Of Course I Love You!: Till I find someone better… (9 page)

A week had passed since our second phone call and I was slowly losing my mind. I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to Smriti for more than a few minutes. Something would trigger me off and I would shout at her or pick an old fight and ask her to leave me alone. I would call Avantika and she would disconnect my call and I would curse myself for doing so. I didn’t text her, thinking it would be too desperate. But I was longing to talk to her again. She was like a song you have stuck in your head but you can’t remember the words to it and you won’t rest until they comes to you. I wasn’t depressed; I was angry and irritated that I couldn’t drive her out of my mind.

As time passed I was more drawn towards Avantika and I started having dreams about her where she was walking away from me. Post those dreams, I would lie in bed and create my own daydreams where she was walking towards me, telling me how mistaken she had been. And then we’d kiss until her demonic brother appeared.

Finally that day, as I was staring at the cell phone screen, the phone rang. It was Avantika. I braced myself.

‘Hi, Avantika. I thought you would never call,’ I said.

‘I wanted it to be that way, too, but I couldn’t help it,’ she murmured.

‘Why did you want to call me?’ I asked. I was relieved that she had called me, but I was also furious that it had taken her so long.

‘Did you not want me to call you?’ she asked.

‘I have stared at the phone endlessly for the past one week. That’s all that I have been doing. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you like or what you don’t, but I think I am never going to forget you,’ I answered.

‘Why would you say these things?’ she queried.

‘I say these things because for the first time I have felt like saying them. Earlier, I used to say them because these were words that needed to be said to appease the person I was with. Now, it has become a pain keeping them inside me. Do you have any idea how many times in the past few days I have thrown myself back to that night? Do you have any idea how many times I have gone back to that moment when you were clutching me and crying? I have tried tirelessly not to think about you, but it just doesn’t happen,’ I ranted.

She didn’t say anything. I felt lighter.

‘I wish I could see you right now,’ she said.

‘You can,’ I said and I felt an electric energy running through me. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in the hostel and it’s already nine. They won’t let me out now,’ she said.

‘But can I still come to your hostel? Maybe you can sneak out for five minutes? Tell them it’s your brother?’ I suggested. She said she would try.

I disconnected the line and asked Mom if I could go to Shrey’s place for an assignment we had to submit in a few days. She let me go. It was already ten when I boarded the metro and it was deserted. I tried calling her a few times, but the network in the underground sections of the metro was always suspect.

‘I am at the Delhi University metro station. Where do I come from here?’ I asked.

‘Find a rickshaw and ask him to take you to the Kamla Nagar roundabout. Call me once you get there; it’s walking distance from there,’ she instructed.

‘Fine.’

‘And Deb?’ she said. ‘I will just have a few seconds. I have told the warden that you have to collect a pen drive from me and she will be a keeping a watch. I am sorry.’

‘A few seconds are enough,’ I said and we disconnected the line.

Having found a rickshaw to take me to Kamla Nagar, I realized how scared both of us were. My skin tingled with the possibilities. Just days before, Avantika had been a mirage, an impossibility, and now, I knew I wouldn’t rest until I had her. Even as we were getting closer, we were trying to run away.

I let the rickshaw go and called her up again. She gave me the directions to her hostel. It was a two-minute walk and my heart was beating out of my chest by the time I got there. I was sweating from nerves and excitement.

‘I can see you,’ she said. I looked around to spot her and then I did. She was in a T-shirt that hung loosely over her shoulders and a pair of black shorts that were hardly visible beneath the oversized T-shirt. Her hair was open and in a beautiful mess.

‘I’m coming.’ I kept holding the phone to my ear, my eyes focused on her, my jaw dropped open.

It took her two minutes. Her warden stood at the door as she walked towards me.

‘Hi,’ she said and looked straight at me. She handed over a pen drive. ‘I’m sorry. Is she watching?’

I nodded.

‘I have to go.’

‘I wish you could stay.’

She smiled and tried reining in her unruly hair. I wanted to take her home. She was so beautiful I wanted to cry.

