Marry Me

CHAPTER -4 CRAZINESS AT IT'S BEST :

My heart somersaulted with all the things that could go wrong with that sentence. Was he going to propose to her even after all this? Was he going to forgive her? I remembered how she had said, before walking out the door, 'I don't believe you.' Was she right? Could he do that? My mind felt like it was going to explode. I reflexively rubbed my nose and hated myself for it.

He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wordlessly dangled it toward me. I stubbornly chose to stare at the floor as hurt pinched through my stomach and went deep down to my bones. I almost wanted to get up and walk away. Instead, I forced the words out of me, "What do you want to talk about?"

There was silence. My nose itched so bad, I stifled my fingers on my lap. And then the handkerchief was in front of my nose. I looked up from the floor as he kept holding the handkerchief. My heart twisted. Maybe it was something that was going to hurt me worse. I could feel it.

I blinked through the tears that I could feel was threatening my eyes, and looked at those eyes like orange blossoms in a muddy earth, the soft cotton of the handkerchief already touching the bump of my nose. I went on and blew my nose on it.

If you are going for it, then go all the way isn't it?

He folded the handkerchief, as if it didn't have skunk, and instead of throwing it away, he kept it inside the jacket of his Tom Ford. He was buttoning up his jacket as he said the words, "I think we should get married."

"What?" I blinked down at him, was I imaging things, was I going crazy?

He finally looked up, his expressions neutral. "Let's get married."

I kept staring at him, my heartbeat going crazy, "What? Are you... are you in your right mind?" I was so angry I could barely control my voice.

He looked up at me, his eyebrows jutting in a scalding frown. Was that disapproval on his face? Was he mildly irritated just because I had said no to be his second stupid option? I wanted to bang a pillow onto his face. So I pushed him back and stood up.

He got up from the floor following me; I swirled and stopped him from the palm of my hand, taking a deep breath, needing to calm myself before I spilled venom. I didn't want to hurt him more, but I wasn't going to let him hurt me like this.

Not anymore.

"I can't-" I gasped, "I can't talk to you right now." And before he could say something else that would break me in complete shards, I turned and ran outside the room and away from him, down the stairs. 

 *************

I found myself sitting on top of the wicker green pool chair, at the back of Kiyansh's parent's house as my phone kept ringing. I put it on silent mode as my breath came out in shards and tears slipped pathetically down my face for the umpteenth time this week. My chest was suffocating on itself.

I couldn't believe his words, the way it hurt more than the time he said he was thinking to announce his and Sahana's engagement. Was I just another option for him? How could the words that I have been dreaming about since I was a kid could feel the most insulting thing ever about our friendship.

My phone ringed again, as I stared at the swimming pool and thought about the picture at his childhood bedroom hall. It was taken on the day of our pre-boards; things were simple between us then. Kiyansh hated geometry so I had come to his house early morning to help him with it. We had spent all our morning till noon, banging heads, stress eating chocolates (that was me, until Kiyansh had yanked it out of my hand and thrown it out of the window proclaiming he was going to have chocolate and geometry nightmares all his life.) We had ended up on the floor with geometry equations scattered around us. And I had sneaked into the kitchen and stolen two orange ice candies, (to tempt Kiyansh to solve an equation, since we were not allowed to eat something related with ice during our exams.) Kiyansh and I were pretty bummed up that we were doing this rebellious thing, and Kiyansh's mom had caught us when we were sticking out our tongues at each other. The reason we were so wide eyed in the photo.