Parineeta

'HE' Shopped for ME?

Nandini:
He left just as pointlessly as he'd come in, without doing one thing that he was supposed to, click pictures? Yeah right. All he did was create a mess. Like always. First he created a mess in my room with all these shopping bags, which I somehow don't buy that they were sent by Navya, she was so ignorant of my situation whatsoever, today, and then be created a mess in my brain when he came so close to me, I swear this damned thing stops working when it actually is supposed to, I mean isn't brain supposed to like suggest some like damage control measures, precautions, or maybe signs or alerts like dude jump back, step away, turn around, RUN, something like that,  my brain on the contrary goes dead, wow, great! And then he creates a mess in my heart, which for some reason starts running marathons as soon as he comes close, ughh Monster, his mere proximity elevated my heartbeats to beyond normal, then his touch numbed my senses and trust me when I say a part of me really did want me to push him away, now I don't know if it was a part of the heart or the brain because neither seemed to be working then, so third organ? Sixth sense? I don't know, it didn't work anyways.
I thumped on my bed still wearing the bright lemon lehenga, honestly I loved the color, it was my favourite afterall. The lehenga felt heavy against my tired body. Alot had happened in a very little while, and by that I mean, mentally, emotionally, physically, geographically, just so much that I was feeling a kind of exhaustion that I didn't know existed and not to mention what just happened here sometime ago. My Heartbeats still feel they could win a marathon if there was one. I couldn't understand when did my life get so happening, and what part of my life was more happening, this one, now or the one that I'd left behind a year ago.
Tough competition.
If it was two people comparing these two lives it certainly would've been a draw because well, do we doubt it? But I was sure there was so much more in store since I was back and he was gonna be around but the problem was I did not have a hideout anymore, I was stuck in this bedroom of this stupid resort without my car. I couldn't even run away even if I wanted.
Wait.. run away? I never ran away.. never.. i chose to leave because it was the best..
Didn't I?
I closed my eyes and his face flashed right in front of me like it was sometime back. There were so many questions in my head, from him, from myself. I mean didn't he have a girlfriend? and if he had one what was he doing here? what was he doing with me? and if he didn't have one then who is everybody talking about? besides why do I care? why did I let him come so close to me? Was I not mad at him anymore? Or is my anger melting away? So soon? He's not even payed for what he did, he seems so happy in his life while I was so miserable all these months, I had to restart my whole god damned life, in a new place among new people, with no support, nobody to fall back on, and all of if because of him, could I forgive him? Just yet? Ever? And if I hadn't forgiven him then why didn't I stop him? Why didn't I push him away,slap him, question him, fight with him? Why did I not do any of it? Most importantly, why did those moments feel right? Why did I feel those butterflies in my pit? Was it his touch? Or was it just touch? Why did I want the time to freeze? Why did I hold him closer? Why was I craving for more? why did I feel lost when he backed down? Why did he back down? Was he thinking of his new girlfriend? Was I his another chance at rebound? What was he thinking? Did he back off because he realised it was me?
So many questions and so many more and I had answers to none. I glanced across at the bags dumped on the other side of the bed. Although I was in no mood or energy to go through all of them but I wanted to see what were in those, a little hope within my heart to maybe get some part of my answers to all those raging questions in my head and heart. This time it felt like there was no segregation, like my heart and mind had the same questions, seemed like they were finally on the same page, agree on something, finally.
I grabbed one bag after another opening whatever there was in it, each time smiling alittle more looking at the close, the first one that I opened had a hand written list which by the way looked like how the kids write when they're running out of time and still have alot to write in an exam, Navya's handwriting was not even close to it. I tried reading what it was and it had pointers against which were the functions of the wedding written cocktail/bachelor's, mehendi, sangeet, haldi, wedding, casuals, extra.
I scanned the paper once again and my eyes felt blurry, I remembered when Manik and I were getting married, it was really a two day business and that included the announcement of the wedding, so like nothing exactly happened except for the wedding, ofcourse.
It's so ironic, I always dreamt of a proper dreamlike wedding with all of these functions, I had always believed that I would get married only to the love of my life who'd whatever it took to make me happy and in return I'd everything for him, well.. i did marry the love of my life, but who knew things would be like this. And here I am today sitting in this room like a guest to a wedding that I always dreamt of but who's to blame? Me? Him? Our parents? I could never get around to an answer to this.
It took me half an hour to unpack all the dresses and lehengas and casuals. I was surprised at the heaviness of each dress and beauty of all of them, I wondered if people would misunderstand me to be the bride because they were that pretty but why did Navya buy such heavy lehengas for me.
I scanned through sheet of paper I held and cross checked the sets that I'd spread across the whole bed and to see if they were enough although I knew they were more than enough, mehendi check, haldi check, sangeet check, shaadi check, I shifted the four lehengas to one side to be left with a dress that would've reached about mid thigh, it was in the color midnight blue with a slight work of sequins and I smiled at the choice of colors of the dresses, lemon yellow, the one that I was wearing, a combination of  light blue and grey, red and white, a midnight blue sparkly, a black with a cape, and a gown kind of a dress in red, probably the extra, but the dress did not fit in any of the occasions, it was too royal for a guest to wear at a wedding unless it was hers, I didn't know what was supposed to be done with this one.
It was surprising how Navya had managed to dresses in these particular colors only, especially when her favourite colors were exactly opposite to these. She liked greens and lavenders and pinks and none of them were here the casuals seemed to be randomly selected probably since they were for daily use but the dresses specifically selected in our favourite colors.
Mine and His.
I stretched my arm to grab my phone to call Navya but the weight of the lehenga that I was wearing weighed me down and I was reminded that I had to change first.
I grabbed a green crop top and a black dhoti styled bottoms and something hit me again, a memory, a nostalgia but I couldn't get into that right now, the weight of the lehenga was killing me and it felt like somebody had put kgs of huge books over my body, I had to change first.
I walked lazily into the washroom and changed into the casual set. I stood in front of the washroom mirror looking at myself as I remembered the time before the whole marriage thing when I used to wear such combinations.