'I don't understand.'
He scoffed. 'Of course you don't. You're blind aren't you? If you just looked, you'd know.'
That made my blood boil. How dare he? All I'd ever done was bloody look. At him going on dates with random girls, chatting up to his neighbor, sneaking furtive touches on their backs and the list went fucking on, didn't it?
My vision had started to blur but I quickly blinked the tears away. I didn't want him to see.
'I've been looking Nihal. I have, I have. But it's too much sometimes, I have to look away. But that's the only time you notice, isn't it? -when I'm not looking.' I said, voice cracking at the end. There was no point in holding back the tears anymore, they were free falling now with no inhibitions at all.
In a second, he had his arms wrapped around me, crying too, rocking us both back and forth. He was apologizing, sobbing and asking me how was this happening of all days.
'It's because of me,' I said. He shushed me, holding me close, so close I could hear his erratic heart beat. What was I thinking when I had said all that stuff? What was wrong with me? I had finally hurt the last person I cared about.
'I hate to see you cry.'
And with that I started crying even harder.
'You wanna know why I didn't go?' he murmured, after a while of our shouting match. We were still crying, clutched in each other's arms, standing there in the midst of fireworks and lights, and talking nonsensical things. It wasn't very compatible with the spirit of Diwali but I was done living up to expectations, including this.
I looked up at him, nodding slightly. 'I couldn't stand thinking you'd not be with me every day.'
I wanted to laugh at the irony, because that was what my nightmares were made of too, but he meant it in a complete different way didn't he? I sighed, calming down enough to stop crying.
'Or course you're not going to see me everyday. That's life. We grow up and move on.'
He laughed. 'Yeah. That's true.'
'And it wasn't like I was going on a mission to die,' I said, properly laughing, 'We would still get to see each other.'
'Not as much as I would've liked.'
'Yeah me too,' I said, hugging him.
'But surely it wasn't worth staying here though, was it?' I asked.
'No it wasn't,' he agreed.
I inhaled his cologne for one last time, before separating from his embrace, it was getting awkward and chanced upon a look at his face, but it looked disappointed and I didn't understand that. Don't overthink it, Viann, I reminded myself.
'I guess it's time to get back then.'
He nodded, a bit dazed but a moment later - 'no!'
I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face him again. 'I just I don't think I've cleared the air yet,' he said, panicking.
'Hey. It's alright. We're alright,' I said.
'No. When you asked me if it was worth it and I said no, I did actually mean no but for a completely different reason,' he said, fidgeting with the collar of his kurta.
'What do you mean?' I asked, confused.
'I...I just meant that I didn't have enough time for something that I wanted to do, so it was completely pointless in the end,' he said, coming close again. We were only a foot apart.