Just before she left, she turned and hugged me briefly. I breathed in deeply to absorb the moment. She walked away from me, only to turn back once and smile at me. Her hostel warden closed the door behind her and looked at me suspiciously.

I realized I hadn’t disconnected the call. ‘Hello? Hello? Are you there?’

‘Yes,’ she said from the other side.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I said.

‘Are we already running out of things to say?’ she asked and chuckled.

‘How can someone think of anything to say to you? I get so nervous around you and all I can do is stare at you,’ I conceded.

‘You’re just being sweet,’ she said.

‘I am not. I can look at your face for hours and still not get enough of you. Can I see you again? I find it hard to believe that this is happening. Can you step out onto the balcony?’ I asked.

‘Why do you even want to see me like this? I am a mess!’ she protested.

‘You’re perfect.’

‘I’m not,’ she countered.

‘I would know better,’ he said. And before I could plead to her again, she appeared on the balcony, moonlight slanting off her face. I found myself short of words again.

‘Say something,’ she said.

‘I don’t know what to say. I can just sit here and stare at you for hours,’ I said and sat on the pavement next to her building. She was right in front of me, standing on the first-storey balcony. So close, yet so far. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I am sure a lot of guys are smitten by you … don’t say they are not. You are, by far, the prettiest girl I have ever seen, so it’s obvious that I have lost my mind. But why do you talk to me? And why did that moment happen between us?’

‘Can I ask you the last question, too? Why did that moment happen between us?’ she asked. She stood there, her gaze on me, and I had no option but to answer her. I wanted to touch her face and know it was for real.

‘I felt very sad for your grief and I blamed myself for it. You were with me and you were crying. I felt responsible,’ I answered. ‘Your turn.’

‘For the first time in years, I felt safe,’ she said. We didn’t say anything for the next few minutes. We kept looking at each other wordlessly. She broke the silence after a few minutes and said, ‘I have seen prettier girls than me.’

‘I have not and I don’t think I want to.’

She laughed and I laughed with her.

The phone call lasted a full seven hours.
I would blank out in the middle of the conversation and she would ask me to stop staring at her. I would tell her that it wasn’t really my fault and she would blush and thank me for being so sweet. And I would tell her I had no idea how people could be anything but sweet to her. We talked till the early morning. She made coffee for herself and threw me a packet of biscuits. I was her puppy after all.

I wanted to know everything about her and though she was annoyed by my questions, she kept answering them. She had lived her life in extremes. She had had her share of alcohol binges and being stoned for days, of reckless boyfriends and countless flings and soured relationships. She hated her parents and her parents weren’t very fond of her either. Her parents’ whole family’s prestige seemed to be wrapped around her getting married young. They never supported her dreams of being anything worthwhile; all they cared about was finding a rich enough businessman for her. Avantika had one aim in life—to be successful on her own some day and run away from her parents. That was the reason she now slogged and took academics very seriously. She was taking the CAT that year but her parents didn’t know she had plans to study after her graduation.

Our conversation shifted to our relationships and I realized I didn’t want to know anything about the other guys in her life.

She told me that Paritosh dumped her because she refused to have sex with him and I told her I couldn’t care less. Every time she counted a guy she had kissed, and she had kissed many, she got me writhing in fits of frenzy that would end up with her trashing the guy as a drunken bastard.

‘But why did you kiss him?’ I asked agitatedly as I jumped up
from the pavement below. I was banging my clenched fist in the air. I already felt cheated.

‘Deb? I was stoned. Do you know what that means? I didn’t know what was happening.’

‘Didn’t know what was happening? You could have pulled back. Why continue kissing him?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t know why I did it. I guess you have to be high to experience that!’ she chortled. I knew I didn’t have to look at her because if I did, I would forget everything.

‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’ I said. I was in pain now. I wanted to see if I was any different from the other guys she had kissed.

‘What do you want to hear?’

‘Something that is not too hard for me to take. Something that makes me feel better.’ My heart was sinking. I would have liked a negative answer rather than the choice.

