"What are you doing here at this time of the day?" Arnav turns to see Anjali leaning on his door. She is clearly in the process of leaving the house for some party.
"I need a shot of insulin today." He waves the medicine and syringe in his hands. When he was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes their family had taken it into their stride. Anjali had taken her role as a big sister very seriously and had made sure she had enough answers for an eleven-year-old Arnav.
"How do you know when you need oral medicine and when insulin?" She asks walking into his room.
"I have had this for almost thirty years. When your body betrays you over and over again, you start seeing it from a different perspective. Its best if you don't treat is an enemy but a companion you've picked up to ride next to you for the rest of your life." Arnav removes his suit jacket and took off his shirt. Anjali picks up insulin and draws twenty ml.
"Twenty ml is sufficient?" She asks, dipping cotton into alcohol.
Arnav stills for a moment. Anjali's involvement with anything Arnav had stopped after their parents' death and that included his health. Arnav's childhood wasn't easy when it came to his health. Anjali had taken up the role of proxy parent at school and had taught Lavanya and Aman to see signs of hypoglycemia and exhaustion. The support system had helped him to navigate through his childhood with as much normalcy as his situation could offer him. Anjali was the best sister he could ever ask for.
But that hadn't progressed well into their adulthood. I just didn't lose my parents' when they died. I lost my proxy parental figure, my first best friend, the woman I looked up to, my sister, my family. He swallows thickly.
"Yeah, that's fine." Arnav replied and held his hand out.
He watches her as she applies hand sanitizer and pick up cotton and syringe. Her movements are similar to that of someone who has done this action several times. It has been more than a decade since the last time she gave him a shot.
Or even touched without her anger getting seeped through his skin. He savors the gentle pat of her fingers on his forearm. She is methodical and is clearly performing it from muscle memory. She wipes the area gently and sticks the needle in. He doesn't wince.
"Surprised that I still remember how to do this?" She asks, pushing the plunger.
It is over in an instant and she presses the cold cotton on his forearm.
He smiles and shakes his head. "I am really not. You did this for years Anjali. That kind of muscle memory is hard to shake off."
Anjali steps back from his orbit and watches him as he gets dressed.
"Isn't loving a brother muscle memory too?" She asks, leaning on his wardrobe.
Arnav stops buttoning his shirt and looks at her. He doesn't see her being purposefully barbed. Its genuine curiosity.
"I suppose it can be construed that way." He turns his back to her so that he doesn't have to look at his sister when he gets his next words out. "But when one architects a process to overcome that has an emotional component associated with it, then body ends up bending to the will; muscle memory starts to fade and then with years, memories fade and die." Anjali is quiet and doesn't respond. He fiddles with his tie and wills his hands to stop shaking. Low sugar and non-angry Anjali is messing with his head. A part of him wants to stay there and continue this first civil conversation in years. A greater part of him wants to run and not come back for a week. He is startled when her hands brush against his arm. "Hatred, however, is more difficult to cultivate. How much energy would one has to exert to force a mutation on the things and people that they once adored, so that they now could be hated."
Anjali nods thoughtfully as she fixes his tie. "How long do you think the muscle memory would take to fade away completely?"
Arnav swallows. His hands shake even more and his heartbeat is too loud in his ears. He bites his lower lip hard till he draws blood. Anjali waits patiently.
"It depends on the extent of mutation, I suppose." He says stepping away from her. Her hands are still in the air at the same place where his shoulders were when she was dusting invisible threads from. He cannot take this moment of affection without Anjali turning around and using it to f**k with his mind again. He cannot hold on to this sliver of hope that has him hopelessly stringing along for years. "Sometimes muscle memories are ingrained so far deep that you feel phantom pain when they are gone. It is impossible to describe accurately because you will not know what you are missing. Only that you are missing something. Even when the object of your memories is around, it isn't enough. It never is. Or maybe it's a matter of few words, handful of gestures and memories flood back in. You would almost feel nothing has changed and anything that has changed gets slotted into the system like a wheel in the cog. It's accepting, adapting and moving on." Arnav fists his palm in his pant pocket to stop them from grabbing her and shaking her till she hears the screams of his skin. Look at me Di. Look at me. Talk to me. Hold me when I wake up in the night crying and missing mom's badam milk. Wipe my tears when I catch dad's favorite movie on the TV. Be there. Gently. Stay around. Solid. Flitter around. Protective. Be here. Be now.
"Comme si, comme ca" Anjali says looking at him.
He is shocked to hear the words that bursts out their shared old memories and the shock doesn't stop the surprise laughter that escapes his throat. Like this, like that. That's what her words meant literally. When they were seventeen Lavanya had taken to French. After Aman and Arnav had learned the basic phrases that were romantic and curse words, Lavanya had tried to bring in more vocabulary to them. Arnav had latched on to "Comme si, comme sa" which literally was "like this, like that". He had annoyed Anjali for six straight weeks during that summer by using these French words over and over again. Hearing it from her after half a lifetime, brought him longing.
Anjali's smile is small and private. He panics when he realizes he cannot read her when she isn't being angry or cruel towards him. His bones chatter in this realization. Arnav wants to continue this convoluted conversation. He continues his earlier thought. "If things are far too gone then its best to let things be. It would be foolish to presume things are still the same when clearly they cannot be any more alien. Some muscle memories are better laid to rest."
He picks up his wallet, phone and his non-working watch and walks out.
"What if -" Anjali begins when he is crossing the threshold.
"Anjali please." He begs. "I -" His throat constricts painfully suddenly wanting her to stop breaking this thinly created alternate reality. He doesn't want Anjali's finality on the subject that is already too painful for him to revisit. He wants having these convoluted conversations that go nowhere. He wants to talk without any content, without any substance, without weight of the past and gravity of the present.
He just wants to talk to his sister using some obtuse metaphor that he has already lost track of because giving it up and translating to real life terminologies would scar his heart and numb his veins. He wants to have this pseudo clever lengthy conversations that take place under false sense of pragmatism and misplaced sense of philia so that the longing and alienation he feels every waking moment would abate a little.
I am too messed up to have a normal conversation di. Can't you see? Give me some time before you undo the webs I have woven around me that holds everything you throw at me - both good and bad. Can you wait please? Can you hover around the threshold where I can always see you? Can you send me smoke signals when I am mute? Can I lay my head on your lap first and finally grieve for our parents?
Anjali stands still and waits for him finish. When he doesn't, she smiles a little.
"I should get going." She says, fixing the pleats of her sari. He nods and watches her move. They walk silently to the door.
"There is one thing though," she says, as he is getting into the car. He turns around and looks at her questioningly.
"With some people, it is impossible not to love them. No amount of time or effort to do otherwise will change that. One simply has to give up on hating and start accepting." She says and walks towards her own car without waiting for a reply.
Arnav sits in the car and waits patiently for the freshly hit
anxiety attack to subside.
Notes: Thanks for commenting! Its super exciting to see everyone conversing.
Oh, if you ask a question or ponder in your comments about motivation of characters or your questions require an answer that is potentially a plot point, I may respond with a picture of Sebastian Stan.
Next update, early next week. Ciao!
Teddy was a real psycho. Perfume does not go with certain dress !! Who does that... I felt that he had wrapped his big ugly obsessive hand over khushi and caged her in his fist... That was bad.
Nicely written.
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