Hridhi Chatterjee:196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnG3ariJpLs
Every time someone wanted me to reveal something about my new husband, I immediately remembered his hands. I must say, I had always looked at his hands. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYdeJ8NyHCx
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFwNGZf2uk
There was something fascinating about it. You know, I had been watching it grow — from 10 to 11, to 13, to 14, and then all the way up to 18.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ186KUt3EcP
I’d recognize his hands anywhere. Even now, with strands of hair on them, tanned under the sunlight as he pretended to be good at sports.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH62aOb5Dco
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKXSIG5aZop
Pretending.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTU3DCQJHK8
He was so damn good at it. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMqwClrLPgq
His hands held a great power to pretend. To pretend to write while his eyes actually roamed around my drafts. To pretend to cook so that I would finally cut the vegetables for him.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpa2eM7BmbO
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA7HvLa5xCG
I want to know what's inside it. I want to break every bone, blood vessels, and veins and cut open its flesh just to see how it cooperates with each other.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzjG0Gv2hmK
Maybe he had done it in his medical school. But no one had taught him for sure how those hands worked like it had a mind of its own.
On a cozy Saturday morning, my frail hands resting on his strong ones, I would have asked him questions if I was a normal wife . 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXimimSKxCw
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQS0Z9bGYai
How do your fingers crawl around my throat, looking like you would make me breathe for the last time and still, still never hurt?
Maybe a number of how’s simply cloud our marriage, like storm clouds before the rain:196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF2kLRqx2no
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDz4rjcESmG
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0aKxNrYw2B
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPGIcJsgB0v
********196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpVuslJWVTe
Clink196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq5pkOlMqqP
Clink.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy9WdRXDjQN
My eyes snapped open exactly at five a.m. No clock was needed. I never used an alarm clock in my whole life. My mind was always conscious, working and working, never sparing me, never caring to pull out its gentle features. I would imagine scenes inside my head during these hours my eyes were shut down. People running, new plot threads, weaving new lies to rip my worried mum off stress. And then—196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBm37ZrWNp6
Clink 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLOcsk9fe1
Clink196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ56CpPpP3Si
It was time to officially drift towards consciousness and this time, into the stinky damn real thing people cared to call ‘world’. All these five hours my eyes were shut down, I never saw black. Fragments of images never forget to cloud into me. Inside my brain. Inside my heart. Inside my muscles. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbiaAmLWafq
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE6xxHgkTk7
I simply learned to enjoy it. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAiDjKzICG2
I waited for nights just to start imagining things, walking back to that pathetic scene I had left out the night before, taking inspiration for my next novels, as my brain went tick-tick throughout the whole night.
My sleep was like the objects in Newton’s law of motion. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPwdkQ4fzbC
I never open my eyes until an external force is applied on me. And in my case, it might be a subtle sound, a touch, or a gentle stream of light from that one hole in my old curtain. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1CrtQvMWgp
Clink 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzvZO0nsHE
Clink196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbxtKhhJZBz
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡir2uMFi1wO
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWT3fAJ0rTe
At that exact moment, 5:05 AM, he finally stopped playing the bell, a metallic plate landing on the topmost shelf of his room hitting hard on the concrete.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdgkkr1jmqU
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn6RQOO46Nv
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsweZ7GJuc5
When my eyes fell on the half-naked man in the bed, he moved. And I could almost hear his girlfriend say, We were seen. We are seen. We will be seen.
I grabbed my towel, which was technically four years old, and still called it a towel because I had never found another that felt like home, and then I staggered toward the restroom.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQp1iVe2eHv
I don't know why I become so tipsy in the morning. It’s not that I ever sleep. It’s not that I was desperate to sleep in on weekends. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWgcu17NSC1
The bathroom door never ever felt familiar in my fingers. Even though we had been stuck here for a year, I still couldn’t figure out the switches. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUa6vwTHaFQ
Would that be the 2nd one? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnuDFPhOtWX
No…maybe the 3rd one?196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRaRgfWcATK
Fuck. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡshMsTgMmnB
Why are there so many switches?196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVrsgVlu7C8
I clicked on all of them until the bathroom door lit up. It felt like a hotel, I must say. I grabbed the handle but it felt ice cold under my fingers. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBky16QVIqQ
Even after months, I still waited for the familiar click of my old apartment.
Advik had rented a big apartment in Manhattan, with rooms which were far too big for the both of us. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6yquYovZe
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡythkvlMzle
And I knew that he, too, couldn’t bear to care for them any less.
“You would dust the shelves,” was his first line upon arrival. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5BvH95Uvr2
We got into a big fight that night. It was fair, wasn’t it? I must pay half the rent. But he wanted me to feel like those immature girls he fucked.
“Are you that keen on making me lose face in front of my parents, bitch?”196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJUQCC2Kpj
That night, I returned to bed with a split lip and he stormed out to grab a beer and maybe, fuck that girl after so long. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWH40esodB
But still, at the end of the month, I always transferred half the rent in his bank account. It had been our first compromise: He had planned on making me the cook of the house in exchange for the rent. And as you can see, I can never ever let him do that to me. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZK8VFQuJP
It had been a tack. I catfished him under that girl’s name for weeks until I got his account number. Which was, I will add, really really easy. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR0Dga1Gg5y
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XKFIB5ir0
Oi, bae, how ya doin?196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesafpMickR
All okay? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8lhSpDzaaD
You know, I been stuck in that mall. U see, I really need this bubble tea ASAP. Can you transfer me 15 bucks or somethin’. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi9FrD03Nhj
Love ya. XOX.
And surprisingly, when I gave him my account number, he actually transferred me 15 bucks while I casually collected his account number like a genius.
The first time I had transferred him the rent, I had added 15 bucks along with it.
You know, he kept shouting about it for three straight months, but when I pulled my pretend-to-be-dumb act more often, he finally stopped and walked briskly back to the kitchen like a dog with its tail cut. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmlfNpbMUPr
6:00 AM.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0JJ5HinPO9
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf2mYBTkXid
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXuEfx2M8bK
Thank God, he was not home. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡegG9OIasC8
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDinW1XBmoW
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCypPkNwlaG
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqyWMzsfcgl
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIeyA4rigsM
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4TA2m4JTh6
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIyEM3YZda
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEpd4PJ9amO
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8o7WnccyAC
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY4TM0QaS7j
Can't you see? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7YyKZCpdA
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0UFbTJbJdH
Betrayed? 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYGVCow2ZoB
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRkwgfGPKqR
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.196Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi9v0ukOuIE
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