Parineeta

letters!

I came out of the bathroom in my grey bath gown. I let my wet hair loose over my waist. My head still hurt from all the crying and my legs shivered lightly as if unable to bear the weight of my body.
The warm shower had somewhat calmed my nerves and I felt a little light, like somebody had lifted some bits of the burden I was carrying off me but all of ut was yet to be gone. I wondered if it was gonna be gone at all, until I returned to NY.
My eyes felt heavy and it felt like I was loosing my energy to change into any fresh pair of clothes so I simply took a free fall on my bed beside my laptop, not caring about the fact that I was only in my bath robe.

There's nobody here, you don't need to necessarily wear anything when you're all alone in this whole mansion anyways.

It was creepy how Everytime I told myself anything in the second person, in my head, I heard a voice, that wasn't mine. It was of somebody else's. It was his.

I looked around for a second or two to make sure that I was actually alone in the room and then dug my head into the mattress in attempt to bury everything that went on all through the day and get some rest. I was five minutes into relaxation when my phone buzzed irritably on the table. I raised my head and stared in the direction of my phone until it fell silent and then went back to digging my head further into the mattress when it rung again.

Arghh people got no chill, can't even let you sleep in peace.

I pushed myself up from the bed, my body barely able to hold its weight, my legs felt like they had been burdened with kilos for days together but I managed a few steps to the table and then tumbled back on the bed, with my phone in my hand, from the other side.
'Navya calling' the screen read and I felt a mix of emotions. We hadn't exactly spoken properly in the last year and even today I did not get a chance to talk to her. Or maybe I tried my best to avoid a proper conversation with any of them.
"It's all because of you Manik" I mumbled under my breath as I picked up the phone and stuck it to my ear, just before it disconnected.
"Hello?" I said in a soft, sleepy voice hoping to cut this conversation as short as possible.
"Nandu? Tum theek ho?"Navya asked, her voice alittle awkward, uncomfortable and uncertain of how I would react because obviously I wasn't the only one who felt the distance between us in the past year.
"Haan Navya mai theek hu, sorry aaj humari baat nai ho paayi" I said maintaining my sleepy voice with a little apologetic tinge to it. I genuinely was sorry. I hated what they were getting from me because of him. All of them. Because he had them, he had everybody always, and I was always alone, everytime.
"Koi baat nahi Nandu, Maddy ka call aaya tha hume, usne kaha ki usse urgently New York vapas jaana pad rha hai but tum yahi ho, aur usne humse kaha ki hum tumhe shaadi ke harr function pe tumhe saath leke jaaye" she said and I guess I heard a little shuffling of footsteps and some whispers from the other side of the phone but I wasn't sure of it, so I decided not to mention it directly.
"Haan vo.. he wanted to attend all the functions but usse urgently jaana pada toh he did not want me to miss any of it" I said. Honestly I hated Maddy to have informed on me to Navya. Now she will make sure that I attend every function and I can't muss any of them even if I wanted to.
"Haan... Tum murthy mansion mei ho?"she asked after a short pause. It felt like she was being forced to ask all of this.
"Haan kyu?"I said innocently while I heard a few whispers again and this time I was sure I heard them.
"Akeli?"came her reply almost immediately.
"Nai Navya, teen chaar chor, do bhoot, aur ek gunde ke saath hu, party kar rahi hu" I said , I was getting annoyed with her stupid questions.
"Vo sab toh yaha hai toh tumhare saath kaise ho sakte hai, dekho cabir toh humare side mei hai toh ek saath do jagah kaise ho sakta hai" she giggled,"lekin hum puch rahe the akeli ho toh hum aa jaye?saath mei time spend karte hai, sirf tum aur hum, pehle ki tarah"
"Nai navya, aaj nahi.. I'm a little tired and I just want to sleep.." I appreciated her efforts to make things normal again but I wasn't ready just yet. "Vaise tum ho kaha?" I took the chance to ask her what I was getting curious about.
"H..hum.. hum kaha hoge.. hum vahi hai jaha hum hote hai aur kaha.. tum ause kyu puch rahi ho" she rushed off like a bullet train. Her voice squeeky like I'd caught her doing something she shouldn't be doing and there was another set of whispers and some shuffling of steps again.
"Humara matlab hai hum cabir ke saath bahar aaye the ice cream khaane.. isiliye toh humne tumse pucha ki hum aajaye?" She said again but her voice a little calmer this time. Was somebody telling her what to say!
She sighed over the phone as if she'd unburdened herself off of something heavy.
"Icecream bhi le aayege tumhare liye, tumhari favourite!" She said before I could say anything and it reminded me of the day when Manik amd cabir had picked Navya from the liquor store to get me icecreams when I was mad at him and a soft smile appeared on my lips.
"Kya hua Nandini? Kaha kho gayi? Kuch yaad aaya kya?" She said sheepishly and I snapped out of my memory lane and immediately hated her for saying that.
"Haan? Kya? Nai Navya kuch yaad nai aaya.. aur rehne do aaj nahi kabhi aur.. chalo mujhe bhot neend aa rhi hai.. mai sone jaa rhi hu" I said abruptly and disconnected the call before she could say anything further.
I hated everytime that I went back into those memories. The good ones, they seemed almost equally fake, made up for the sake of it and it made me feel even more betrayed.
I pushed my phone to the far end of the bed and rested my head on a pillow, my face adjusted in the direction of my laptop that lay unattended. I remembered I was working on a project before Maddy forced me into getting ready for the engagement.
I hit the switch button of the laptop gently, i did not want to work right now but I still was switching my laptop and for some reason my gut feeling told me it wasn't gonna end up right because everytime I absent mindedly switched on this thing, I straight away headed for the one folder I had put away safely. I never wanted to open that folder ever again and yet I was always found reading and surfing through that folder when I had absolutely nothing in mind.
My fingers played over the mouse on my laptop like they had a mind of their own and in a few seconds I was there again scrolling through the letters, more like e-mails I had written. To him. A year ago. After I had... Run away from him. From everyone and Everything.

