When You LOVED Me...

11.

*Unedited*

After crying myself to sleep,I woke up to low rumbling of my stomach signalling that I was hungry again.

When I said to Aaron that I know how to cook, I forgot how lazy I am when it comes to cooking for myself. After snuggling in the soft matress for another half an hour. I decided it was time for rise and shine.

I picked up my phone and saw time,
10:30 A.M. I was using this new founded freedom rather much. I was not an early riser but of course when I am home no one let me sleep past eight.

A smile formed when I remembered being dragged by Krish on mornings for preparing his breakfast or just like that. I like to cook for others but i find it mundane to cook for myself that is.

I dragged myself and did my morning business. After taking a long refreshing shower I emerged in the bedroom as new as bird. I was cheerful in mornings even when I am not an early riser and I had learn to make myself feel happy and not lonely when I am alone.

I was a true introvert and nerd. I can hours spend reading or spending time with myself without craving for any company. But I like to travel in groups and visit places and that is where college friends came in handy.

I drapped myself in simple green-blue salwar-kurti and towel dried my hair. I glanced at my reflection, and found rather misty black orbs staring at me.

I was a simple girl, good in academics and bad in socializing. Even after persuing my dual-degree in good grades and grabbing a high paying job of assistant professor in a renowned private institute, I could not pass the bridge of my social anxiety. I am independent but my confidence in myself was even low than back in high school and I debated with myself to blame my family for it or not.

I was no where near the girl who can be a perfect wife and daughter-in-law.
In teenage years I thought my mom would be happy if I would be standing on my own, but now I know if I would have learn how to fake smile in  functions and protruding a typical image of Sanskari bahu, she would be more proud than ever.

I sighed. Now this internal monologues didn't matter. She happily dumped the baggage she carried on her shoulders all this years. She married off her daughter who could never find a suitable groom for herself with her disruptive social anxiety and nerdiness.

I decided against putting Vermilion in my head and removed the nupital chain. They meant something very pure to me. I can't carry them for namesake, for a bond which isn't even there.

My mood switched from on to off in seconds. All cheerfulness gone.

This is me. Typically me.

Family was not the word for me. All I heard from my family is how imperfect I am to fit. And I believed their words, I am not the one to fit in society. I never gonna fit in.

Hence I learned to live for myself, with myself. I shifted from Bhopal to Delhi, joined my job and finally started to settle myself in busy chaotic boring isolated city life and one day decided to attend a destination wedding in Goa despite the obvious hate for social gatherings, because the idea was alluring and I love to travel.

Without knowing that something bigger is waiting for me there.
It is funny how my life changed in just one day. It is now misty and unclear than ever before. And now I have new people in my life, who were gonna know how imperfect I was to walk on this earth.

I was gonna do what I did best. Just ignore the big elephant in the room and everything would be fine as sunshine.

I picked my phone and made my way out of the room towards the kitchen.

I found the house eerily quiet showing no signs of another human presence and I wondered where was Aaron. Though it is pretty late, nearly noon for having morning tea, l needed it to ease my headache which formed due to overthinking.

Times like this I thought to wake up early and meditate for my mental health but they were never enough against the lulling sleep and bliss of soft blankets in mornings.

I quickly find the ingredients for my special tea in the grand kitchen and my phone decided to ring just when I put the milk pot on the burner.

My low spirits sank down to my stomach when I saw the caller ID, Mom. Now, what she has to say to me.
I turned down the volume and let it ring, I can't talk to her now. I don't have it in me to listen to what she has to say. But the phone started ringing and ringing diverting me from the task.

I pondered if it was urgent, and different scenarios ran through my mind. More negative than positive. Just when I grabbed the phone to accept the call, the screen turned back. I hold my phone for few seconds but nothing happened. Wow, she just gave up so fast on me.

I rather slammed the phone on the counter, and didn't realised that I approched the steel container with my bare hands.

I screamed when that container slipped out of my hold. Hot milk spiller over my hands, dress and floor, leaving the hot burning sensation behind and touched the floor with ear shattering clank.

Tears gathered in my eyes when I saw red lines forming where I hold the pot and the burns where milk had spilled.

"What the hell," my whole being froze when my teary eyes met with Aaron's burning blue.

*****