Hridhi Chatterjee:201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOt2xAKD84z
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCJG1CsjtvS
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4cLIxY4PT4
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 18.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gf1eDQdII
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.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkCoPeqaKKC
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpEwUchw4CT
Pretending.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdgT4kFjlK2
He was so damn good at it. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6uPeQAkprj
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.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ39RK5h34si
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIiT4ppInZx
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.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu5HvXJSbfY
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 . 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN3FS4T2dD1
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWaa0pp2Smc
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:201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxd2yghhwY
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjSD0XU1ZP5
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPh2THZ37jv
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXLgLgHPPPe
********201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2TLIPknWKW
Clink201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe9pRQ49gim
Clink.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRkz8Gsjxn
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—201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4rK8IQ7pW
Clink 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBVPZrehcyE
Clink201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfRym5sELN
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfdsi8dOzWt
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9VbCCgxe5
I simply learned to enjoy it. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡui5u06XHuF
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDa92V93bhz
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpmOzJyoD5V
Clink 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGFPvLrpT9P
Clink201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCzS8JLBc1S
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyA8lCITM8b
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsp9A43hSsi
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.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD1rACiLbcx
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfbdH85Nm4
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOJHQOETaX
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.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHFQwD7WMC1
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIhJDoltFlO
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIyeeM5ifCH
Would that be the 2nd one? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0GuRuAP6Kr
No…maybe the 3rd one?201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb4hCVxrfvA
Fuck. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfbWprhF4PP
Why are there so many switches?201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡulOIGPszGJ
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Rc44vCZ4R
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFffrkZCGsU
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKeeXnM1LmH
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtR2vNWUcS7
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?”201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKjgN3755La
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQNxslwEWW8
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBZ3Jm3lKwx
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdzJJkbqU6
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzV3qJDUao1
Oi, bae, how ya doin?201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLBukCulBuX
All okay? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA42ltd1h6H
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’. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡryjUoT6w9G
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. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK0DgBG8JvJ
6:00 AM.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeV1Y6Jusgu
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhgRUqdScxf
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxqcLjKedDg
Thank God, he was not home. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡubxJCsfL77
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0l4vbQgTIw
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡffVsSNVgiK
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnrORGACQM
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxVaHARlvwb
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjrbYuvnLhZ
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS8k3xWIPoD
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡthOaRHmjaA
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDDpjRroYue
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUZ0KbANAND
Can't you see? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkqvhtRzZLr
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEC878YGws1
Betrayed? 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4eQD8rtTnK
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡObKOfDzdkx
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjmF31Eet7L
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and then Add to home screen.