Hridhi Chatterjee:199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCk85u8m5aC
Every time someone wanted me to reveal something about my new husband, I immediately remembered his hands. I must say, I had always looked at his hands. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzAFEcmaNuo
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ44dnQQXDF
There was something fascinating about it. You know, I had been watching it grow — from 10 to 11, to 13, to 14, and then all the way up to 18.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf10AAeygQD
I’d recognize his hands anywhere. Even now, with strands of hair on them, tanned under the sunlight as he pretended to be good at sports.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8J5NRd1jEg
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwxH7xDIK9K
Pretending.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUKQANF9s5l
He was so damn good at it. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqvlu3EqSd3
His hands held a great power to pretend. To pretend to write while his eyes actually roamed around my drafts. To pretend to cook so that I would finally cut the vegetables for him.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfSvCUc3obF
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJEtHsXErPK
I want to know what's inside it. I want to break every bone, blood vessels, and veins and cut open its flesh just to see how it cooperates with each other.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiomJim4kw4
Maybe he had done it in his medical school. But no one had taught him for sure how those hands worked like it had a mind of its own.
On a cozy Saturday morning, my frail hands resting on his strong ones, I would have asked him questions if I was a normal wife . 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEYsFr6UEdW
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCZfdZg5RyA
How do your fingers crawl around my throat, looking like you would make me breathe for the last time and still, still never hurt?
Maybe a number of how’s simply cloud our marriage, like storm clouds before the rain:199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS9A2OJijZL
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgoGVv0c7vT
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeBWRXORXK6
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkW15bcktyb
********199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ12dMGUTAsP
Clink199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFHFeCsFmXn
Clink.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9nYElHKfgd
My eyes snapped open exactly at five a.m. No clock was needed. I never used an alarm clock in my whole life. My mind was always conscious, working and working, never sparing me, never caring to pull out its gentle features. I would imagine scenes inside my head during these hours my eyes were shut down. People running, new plot threads, weaving new lies to rip my worried mum off stress. And then—199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4h0mcvmPw6
Clink 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHPB62bLgjP
Clink199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡstGDrdUKyT
It was time to officially drift towards consciousness and this time, into the stinky damn real thing people cared to call ‘world’. All these five hours my eyes were shut down, I never saw black. Fragments of images never forget to cloud into me. Inside my brain. Inside my heart. Inside my muscles. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTytlCZed2q
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNCCx2fl0Zz
I simply learned to enjoy it. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8b8j0JrmIR
I waited for nights just to start imagining things, walking back to that pathetic scene I had left out the night before, taking inspiration for my next novels, as my brain went tick-tick throughout the whole night.
My sleep was like the objects in Newton’s law of motion. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSRN6DnMmu5
I never open my eyes until an external force is applied on me. And in my case, it might be a subtle sound, a touch, or a gentle stream of light from that one hole in my old curtain. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkkDo9ZV3qh
Clink 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyl696Hd0Mr
Clink199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡydliYJmF4W
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXvOcWWP3Z7
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYGSBfoMJF9
At that exact moment, 5:05 AM, he finally stopped playing the bell, a metallic plate landing on the topmost shelf of his room hitting hard on the concrete.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCEmrM1M1bO
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQYZFq3VI3R
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs0EcYhJ8Co
When my eyes fell on the half-naked man in the bed, he moved. And I could almost hear his girlfriend say, We were seen. We are seen. We will be seen.
I grabbed my towel, which was technically four years old, and still called it a towel because I had never found another that felt like home, and then I staggered toward the restroom.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzEQWhtrkKP
I don't know why I become so tipsy in the morning. It’s not that I ever sleep. It’s not that I was desperate to sleep in on weekends. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsbHTuW3tPB
The bathroom door never ever felt familiar in my fingers. Even though we had been stuck here for a year, I still couldn’t figure out the switches. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvsoEDNSIhZ
Would that be the 2nd one? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPaNa4j0ZxX
No…maybe the 3rd one?199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZYCARl3UWH
Fuck. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyyGSASb6d
Why are there so many switches?199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuQaecG18zj
I clicked on all of them until the bathroom door lit up. It felt like a hotel, I must say. I grabbed the handle but it felt ice cold under my fingers. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxH2eUZCTmK
Even after months, I still waited for the familiar click of my old apartment.
Advik had rented a big apartment in Manhattan, with rooms which were far too big for the both of us. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVHyfUsXXlv
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcNpXBQuLKN
And I knew that he, too, couldn’t bear to care for them any less.
“You would dust the shelves,” was his first line upon arrival. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc6FUDWcunQ
We got into a big fight that night. It was fair, wasn’t it? I must pay half the rent. But he wanted me to feel like those immature girls he fucked.
“Are you that keen on making me lose face in front of my parents, bitch?”199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQbz07ateTF
That night, I returned to bed with a split lip and he stormed out to grab a beer and maybe, fuck that girl after so long. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6oQ5Z6Jdpd
But still, at the end of the month, I always transferred half the rent in his bank account. It had been our first compromise: He had planned on making me the cook of the house in exchange for the rent. And as you can see, I can never ever let him do that to me. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxPBwjnuDli
It had been a tack. I catfished him under that girl’s name for weeks until I got his account number. Which was, I will add, really really easy. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOKakvjYWVh
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhU1CUV6RaK
Oi, bae, how ya doin?199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq93K6Vs0f9
All okay? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNV5LdBKy92
You know, I been stuck in that mall. U see, I really need this bubble tea ASAP. Can you transfer me 15 bucks or somethin’. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU684EDD0NN
Love ya. XOX.
And surprisingly, when I gave him my account number, he actually transferred me 15 bucks while I casually collected his account number like a genius.
The first time I had transferred him the rent, I had added 15 bucks along with it.
You know, he kept shouting about it for three straight months, but when I pulled my pretend-to-be-dumb act more often, he finally stopped and walked briskly back to the kitchen like a dog with its tail cut. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT2XRe07qAA
6:00 AM.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1nBv96Dm5P
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdnMfSvw9zf
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwOMWkUfrzf
Thank God, he was not home. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡItSM8Z24au
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf29nPlSkVP
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaflSxNFdFz
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRrg5IHIlOd
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBx6DFsJXU1
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡusrg3FwPa2
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjMQs4cV8EP
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUOsRXDzPR5
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsLYGNf3Cp
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa107oH3xDp
Can't you see? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6RS3t2GjHF
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVWWOjLz20T
Betrayed? 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlF8P0Jn3n
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0qgnRLsiyJ
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2KSkfHrfCP
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgJMkjZauTc
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ18Fq4akh3Y
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