3 August 2018
To: Manik
From: Nandini
Subject: I don't know. But I hate you.

So it's been a week since I left, I'm guessing you're happy now, aren't you? No, you really should be happy (though honestly right now I feel like I should hate to see you happy especially with someone else) but no please be happy because I don't want my leave to be wasted over nothing.
How's Alya? How's your life treating you now? Better than it did with me around I'm guessing!
Does anybody miss me back there? I don't think so though. But tell everyone, I miss them, yeah I miss everyone. you wondering if I miss you? But why should you care about that? Don't you hate me? Manik, did you really mean it? Do you hate me so much? Most importantly do really believe I could do what you thought I did? No actually wait, do you really think something happened between us? seriously?
Anyways forget it! It doesn't matter anymore. I'm here in a new place, still writing to you, which I clearly shouldn't but I guess miss you too! I shouldn't though, I know, so well I'll get to the point,
You'll be getting the divorce papers with my signatures on them, anyday now and If you've already got them I'll suggest you get done with all of this marriage madness and move on with your life. Do invite me to your wedding though I'd love to be there

Yours
Nandini

I wonder if I should put the yours though!

I still wonder if the yours sounded right. But that wasn't the only thing I wondered. I wondered what his response would have been if I'd have the gathered to send this mail across to him. Would he have asked me where I was, or how I was doing. Would ge have said an I miss you too or would it have been that its good that you're gone. I even wondered if he would've really invited me to his wedding if he ever had any.
I was afraid of his response, honestly. As much as I wanted to send this and all the other mails I'd written I always knew I wasn't ready for his replied because I knew they wouldn't be anything that I would ever want to hear. I never wanted to know that he was happy without me, that he actually did not need me, that I was gone for good that he had moved on with his life, or that he never had to move on from me because he was never on me anyways. I was just never ready to hear back from him. And so I never sent these to him. I saved this like every other mail I'd written to him in the initial few months telling him how I was doing, how everything changed, how I felt nervous but I knew i wasn't going to send them across and let him know that I was getting weaker everyday that I spent without looking at him, hearing his voice and so gradually I stopped writing.
I remember I had reread this mail fifty times before deciding that I wasn't going to send it but them saved it and simply waited for some news on the divorce but I never heard anything about it. He must've taken care of it anyways and mom dad would've taken care of the rest wherever I was required because I knew he was way too desperate to get done with me and get away from all of this, he wanted his Alya back afterall.
But I didn't know aiyappa played his cards like this. Karma did hit everybody like a tsunami I guess when Alya decided she did not love Manik but Dhruv instead.
Karma, well, what can we say!
I kept Scrolling through the mails not opening anymore of them, they were alot of my emotions that I did not want to come to face yet again. I kept reading their subjects from below the titles for a time long enough and then fell asleep.

....
Here's another update for all of y'all but I'm alittle disappointed with y'all! Seems like none of y'all are interested in personal interaction with your writer so anyways you'll get your updates If that's the only thing you want. And to people trying to contact me here, I'm sorry if I've missed it, my app's a bit of glitch right now that's why I asked y'all to follow my instagram handle so that we can talk and interact but okay

Love y'all
Goodnight

Love Srishti♥️