- AVOID TYPOS AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS -
I see her with him again, as I move the curtains aside and look down from my apartment's window on the fourth floor. The cool breeze of the night touches my face, reminding me of my reality and flows back and sways away as if it only came to tease my already aching heart a little more. I look faint-heartedly as he doesn't let her go without a kiss on her lips. It hurts me each time I see her be so close to him. It gives an immense relief to my heart as I see her look at her surroundings and inch away from him before he could kiss her; something about him makes her uncomfortable. I close the curtains and reel back into the house, as she looks into my direction; I never wanted her to be uncomfortable about me.
The doorbell rings, as I walk from the bedroom, towards the kitchen. I came back from the office a bit early, today; it is a special day, today – she perhaps does not remember. I pick up the dish from the kitchen counter and place it on the dining table with a plain smile hoping she would like it, before I go and open the door. She walks into the house and smiles at me, but for some reason, that smile doesn't reach her eyes, today; it only remains as a mere curve on her face. Lately, she had been like this, but her smile widens as she smells the aroma of biryani in the air, and she goes to check the dishes on the table to find what she had smelt. I am her best-friend since we were five-years-old; it's my duty to keep a check on her food cravings. I always had.
I pull her ear as she sits at the dining table without freshening up or even washing her hands. 'Jojo, I am very tired; aaj kelie kha lene de na?' she requests like that five-year-old never grew up to be the twenty-seven-year-old that she was now. I frown and shake my head in disbelief as she pouts and pleads like a child, but seeing my frown deepen, she gets up and walks towards the washroom in the bedroom, cursing me endlessly. She turns and peers at me with squinted eyes complainingly as I laugh at her antics and doesn't go into the bathroom until I walk to her and push her in, closing the door after her. She struggles to open the door as I keep holding at the knob from the outside, just to mess with her a little more; she was always envious of my strength. I laugh as she kicks at the door like a Ninja but herself stumbles behind as I leave the knob. I grab her hand in the nick of the moment and save her from falling; she closes her eyes fearing she would fall, but how could I let her?
I grab and hold her close in my arms; her warmth and our proximity make me teary eyed. She slowly opens her eyes to find she was fine and begins smacking me with her palms. I howl out complainingly as she doesn't stop hitting me. She's a pain in the ass; sometimes. I sometimes wonder if I could get rid of her somehow, but even that thought makes me breathless. Living with her was already harrowing enough, how will it be if I live without her? I am used to her.
She kicks at my knee and shoos me out of my own bedroom, as she closes the door on my face. My smile fades immediately as I turn to head towards the kitchen, again, and pausing a moment, I breath in sharply as I take the chocolate cake out of the refrigerator and dip my index finger into the chocolate crème and stuck it into my mouth. 'Happy anniversary, Kabir,' I wish myself as the sweetness of the chocolate melts onto my tongue, making me forget my sorrows for a moment. I quickly keep it back in as I hear the click of the doorknob. I lose my senses for a moment as I see her walk out in a lose tee-shirt of mine, that barely reaches her knees. She looked mesmerizing. 'Arre waah, hot lag rahi hai, wifey,' I comment, as I stroll back to the dining table and sit at my place, and she sits on the chair beside me, like we usually do.
'What are we celebrating, today?' she asks as she checks the dishes before her – biryani, some naans and dal makhani; only the biryani was cooked by me – the other dishes were sent by maa; not mine – I am not so bravehearted to cook them all. If not because of her, we wouldn't have survived the four years of our marriage that we did.
