Stag Tales Moon Talk

Broken Glass: part 11

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Him

From: Shubhadra

Alright.

It was one word. It shouldn't have made me feel like she said she'd marry me, but it did. One fucking word changed the face of the world as it was, bringing me to wonder if she was even alone. What if she had someone with her? Then it wouldn't be just her and me. I got into the first auto I could find, suddenly cursing myself for not bringing my bike here from home. Feeling heavy on my own step my gaze wavered from the rush of scenery outside to the way in which the lights dazzled the darkness away. Had I been sitting in the dark smoking only a second ago? I could hardly believe it.

"Ulsoor."

I got off before he finished the second syllable of that word. Ulsoor lake wasn't a heavily done up part of the city, but an easy part where the same Kodak studio sat there at the corner of it as a landmark for a decade and over, I'm told. Who even printed photos anymore?

Who cared?

I dialled her number the second I approached the gate. It was past eight, but I knew people walked around here for hours into the night. Even so, it was a lake. You couldn't close a lake, not yet. "Hello," I answered when she picked up. "Where're you?"

"I see you. I'll be right there."

I don't know where the fuck she was, but she took her sweet time getting to me. And she was quiet. I think I yelped quite unfashionably when I felt her tap on my shoulder. 

She looked amused. "Hi."

My heart, oh. "Hi." Telling her she looked nice was ridiculous. Or was it the moon that managed to push her darkness away, too? Was that why she glowed at night, being the moon to her own darkness, the stars to fill her own gaps? "Hi." I repeated.

"Do you think Surya will forgive me?"

That took me a second to process. As she stood there with her fingers entwined I wondered about her first crush, her first boyfriend. If she'd even had one. If she liked me. If she called me because I was special. In my head it all seemed to blow its own proportions. She was quite clear she didn't have time for relationships, friends included. What are you doing, Krish? "I don't see why not."

"So there is something for him to forgive."

"Well," I paused to look across the lake, shimmering from her glow. "Let's walk."

"In a bit. First you tell me if I was awful for doing what I did."

I squinted at that. "What did you do, exactly?"

"Nothing any other girl wouldn't have done. He was stalking me."

"He was?"

"Oh you have no idea."

I didn't get it. He didn't seem obsessed at the time. He seemed... interested, invested. "Go on."

"He thought I liked him or something and starting turning up to my place without my permission. My dad got wind of it when he was out of the city and sent my uncle to take a look. When they found out Surya was drunk, they got the cops on him. That was three months ago."

It took me a while to process that we were actually having an actual conversation. About Surya, sure, but about something. God, I should've finished that last cigarette. "And now?"

"This time it was all his doing. My driver found out about the incident because he was having lunch in the canteen and decided to send my dad a video."

"That sounds bad." I didn't know if my dad would care, but my mom would laugh, for sure. Not call the cops, also for sure. "Extreme to call the cops, though. You could've ignored him."

She pulled her phone out then, a silly looking Motorola. I would've scoffed if I didn't want to make her feel better. "You have to read this."

We walked then, her arms by her side as she took smaller steps than any other person I'd ever walked with. My focus was on the phone, though, so it didn't matter how slow she chose to walk. 

From: Surya

I love you. I will have you.

From: Surya

I can't live without you. You're my heart.

You can't do this to me.

I whistled. "He was a sap." I told her, and myself. "Wow."

"It scared me, but he promised to tone it down. And then," she took the phone from me, the light from it falling across her glasses, making her look ethereal somehow. "this."

From: Surya

I won't let anyone have you. Not that bastard Krishna, not anyone.

Your dad can go to hell. See what I do.

"It's after this he did the whole scene in the canteen."

I wanted to say something, I swear. What could I say though?

"Did I do this?"

Did she? "I don't know, Shubhadra."

She didn't like that, and when she didn't like something, she looked cross, like a bun. I'm not fucking kidding. "No one calls me that. Pick a shorter name."

"Bad?"

She laughed. We walked slow, lazy steps on the gravel steps, a random passerby eyeing us as we passed him at our snail's pace. "Sure."

"Look, you didn't want anything more than friendship, and you told him so."

"I did. But not as explicitly as I did you."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I said the words, but I guess I didn't. I told him I wasn't interested, but not that I wasn't in him. Maybe that's what drove him crazy."

"I wouldn't say crazy. He wasn't crazy."

"That's what you say, but there were worse messages. Trust me, he was crazy."

We walked quietly through the path before us, and I couldn't really focus on what she was saying. "You know that we're friends, right?"

"Yeah." 

"And you know I made that bet with Surya about Christmas?"

She stopped walking. "Yeah..."

"Well," I trailed off, my thoughts on the moon, the sun and everything in between. "you did make things clear, you weren't interested, sure, but so did Surya, I guess. Surya made it clear that he was, in his own way. "

That got her scary face on, the one with the cross. She didn't say anything.

"And... I say this at the risk of everything, but so did I."