‘I didn’t remember anything of it the next morning. I am a different person when I am sloshed. And I don’t think he was good enough anyway.’ She chuckled again.

‘Good enough? Who has been good enough for you then?’

‘
You!
You wanted me to say that, didn’t you?’ she chuckled yet again.

‘Yes, why not? That is why you didn’t call me up? Is that why it took you a week to call me up? Because I was good? Blah,’ I said, hoping she would beg to disagree.

‘Deb, I had heard a lot about you. I thought it didn’t matter to you. And remember, I kissed you when I was sober. That is a first for me, if it means anything to you. And I didn’t regret it, unlike the other times. Plus, I had already embarrassed myself enough.’

‘It meant a lot to me. I am glad we met that day,’ I said, still irritated.

‘Does Smriti know anything about me?’ she asked, after a few seconds of silence.

‘No, and I don’t care. If I did, I wouldn’t be here at four in the morning, beneath your balcony, talking to you. I like you a lot and her being there doesn’t make a difference to me.’

‘It does, Deb. She loves you. It doesn’t feel right. I already feel I am doing something that I shouldn’t. At least tell her.’

‘I can’t tell her. She won’t understand. But I want to know something from you. I know it’s a little too premature, but do you think there is any possibility that you might be as smitten some day as I am today? That’s all I really care about and I am willing to wait.’

‘Some day? Yes. But Smriti loves you
now
. Go back to her,’ she said. Her voice sounded as tragic as she looked that day.

‘I would rather wait for that
some day
,’ I said. We disconnected the call after a little while. It was nearly five and her warden had spotted me loitering outside. She asked me to leave and I did.

I was sleepy but I couldn’t get over the night I had spent on the pavement looking at the most stunning girl I had ever seen.

That day onwards, we talked for hours on end. The amazingly long phone calls under Avantika’s balcony became a routine. The only part that killed me was when I had to leave early in the morning before her warden woke up and the woman woke up really early.

It was almost unbelievable for me to know she wanted to talk to me every day. Delhi University exams were about to begin, but she didn’t make me feel so. After the third day, it was assumed I would land up outside her hostel and call her. We had decided we would meet
‘in person’
after her exams got over. She told me she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else if she were to hug me or get close to me again. So we stuck to the balcony-and-pavement routine. She told me she found it extremely cute that I came to see her every day. How could I have not?

Seeing her every day was incredible. We never told each other that we were in love. She had been dumped for another girl by Paritosh and she didn’t want me to do the same to Smriti. I was sure about what I felt, but I didn’t know about her.

All that time, we had paid no heed to Tanmay’s and Vernita’s incessant warnings and frequent checks on us. Tanmay had
categorically told me to stay away from his sister, come hell or high water. He never forgot to give me ‘the look’ whenever he crossed me in college. We both admitted it was fun throwing them off track.
We haven’t talked since that day
—that was what I told Vernita whenever she asked me about Avantika.

For Smriti, it was getting tougher. I didn’t do well in the sixth semester exams. I kept ‘slipping’ into extremely bad moods and tempers frequently. I advised Smriti to leave me alone.

But Avantika kept making me feel bad about what I was doing to Smriti. All my efforts in explaining that it was Smriti who wasn’t doing much for the relationship fell on deaf ears. Though I admit, I didn’t have much to explain.

The wait finally came to an end when Avantika’s examinations came to an end and we decided to actually see each other face-to-face without a road or a building separating us. Though I had been seeing her for the last many days, the idea of her walking next to me was unnerving. We were both a little apprehensive because of the number of people who didn’t want us to meet.

But the problem was not Smriti; the big stumble was Shawar, her boyfriend. Academic brilliance being the last of his attributes, Shawar was doing a BA (Pass) course in Shivaji College, which barely kept him busy, giving him ample time to surround himself with equally rich, powerful, wasted guys. He slept through the day and partied through the night, and found time to immerse himself in ultra-nasty brawls and fights, some of which even made it to local newspapers.