her throat is closing up.
She leaves abruptly and makes her way down to her wedding as graciously as she can. She desperately searches everyone else's faces, to find some sort of expression that doesn't settle on pity, she even silently pleads Ayesha to look triumphant but she sees nothing. She pretends she doesn't notice Neev's pitying look when he forces the vermillion on her forehead, she pretends to not care about Milind's almost tear-filled eyes, and she stubbornly doesn't look at Ayesha.
When the wedding's finally over and everyone breathes a sigh of relief, it really does feel like apocalypse, and all she can do is hope for the tomorrow she knows will never come.
September 2008
"They actually got married," he exclaims out loud, almost forgetting to not sound so desolate. He doesn't notice until really long that Ayesha hasn't replied yet, and suddenly he forgets all about his misery because she's supposed to be rejoicing, celebrating, something and instead this is so unusual.
"What's wrong with you?" he asks, and she looks up at him and tries to smile and shake her head. But he knows that look on her face, mainly because he's wearing a look identical to that, and he knows that that look on her face cannot be anything but genuine. He feels sick to the stomach at all the possibilities, but doesn't ask her anything further.
"You sure?" he keeps his tone casual, and she nods as they lay side by side in their big, cold bed. He listens to the sound of her breathing and the slight hitches tell him that she's crying, but he really, really can't bring himself to comfort her. She doesn't make any effort to wipe away her tears and he doesn't make any effort to soothe her, and they just lie there silently and pretend to the other that everything is fine.
"When?" he finally asks her quietly, and she shakes her head again because she really doesn't know. He nods, seemingly satisfied with her answer, and they lie there wondering when everything changed so drastically.
"I really thought I was in love with you," she murmurs finally, and he replies with a terse, "So did I." When the quiet becomes too consuming again, she speaks, and her voice is so vulnerable that he wants to hug her and tell her it will be okay, except that it won't.
"I hate him," she speaks with childish venom, and he fervently agrees, "So do I."
But they both know they aren't kidding anyone, not even themselves, and it takes her a great deal of effort to acknowledge that.
"I don't hate him," she speaks again, and the four words speak to him more than any of her sentences, and he agrees again because it's the truth, "Neither do I." Milind feels like he should hate him, but he's so painfully nice that it's impossible to hate him.
"Yeah?" she asks him musingly, even though they both know what he can't articulate. "Yeah," he tries to smile, "He's a good guy. Maybe, perhaps, someday he'll make you happy."
She doesn't say anything, and he tries not to revel in the irony of the situation. Her love for him made her strong enough to destroy everything like a mirror, but her love for him makes her weak and vulnerable and amazingly pure. Maybe that's her penance, he thinks, but it doesn't really seem fair because she's his childhood friend and he does want to see her happy. Milind wants to hate him at that moment, he wants to go and cripple him for life and beat him until his head bleeds, but all that he can remember is how much he doesn't hate him at all, and that's what makes him furious at himself. He wonders where he his sudden inability to hate has come from, but perhaps, maybe it was within him after all.
"You really think so?" Ayesha asks again, breaking into his thoughts, and he smiles, even though it makes his cheeks and lips hurt.
"He'll make you happy someday. You deserve that."
"I think… I think I might love him," she states.
And just like that, their thirty year old friendship is broken.
Anupamaa
