Pause

Chapter 1

I took a pause and looked up at the apartment building. Once I enter... It is a place I am so familiar with that the feeling of comfort was immense. At the same time, there will be a lot of questions. I felt nervous. Hesitation. I nursed a thought of just going back to the airport and taking a flight to some other country. Going on a vacation. I badly needed that. A getaway. An escape. A few days to feel that the life I was living did not exist. That this was not the reality. I really wanted to go somewhere and sit on the beach.

But... with what money? I asked myself.

So I lifted my heavy suitcase and began to climb the steps to the apartment building. The place I spent most of my life in. The old building still looked in top condition though. It remained one of the most luxurious apartment buildings in the area.

The elevator was thankfully empty. I rang the calling bell to apartment no 809. And waited. There was the familiar sound of my Ma calling out to the maid to check the boiling milk on the stove, and then she opened the door. I hoped that my face did not show much emotion. Although I wanted to run into her arms, hug her and cry my heart out, I controlled it. I held it all in.

"Shiyu...," Ma called me, confused and surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I come home?" I asked, walking in without much explanation. I dragged the suitcase in and went to my room. It looked the same, but some things on my desk felt misplaced. Maybe Milky got into it.

"Why did you come without informing?" Ma asked.

"Just..." I turned to her. "Felt like coming home." I did not know for how long I could hold back my tears. I had been crying nonstop for the last couple of days. I saw Ma looking at me like she could sense it with her mom-sensors.

"Is everything alright?" She asked.

"Yeah," I lied. Tears threatened to fall out. So I took a deep breath in. And stayed still.

"Are you sure?" Ma asked again.

"I am hungry," I said. It was almost lunchtime.

"I did not cook for you. You came so suddenly." Ma continued... "You buy Swiggy or something.." I frowned. Ma looked at me. "Okay. I will make something quickly. But there is no fish or chicken." She walked to the kitchen. "So don't complain."

It was okay. I was not actually feeling like eating really. I had not eaten anything significant for the past 2 days. I was existing like a zombie. So I went and sat on the couch and took the remote to turn on the TV. Ma and the maid began to cook in the kitchen. I watched some old 90s movie playing on the TV without paying much attention to it.

"How is Rishab?" Ma asked from the kitchen.

I picked on my nails. And did not reply.

"I was planning to call him today because you did not pick up my call yesterday," Ma said. I stayed silent. "Why did you not take my call? I called you twice." Ma was going on. "Can't you even call back when you see a missed call?" Now, I was zoning out. The TV became blurry because my eyes filled up with tears again. Thankfully my back was turned to the kitchen, so Ma could probably not see. So I let my tears fall. And I zoned out from this world again.

Nothing made sense.

I was in some other dimension, it felt. Everything here was dark and painful. And I had not started physically registering and reacting to the pain.

After a while, I realised that Ma was in front of me. And that she saw my tears. I could not even bother to lift my hand to wipe them.

"What happened, Shiyu?" Ma sat down on the couch with me at once. She sounded concerned. But I could not talk. I could not bear to tell her. I felt like if I did not speak about it, it would not become a reality. So I could not bear to talk. I just shed more tears.

"What happened?" Ma repeated.

I bit my lips and cried harder.

"Shiyu, stop crying and tell me what happened?" She asked.

I just lifted my knees to my chest buried my head to my legs and cried. "Shiyu, tell me." Ma kept asking. "Oh God, will you just tell me what happened?" She asked, angry now. I did not look up. I knew Ma wouldn't give up. She is strict and she does not take nonsense. She was silently staring at me as if she was just giving me a moment, but she expected me to talk when I was able to.

"Did you have any issues at work?" She asked more calm then. I shook my head. "Did you fight with Rishab?" She asked next. I whimpered. She judged from my body language. "You fought?" She asked again.

"He broke up with me." I managed to blurt out without lifting my head from my knees. My jeans were getting wet with my tears.

Ma calmly exhaled. "You have had fights before." She reminded me. "You always make up... Can't you see you see that will happen again? It's just a matter of a few days and you two will be back together." She made it sound like a comical situation. But I shook my head. I just sobbed harder. I wished things were like that.

I kept crying.

I heard the front door open and close. Someone walked in. "What is going on?" I heard Milky's voice. My younger sister Mahira is referred to as Milky by our family members.

"She fought with Rishab." Ma told Milky, "Why are you not in college?"

"We have off this afternoon because of a strike." I heard her, as I looked up at Milky. She saw my face, "Woah... Dude, what happened to you? You look like you cried for a month." She said. Ma patted my shoulder.

I guess they might be thinking that I am overreacting to a small issue like a fight and a breakup. When it was not even our first breakup. We have told each other 'I will never talk to you ever again' at least ten times in our lives and went back on that promise. But this time it was not like that. I knew it. Rishab knew it when he decided to break up with me. So there was no going back.

"Does jeej know you are here?" Milky asked me. "I mean, did you at least tell him before coming home."

I just stared at her. Because telling her the details felt too painful. Telling her that her 'jeej', a short term for a brother-in-law, asked me to move out... felt painful.

"Let me call him," Milky took her mobile phone out.

"Don't," I told her.

"Then talk to us," Ma went on. "What happened? What did you guys fight about?"

"We did not fight," I told her.

"Then?"

"Told you. We broke up. He said he wanted to break up." I said. "Just declared it to me that... he wanted to."

Ma and Milky looked confused. Then Milky said, "Well you must have done something." And I felt either punching her or just killing myself. I did neither, I just stared at Milky, very intensely. Did I do something? Did I actually do something to make him stop loving me? I could not figure that out. It was extremely confusing and was giving me a guilt trip. When I could not even comprehend the fact that Rishab did not love me anymore. That felt like such an impossible scenario. Yet the words he told me 2 days before, felt so cruel.

"Let me talk to him," Ma got up to get her phone.

"Don't," I said. "Please don't," I told her. I did not want more humiliation. I certainly did not want our families to get involved.

"I just want to get some sleep," I told both of them and got up and went to my room to lie down on my bed.

"What about lunch?" Ma asked.

"I don't feel like eating," I called out to her.

"But you just said you were hungry," Ma said. Well, I changed my mind. I really did not feel like eating. I just wanted to curl up in a ball on my bed, and then be there forever till I die. So I did exactly that. I lay on my bed, curled up, and lay there. Wishing I were dead.