Will I See You Again?

Fourth Wall

A full night's sleep did nothing to improve Rubina's spirits. Half an hour after she rolled out of her bed, Rubina had a pot of coffee brewed and then began to search for TV remote.

Since it was her day off, Rubina figured that some mind numbing TV infomercials were probably the best thing for her.

The TV came to life as she switched it on, and then, Rubina was greeted by a 42 inch, flat screen version of Rahul Krishna Vaidya.

... with his fiance.

"Oh for God's sakes." Rubina threw the remote at the TV and missed narrowly, knocked into a stack of books and then it fell on the floor.

"We called the media here today because there's something, I want you people and my fans to know."

He took a pause and blinked a few times to adjust to all the glares of camera lights and then continued, "my fans have always been great and supportive. We both discussed and came to the decision  that the public should hear this directly from me." Rahul's voice shook a little and Rubina recognised it was nervousness.

Leaning forward in her seat, Rubina stared wide eyed at the screen. It looked like it was a repeat telecast of some press conference. The channel that was broadcasting the interview, was flashing nonsensical and so called "sensational" captions below the screen. Things like, "soulful singer RKV reveals all", "BB14 runner-up back with a bang" and so on.

Runner-up of BB14, those words brings no more joy to Rubina. They only work as a cold, vicious reminder that though she might had been the winner of BB14, but in real life? She was the runner-up and his fiancé was the actual winner. Rubina thought bitterly.

On the screen, Rahul was gripping his fiancé's hand tightly, as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
His girl on the other hand, looked relaxed. She looked beautiful, happy... glowing.

"Oh my God, she's pregnant." Rubina whispered as treacherous tears suddenly pricked her eyes. Nausea crept up on her again and Rubina fumbled around for a bottle of water.

For a moment, Rubina felt the painful stab of jealousy. Burning hot with the searing longing for someone, a man who don't even know what he means to her. But then she couldn't hold onto that feeling  any longer and just felt sad.

Miserable... alone.

Inhaling a deep breath, Rubina looked at the screen again. Determined to torment herself with the image of his gentle face... his soothing voice.

Rahul was speaking again and his voice trembled slightly.

"All the big moments in my life, almost all of them had taken place in front of cameras. Therefore, it's only fair that I make this announcement in front of the camera too."   Rahul said, then glanced over at his fiancé and she nodded, giving him a bright smile.

"This wonderful woman beside me, is an angel and I love her. I couldn't be doing any of this without her. There's just so much..."

"I can't do this." Rubina said as a sob broke out. She rushed toward her TV and yanked it hard off of the wall and watched it crash onto the floor. The glass shattered into millions of tiny pieces and then scattered around the floor.

Next, she kicked the coffee table over and more glass pieces joined the previous ones. But all these crashing sounds couldn't drown out the sound of her voice as Rubina screamed in anguish of her loss and then crumbled down on the floor like a lifeless puppet, who's strings got cut.

It had never been that Rahul didn't want to be loved, he just didn't want Rubina. His heart was with someone else, and clearly it wasn't Rubina.

All the pain eating away at her dissolved into a slow burning anger.  So when she tried to get off her knees, quickly, she stumbled. Her vision blurred as tears overflowed. Giving up, she sat down on the couch again.

The door bell cut through the silence in the room and startled her. No one could actually get into the building but her sister.

Sitting there, in the middle of the living room, Rubina yelled out, "go away!"

At first it was quiet. Rubina could only hear the the large wall clock ticking away behind her. Then she heard the door open. There was probably a reason she had given her little sister a key but she was regretting it in this instant.

The younger Dilaik sister's footsteps seemed loud and Rubina pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. "Now is not the time." Rubina said in a low voice.

There was a short silence and then her sister cleared her throat. "Redecorating?"
She asked.

It was then that Rubina realized what the place must look like.

"Listen, I'm having a pretty shitty morning here. Can we do this some other time?" Rubina suggested, tiredly.

"Not really?" The younger sister shrugged and headed over to pick up the broken coffee cup off the floor. She stepped around the broken pieces of glass and stood there looking at the upended coffee table and spoke again.

"Listen, I've a feeling you know why I'm here. I was trying to get here sooner but the damn traffic, the government really need to do somethi..."

"Wait a minute. You knew?" Rubina was shocked. She got off the couch and stood a few feet away from her sister. She wasn't sure whether to scream at the girl or just leave the room.

"Woah, wait, okay?" Her little her took a step back and held her hands up in surrender.

"Why?" Rubina was at the end of her patience. "It was just on the freaking TV. You telling me you knew he would be doing a press conference?"

"Just listen to me." The younger one said and stared at Rubina, silently asking for her patience. "Just listen," she repeated firmly.

When Rubina just stood there, she continued.

"Rahul called me this morning. He explained part of what was happening, you know... the part about you not answering his calls either. We planned to meet up and he explained what you might have heard." Her sister took a moment to run her hand through her hair as she surveyed the damage.

"Okay, so I got a little pissed but I'm alright." Rubina said and sank down onto the couch again and tried to look like she wasn't dying inside.

Clearly, her little sister had no intention of leaving until she figured out Rubina wasn't going to hurt herself by taking any kind of drastic step... like before.

"Wait. He explained to you when? And why?" Rubina asked, a little confused.

"Why don't you ask him?" Her sister replied.

As Rubina scoffed at her younger sister, she gave Rubina another shock.

"He's outside, waiting."