You can have him

Pain

Loneliness

She always thought she knew what they meant, and maybe even experienced them but the way they gripped her heart now, digging their clutches deep into her flesh, she found that she had never known the magnitude of it.

The bone-crushing pain and the sudden hollowing loneliness she felt was crushing her very existence. She was breathing but not alive. She felt dead though her eyes seemed to open after a restless night of sleep.

But somewhere, in the back of her overbearing pain, she felt pride too. Pride for she chose her mother’s happiness, she chose her mother’s trust over silly chemicals like love where there was no guarantee.

Who’s to say he wouldn’t leave after a month, or two or twelve?

Who’s to say she’d always love him?

Who’s to say that he was the one? (Though in her heart she felt that he was)

But chemicals were silly, feelings could always change but her mom wouldn’t. Even after a hundred years, Kanya would still be her mom; her mom was forever and she was happy that she’d chosen forever instead of temporary happiness.

She was happy, she made the right decision.

But sadness overpowered her happiness. She drifted back to her routine Before-Vansh where she bunked classes, sat silent, drowned herself in books, only now After-Vansh, she cried herself to sleep every night.

The friends she had gained, thanks to Vansh’s push, were pushed away as she stayed inside drowning in her own sadness.

A week had passed since she bid him goodbye and her condition kept getting worse. Vansh didn’t contact, no calls, no texts, no meets, nothing. He vanished from her life and that hurt more than it should have. She wanted Vansh to fight for her, convince her to be with him but when she had so graciously dumped him, she had no right to expect him to come crawling back to her. It wasn’t fair.

And silly as the feelings were, they didn’t care about rationality. She expected him to call her, meet her, or just text her an ‘I will always love you’ or some other lie romantic fools say. It didn’t matter if it was a lie, she just needed a little reassurance of the past they had.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face and every time she opened her eyes, she wanted to see his face. She lived in a daze where her past was happier than her present. For the first time in her life, she felt real, true happiness and she kicked it away. She kicked him away and she had to bear the pain.

It hur…

Her thoughts abruptly came to a halt when she heard the knock on the door. She pushed herself on her feet and opened the door to welcome the sight of her beautiful mother.

As opposed to her red, puffy broken eyes, her mother’s eyes were calm and strong with a little bit of concern for her daughter.

“Are you alright, beta?”

“No, but I will be”, she sniffed and looked down at her feet.

Her mother placed her hand under her chin to lift her face and placed a soft, loving kiss on her forehead.

“Do you like him?”

“I… I…”

“You can tell me”

“I love him, mom, I really do. But I’ll get over him…” her lips silenced immediately when her mother started speaking.

“If you love him, you can have him”

“What?”

“You heard me”, her mother smiled and encircled her arms around her daughter.

“You… you mean that?”, asked Shreya, her eyes wide and her lips curved at the beginning of a smile.

“Really”, said her mother but before Shreya could share her excitement and jump in joy, her mother added, “But…”

“But?”, asked Shreya nervously.

“NO sex, at least not in this house”

“Sure mom”, cried Shreya as she hugged and kissed her mother, giggling happily. Her mother had given her the green sign, she could date Vansh. She could date Vansh, publicly. Yes!

She jumped in joy and twirled her mother in circles with her. What a beautiful day today was, the best.

“You are the best mom ever. I love you mom”, she screamed, her face glowing with joy. She didn’t have to choose, she could have both her mom and her love. She would be happy.

“I love you too, now stop! Or I’ll fall”, her mom said in a stern voice but her face held a smile too; a smile entirely altruistic. She wasn’t happy for herself, she was happy for her daughter; she had pushed all her cultural beliefs and societal stigmas out of the window all because she wanted to see her daughter happy and Shreya loved her for that.

She loved her mother.

She was the best.

Her mother left her room soon and she followed downstairs hurriedly, running to share this news with Vansh – her boyfriend. But then thought better of it and ran upstairs again.

This was special, so she had to plan something, something special for the special moment. She had dumped him without explaining anything and quite rudely so now, she had to make up for it.

She had to propose him, yes, that was a nice idea. She could find him in his office or maybe bribe Ansh to call Vansh somewhere private and then she could…

Her thoughts abruptly screeched to a halt when a disturbing but logical thought crossed her mind. What if he didn’t want her anymore?

From the moment she broke up with him, she had seen neither head nor tail of him. It was as if he had forgotten all about her and didn’t even want her anymore. Was this true? Was Vansh already over her?

Before her self-sabotaging self could form any more thoughts, she shook her head and told herself, “He might not want me anymore, but there is an alternative too. I won’t find out until I ask him so that is what I’m going to do. I will ask him. I won’t form judgements based on my singular cell brain that has lied to me more than a million times.”

“You’ll only embarrass yourself”

She shook her head trying hard not to fall into that hole and out loud said, “He has fucked me, spanked me, recorded me, watched me beg, drool and crawl for him if he wanted to be embarrassed he would have been a long time ago. I will ask him and I will do it beautifully”

She sat herself down on the floor and grabbing her phone and stationeries, started googling ideas with a cunning smile on her face.

The next day

Vansh was sitting on his desk, signing the last of his documents, ready to finish off his work and relax for the night when he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in”, he drawled in his tired voice.

A man of almost 20 in a red T-shirt strolled in his office and handed him an envelope. The envelope was made of plain white paper with no name or address. With a slight raise in his brow, he asked, “Who’s it from?”

“Anonymous”, the boy said and left the room while Vansh shouted at his back, "Anonymous? What anonymous?"

Vansh stared at the envelope for a while, trying to imagine who it might have been from; then slowly, his fingers started tearing the paper at its sides to reveal a small piece of white fabric with words scrawled over it.

His heartbeat quickened when he read the words. “You know me”, it said in red ink and the rest of the fabric was blank.

His shivering fingers pushed the piece of fabric back into the envelope and pushed it in his pockets.

With wide eyes and wild heart, his head started running miles per second.

‘You know me? Who do I bloody know? How do you know that I know?'

'Who sent this? What do they want from me? What does this mean? Why are they threatening me?’, he asked himself as he ran out of his office and down the stairs. He called the first person that came into his head but the call declined so he kept running until he reached his car.

This time his heart beat for an entirely different reason. There was a huge tedy bear sitting on his car with a similar envelope stuffed in his paws. Tentatively, he reached for the card and opened it to find the same piece of fabric with red words written on it.

"Don't worry, I'm as harmless as this teddy here.
PS - Without any ghost appearances"

He smiled at the words, still trying to figure out who it could be but pulled the bear in hug either way. Shifting his eyes left and right, he hugged the fluffy bear again and carried it inside his car with a huge smile on his face.

No one ever gifted him teddy bears, no one realized he wanted a fluffy bear to sleep next to, no one but anonymous understood him. He sighed and shook his head sadly but his lips still curved in a smile.

Inside his car was a watch with the same piece of fabric, without the envelope.

He reached out for the watch, more excitement than fear, to know the next message of this anonymous. He reached the ends of the fabric when a 'boom' rang loud.