FINDING JULIET
‘You are such an asshole!’ she said, looking angrily at me as she stood up. Her cheeks were red with anger.
I saw her as she stood naked, with her hands on her hips. She was expecting me to say something, but I didn’t. It simply doubled her anger.
‘All you guys are the same. You want women only for sex,’ she stated furiously, pointing a finger at me.
I could have refuted her point easily and proved that she was being a hypocrite, given the fact that she had a boyfriend and yet she had slept with me a few moments ago. But I didn’t bother to respond and I just looked away from her. Disgusted, she let out a deep sigh and began picking up her undergarments, which were lying on the floor and started wearing them hurriedly. She moved towards the door where her black denims and purple tee were. She wore them in an instant and fished for her comb in her handbag. She brushed her hair and then wore the earrings I had removed before kissing her ears. She took some more time to get ready, gazing at herself in the mirror and adjusting everything, and I wondered how girls gave so much importance to their looks even during moments of distress.
Eventually, before leaving, she threw me a disgusting look and said, ‘I will never see your face again.’
‘Thank you. Now get lost,’ I said as she slammed the door shut.
After she left, I pondered over what had just happened and what had been happening in my life. ‘You shouldn’t have been so harsh on her’ – a soft voice from inside my heart said. But I strangulated it in an instant. I had lost enough in my life by listening to my heart.
Just a few moments ago, I was rolling in bed with Aditi, and after we came together, she began talking to me endlessly, like most girls do after sex. I was more interested in looking at the fan on the ceiling and wondering why it was spinning anticlockwise and not clockwise.
While talking, she had grazed her finger over my shoulder and moved it slowly towards my arms and said, ‘Behind these strong muscles, there is a weak heart, yearning to be loved and dying to be cared for. You can hide your pain from the world, Arjun, but not from me.’
That was when I had pushed her from my bed and I didn’t really understand why I had reacted so strongly. Was it because I had been hiding my true face from the world successfully all the while? No one had ever tapped the underlying guy inside me, except Krish. But when Aditi said those words, I became very defensive. The last thing I wanted was someone knowing about the void inside me.
I got up, splashed water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were crimson red. And even though I was nowhere near smiling, I saw an evil grin on my face. I splashed water once again and looked at myself. The grin grew wider and scarier. ‘How had I been and what have I become?’ I asked myself. I saw the image in the mirror once again. I couldn’t look at it and smashed the mirror with my hand. Pieces of glass got stuck on my knuckles. A big piece made a deep gash, but it didn’t hurt as much as the scars on my heart did.
I then riffled through the shelves to find weed – my temporary solution to permanent problems. I rolled a joint hastily and lighted it. After a few puffs, I felt feather-light and forgot everything that had been going on in my mind. Surreal images flashed in front of my eyes, and when I closed them, I saw myself waiting at the gates of heaven, even though I was, in fact, right in front of my bathroom door.
I tried to get in as I had to pee, but I tripped and fell on my face, my forehead hitting the tap find. The thud sound was what I remembered last, and I woke up to see myself lying on a hospital bed the next morning, with Anjali standing beside me.
