The Scenic Life

Chapter 14

•°•

“Say it again.”

I sigh, “Everything is fine. Its not bad.”

“Are you sure? Is Vihaan torturing you to say that? Should I call the police? You just say yes. I will get to work here.”

I chuckle at Viki’s antics, but my heart melts at her over flowing concern, “I'm sure, viki. I'm not going to lie, it's going way better than I imagined.”

She sighs in relief, “That’s good to hear. Anyways, how is Rajasthan, though? Its been a week you’ve been there. Tell me everything!”

I sift through my luggage, and tell Viki everything about Jaipur, and jodhpur, the incident at the fort, yesterdays surprising friendliness of Vihaan, at which she lets out a  loud gasp of surprise. She's as surprised as me that I told Vihaan about the divorce.

The divorce reminds Viki,

“Sara, how are you holding up? Any nightmares?”

I had a nightmare once when I was at Viki's place for our weekly girls night. After that Viki has been hounding me everyday about my nights. If I had a good nights sleep, if I broke down during the night.

Viki has been my anchor, my lifeboat during this crisis. And I am really grateful about that.

“No. no nightmares. I told you, I just needed a vacation.”

I can hear her smile through the phone, “May I remind you that you were the nervous one before the trip?”

I chuckle, “yeah, I know right. All that worry for absolutely nothing.”

--

We were working at another site this evening, the sun was bright and shiny. Vihaan made sure that I wore light and bright clothes along with a reminder set on my phone to drink water every hour. I felt like I was being babied .  it's fine though, I'll take that over complete hatred filled silence anyday.

I spot Vihaan near the large windows of the palace, shooting at a weird angle. I have finished clicking the photographs from every spot, so I'm now sitting on a bench, enjoying the sun and the flirty texts I've been getting from Arjun. I haven’t replied yet, I have a policy to not text during work. My mind tells me that there is another reason why I'm not replying. But I trash that thought as soon it comes to my mind.

Instead of replying to him, I quickly send my dad the photos of the palace, I know he won't see this message now, so it doesn’t count as texting.

Vihaan jumps down from the ledge that he was standing on and makes his way over to me. his hair is flying all over the place, like his hair has thrown caution to the wind. With wind so strong all over, my hair gets tangled up in front of my eyes, my clothes moving in the direction of the wind.

He sits next to me, his video camera sitting between us. I keep my phone in my pocket, ignoring the buzzing of the notification, and enjoy the sun going down the walls of the palace with him. Its such a beautiful sight, before Rajasthan I had never been this fond of warm colours like red, orange and yellow. I chose violets and blues over them, but now that I see how nature offers them to us everyday on a literal golden plate, I don’t want to go back to the familiar blues. I want this maroon and beige across my body, like a tattoo.

Vihaan breaks the silence between this, his voice a shallow whisper against the wind. “the sun is so different here right?”

I nod. I don’t speak, too afraid that my voice wont be a whisper and that I'll ruin the quiet beauty of nature. To not seem too recluse, I turn my head to him and give a small smile. He returns it.

To be honest, the feeling I felt right now, it is unlike anything.

He looks at me for a moment, then asks. “are you okay?” a whisper, again. I'm thankful for this decibel of sound, its peaceful.

I push my fingers through my hair. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, after the divorce? You sounded upset last night.”

I don’t say anything for a second, I am stalling my reply. I don’t want to tell him anything, I just want to able to show him. Through colours. Blue for everything sucks. Violet for no, its been great.

He mistakes my silence for hesitance, “I mean its cool if you don’t wan-,”

“no its okay. I just, its been kinda hard after the divorce. I mean you don’t expect to have two different homes at the age of 26 do you? At the age of 26, you shouldn’t have to worry about your parents relations, you should be able to worry about yours.” I shake my head.

This was a mistake, I think, getting so vulnerable in front of him.

I continue, “I thought everything would just die down. The fights, the arguments , the blaming. But I guess it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I'm happy that they're happy alone. But its hard to just accept that.”

He doesn’t look at me with sympathy, or worse, with pity. He nods at me, gives me incentive to continue. But I shake my head. I don’t want to sound vulnerable anymore.

He is quiet for a while. I am thankful he doesn’t pretend to understand what I'm going through. I am thankful he isn’t being hateful and ignorant right now. But then I realise, he's not that person anymore. The one who rolled his eyes at me and then pretended that I didn’t exist. We've both come a long way. In a week.

After a moment, maybe as a sign of support or maybe as a start of a friendship, he puts his arm around my shoulders. My body is rigid for a minute, my face staring straight ahead at the descending sunset. But then I lean against it, my head resting on his upper arm.

I look at him from my peripheral vision, he stares straight ahead but his hold on me gets tighter.

I feel my body relaxing by the second, my eyes transfixed at the maroons and beiges in the sky. I feel my body refilling with bravery and courage, slowly but surely, hint by hint.

I let out a breath of courage, and rest my head on his shoulder. I expected him to go rigid, to get shocked for a minute. But he pulls me in closer, arms tightening around me. With the birds chirping around us, we continue staring at the sunset, devoid of all the feelings of hatred.