The Boxes We Are Put In

Chapter 27

He did not call me after. I waited...

Each minute did feel like an hour though. And I could not sleep the whole night. I was a mess in the office the next day. I could not concentrate. I did not know the answer to the questions Nikhil left me with.

Last night, once the heightened emotions died down... I was left with this huge dilemma. Stay here or go home.

Of course. what would solve the entire problem would be for me to move back to Trivandrum and live there and get married to Nikhil and be his 'wife' for my entire lifetime. And for some reason, even when I loved Nikhil so much, now, I was not sure if the above was what I wanted when there could be a thousand other possibilities in my life. I was not ready to give up on my life. Yet I knew that nothing in my life would hold any sort of meaning without Nikhil in it. He was everything to me.

Selfishly, I crafted a mind castle of somehow making him stay here with me...forever. Actually, it did not matter when we got married, we will when we want to. And there will be no one else interfering in our lives. But I could see the big hole in that image. Nikhil would never be truly happy away from his parents. I considered his parents shifting here, but his father had his entire business established there. If I force him to be away from his parents, he may eventually grow to hate me for that.

I considered going back home... marry him. That was what I wanted initially... Until I had a real taste of freedom. Until I had better options...

I considered us breaking up... I can continue my life here. Enhance my career. Make money. Travel places. I remembered the time Nikhil's uncle, Girish uncle, showed me those photographs of all the places he went to. And I had wished I could travel more. Of course, I can travel with Nikhil as well. But somehow the duties of a married life seemed more binding. I was not sure if thinking that my life had more to offer than just Nikhil, was a cruel way of thinking.

I wanted a friend... Someone I can discuss this with and get an opinion. And I realised that my best friend was Nikhil himself. I have other options – Ann, Samatha, and my other colleagues. I even considered calling Soumya. But none of them will ever fully understand my problems with moving back home. None of them knew about Arjun. None of them knows my parents.

One does. And he seemed to be my only closest 'friend' these days. But I pretty much know what he would say – 'you have your own life', as he always says. He is not an unbiased third party either. It was pointless to ask Darshan's opinion. It was like so obvious that he would not want me to leave Bangalore.

Besides I was totally pissed at Darshan. I mean, his whole 'who among the two of us knows Arya more' thing... I know that it is in his nature to tease people and be irritating. But he went too far and crossed a line. I trusted him with that information. And...deep inside, instinctively, I knew why Darshan wanted to prove to Nikhil that he knew me better?? And the worm of guilt crawled out and started rolling inside me saying 'don't tell me that you had no idea, you knew'.

Without having anything else to do, I decided I need to take out my anger on Darshan, at least. If he were not there, Nikhil and my relationship would not have got so tangled. I called him. The calls went on, and then he did not pick it up.

Well, that's convenient. He can just make a mess of my life and not pick up the phone. Great!

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Adi called me mid-day... "How are things?" he asked. From his tone, I understood that he wanted to tell me something. He sounded nervous.

"Fine. What's up?' I asked.