I’m begging now, my voice a raw, desperate plea.

  ‘But what happened?’ she asks. ‘You were okay . . .’

  ‘And now I’m not,’ I say. ‘I’m not okay. I need you, please.’

  She just stares at me, her face a chaotic mix of anger, pity, and a deep, profound sadness.

  ‘I love you, Aditi,’ I repeat, my voice cracking.

  And yet she stands there, saying nothing.

  ‘I really do,’ I say, my voice pleading now.

  And she stands there, stone-faced. Quiet. And my world slowly starts to crumble.

  ‘Please,’ I beg, ‘tell me you love me.’

  The room is shaking. Or maybe it’s me. The boxes lean closer. The lights dim. The walls bend and close up on me. The ground is soft under my feet. I feel like I am falling but I am still standing. I am standing and falling at the same time. I wish I was dying.

  I watch a tear escape her eye. ‘I don’t,’ she says, her voice flat and dead. ‘I don’t love you, Raghav.’

  The words cut through me. They don’t just cut. They sit there, inside my chest, heavy, sharp, their jagged ends tearing me from the inside.

  I feel my heart splinter.

  But then . . . she reaches out, and holds my hand.

  ‘ . . . but I will never leave you . . . I can’t.’

  And I want to believe her. I want to hold her words like rope. But my heart knows better. My heart knows this is the beginning of the end. I’m done.

  I know I’m done.

  Epilogue

  A Year Later

  Kunal

  The morning light in Gurugram is lazy and soft, creeping through all the smog that’s out there choking the early morning running club members and the oldies out on a walk and the middle-aged women doing their yoga. It slips in through the half-drawn curtains. I’m usually the first to wake up. I like the silence before the world starts asking for things, the brief, quiet moments when it’s just us.

  I make the tea. It’s a process now, a ritual I’ve come to appreciate for its quiet comedy. I know what’s going to come. The smile, the scrunch of her beautiful face, and then the smile. I start with the loose-leaf Darjeeling, a sliver of ginger, no shortcuts. I use the chipped ceramic mug she likes because apparently the tea tastes better in it. I believe her. Believing the small, illogical things your partner believes is its own kind of love language. But I know it’s not going to end well. Or it will end well, depending on how you see it.

  She stirs when I place the mug on her bedside table. Her hair is a magnificent mess—it’s the first thing I noticed about her. And it’s still the first thing I notice about her. Her messy, beautiful, brokenness—clichéd and hackneyed and all true. A boy finding a project to fix, a broken wing. In her case, she fixed herself while I watched. Her face, still half in sleep, blooms into a smile that makes me feel like I’ve won something fundamental. She takes a sip.

  And then comes the wince. Barely there. Like I knew it would. Just a twitch around her eyes. She tries to mask it with a mumbled ‘it’s very nice’. She’s horrible at lies. But I can’t blame the lies. Lies are what got her into my life. Even though it came through a series of misfortunes, but it ended well. For me, at least.

  My tea is, and will likely always be, second best. And I’m okay with that. With love, that’s the thing you need to know: you can’t be everything. In some things, you have to accept second place. That’s the grace that successful relationships run on. Ask me. I would know. I run one of the biggest offline dating start-ups in the country.

  Right on cue, the doorbell rings.

  I don’t even look. It’s always him. The guy whose tea gets first place.

  Raghav walks in holding a steel flask and two mugs. He apologizes, but he doesn’t need to. It’s a ritual for him too. It grounds him. Behind me, Aditi has now completely woken up, looking even prettier if that was possible. She’s tying up her hair in a bun, and I’m transfixed like I was the first time I saw her do that.

  Raghav hands Aditi her mug, and there comes the smile. That’s how right the tea is. She can smell that it’s just right. He knows the exact ratio of milk to water, the precise moment the leaves have released their soul. It’s a knowledge born of two years spent navigating a shared darkness. It’s not a competition I’m interested in winning.

  Then he hands me mine. He doesn’t say anything, just smirks. A silent, smug acknowledgement of his victory. I smirk back, concede defeat. It’s the same dance we do every day.

  His tea is better.

  I head to the living room with my now significantly better cup of tea and sit at my desk. Their voices start up in the background, low and familiar. Some insult. Some comeback. Something about politics. Something about the dress she let Shilpi borrow. It’s comforting. Like a sitcom rerun that was cringey the first time you watched it, but now you’ve grown to love. Background noise that makes life more interesting.

  Their friendship is . . . unusual. And a little bit wild. Like some secret third language that only the two of them speak. It’s amusing. But it’s not what I always thought. I used to be threatened by it. Who wouldn’t? After the words that were said, it seemed there existed a vacuum between them. I spent countless sleepless nights. Not any more.

  Not since I figured out the difference between a shared history and a shared future. Not since she sat us down and explained it to us like we were two truant, stupid Neanderthal schoolboys.

  She told us in a voice that was both kind and devastatingly final that she didn’t feel the same way about Raghav as he did. And then, she told us that she knew and Raghav knew and I knew and anyone who heard it knew that Raghav didn’t love Aditi. Not even close. He wasn’t trying to win her. He was just scared of being left behind.

  It was the truth, and yet we doubted it. But when she said it, and in the quiet, low voice that she uses when she’s serious, we not only saw the truth, but also felt like the biggest dumbfucks to have existed.

  And so, Aditi didn’t leave him behind. Like she promised she would.

  She cancelled her rental agreement and instead found an apartment across the hall.

  When I officially asked her out, she said yes with a disclaimer. Raghav wasn’t going anywhere. His mess, his opinions, his family drama . . . all of it came with her.

  ‘He’s not my baggage,’ she had explained, her eyes searching mine for any sign of retreat. ‘He’s my person. He’s my only family. You have to be okay with that.’

  It was less of a warning, more of a reality check.

  ‘You might be the love of my life,’ she said, ‘but I can’t lose my family again.’

  And he’s a nice guy. A little intolerable at times, but cool overall, and is a smart addition to Connect.

  Raghav joined our start-up six months ago. Initially just to mock us in what we were doing, and then to help. Now, he’s in. Fully in. He brings data to chaos. He sees patterns where we see panic. He’s annoyingly good at everything except social niceties. But he shows up. Every single time. He’s not just part of her life now. He’s part of mine too. We have our own rhythm.

  The only problem is that sometimes he starts to date the people we are supposed to set up. His apparent handsomeness has led to some very awkward conversations and disgruntled single men who come to the event only to find the most desirable of women flocking to Raghav all evening.

  This morning, while I’m trying to figure out a revenue-sharing model with a boutique café, I can hear their voices rise. The discussion is still going on. We just hosted our hundredth event, and there’s a trip planned. And these two can’t decide where to take the team. I sit back and sip my tea, watching them ping-pong through the possibilities.

  Watching them, it’s sometimes hard to remember they went through hell and back. But they did, and they survived. Isn’t that what life is about? To survive, no matter what?

  And I’m glad I get to be here for the aftermath.

  Because the tea, really, is excellent.

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  Durjoy Datta, While We Wait

 

 

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