Hridhi Chatterjee:92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrRG9ZBizs
Every time someone wanted me to reveal something about my new husband, I immediately remembered his hands. I must say, I had always looked at his hands. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOK7e5795gs
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9NkiOOryba
There was something fascinating about it. You know, I had been watching it grow — from 10 to 11, to 13, to 14, and then all the way up to 18.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXq5IYKCCjW
I’d recognize his hands anywhere. Even now, with strands of hair on them, tanned under the sunlight as he pretended to be good at sports.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE59OWQvYAs
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1FEKJZVWLO
Pretending.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjafsXxioJ
He was so damn good at it. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ234EwlYbm0
His hands held a great power to pretend. To pretend to write while his eyes actually roamed around my drafts. To pretend to cook so that I would finally cut the vegetables for him.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFreqPFh0RK
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlV6Qlu7ZCJ
I want to know what's inside it. I want to break every bone, blood vessels, and veins and cut open its flesh just to see how it cooperates with each other.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwcSn5DjQU9
Maybe he had done it in his medical school. But no one had taught him for sure how those hands worked like it had a mind of its own.
On a cozy Saturday morning, my frail hands resting on his strong ones, I would have asked him questions if I was a normal wife . 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpaRqzpRFlI
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqT4MAuzUuC
How do your fingers crawl around my throat, looking like you would make me breathe for the last time and still, still never hurt?
Maybe a number of how’s simply cloud our marriage, like storm clouds before the rain:92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrKIo6acTfF
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8te8Fb9cnc
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtH0g33DCf2
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuL7SFTWI3R
********92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6yMDfi8iq
Clink92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsa6wHUYcbE
Clink.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSU5Wq7jSwS
My eyes snapped open exactly at five a.m. No clock was needed. I never used an alarm clock in my whole life. My mind was always conscious, working and working, never sparing me, never caring to pull out its gentle features. I would imagine scenes inside my head during these hours my eyes were shut down. People running, new plot threads, weaving new lies to rip my worried mum off stress. And then—92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡweErfpWk4G
Clink 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0f2HRLw7fe
Clink92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqYj3PXAR0z
It was time to officially drift towards consciousness and this time, into the stinky damn real thing people cared to call ‘world’. All these five hours my eyes were shut down, I never saw black. Fragments of images never forget to cloud into me. Inside my brain. Inside my heart. Inside my muscles. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrRwfw62Qwl
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡebOs3V3yvJ
I simply learned to enjoy it. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwzTxRDfoso
I waited for nights just to start imagining things, walking back to that pathetic scene I had left out the night before, taking inspiration for my next novels, as my brain went tick-tick throughout the whole night.
My sleep was like the objects in Newton’s law of motion. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEYTF5WYs7
I never open my eyes until an external force is applied on me. And in my case, it might be a subtle sound, a touch, or a gentle stream of light from that one hole in my old curtain. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlYlsHZQ4sc
Clink 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQYCWTJnU4g
Clink92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHg4toN1Tw9
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgaZbB5oATY
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtvCwwCVDs
At that exact moment, 5:05 AM, he finally stopped playing the bell, a metallic plate landing on the topmost shelf of his room hitting hard on the concrete.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKWgvRRIt1
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡemvUwPFF7n
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡulVYRwsia7
When my eyes fell on the half-naked man in the bed, he moved. And I could almost hear his girlfriend say, We were seen. We are seen. We will be seen.
I grabbed my towel, which was technically four years old, and still called it a towel because I had never found another that felt like home, and then I staggered toward the restroom.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpJCxZmX0iw
I don't know why I become so tipsy in the morning. It’s not that I ever sleep. It’s not that I was desperate to sleep in on weekends. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO5Q19yD58Z
The bathroom door never ever felt familiar in my fingers. Even though we had been stuck here for a year, I still couldn’t figure out the switches. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5cNrhd4zlm
Would that be the 2nd one? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU2h2cEulYz
No…maybe the 3rd one?92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI6Ovk6XOEk
Fuck. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCW2zLBdx2I
Why are there so many switches?92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNI6ybDBGB6
I clicked on all of them until the bathroom door lit up. It felt like a hotel, I must say. I grabbed the handle but it felt ice cold under my fingers. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcfxV4vCAX6
Even after months, I still waited for the familiar click of my old apartment.
Advik had rented a big apartment in Manhattan, with rooms which were far too big for the both of us. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDS4MWqgatS
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwKIddBWeUX
And I knew that he, too, couldn’t bear to care for them any less.
“You would dust the shelves,” was his first line upon arrival. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDvAElQyUCS
We got into a big fight that night. It was fair, wasn’t it? I must pay half the rent. But he wanted me to feel like those immature girls he fucked.
“Are you that keen on making me lose face in front of my parents, bitch?”92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWdtuzuuGuf
That night, I returned to bed with a split lip and he stormed out to grab a beer and maybe, fuck that girl after so long. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJnT3A5g21e
But still, at the end of the month, I always transferred half the rent in his bank account. It had been our first compromise: He had planned on making me the cook of the house in exchange for the rent. And as you can see, I can never ever let him do that to me. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqsveo2FfWf
It had been a tack. I catfished him under that girl’s name for weeks until I got his account number. Which was, I will add, really really easy. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPprOomIVa2
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5A5M2Wk4oD
Oi, bae, how ya doin?92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOIRvdNgmyx
All okay? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtd7UpsUiQb
You know, I been stuck in that mall. U see, I really need this bubble tea ASAP. Can you transfer me 15 bucks or somethin’. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfmII67pSSE
Love ya. XOX.
And surprisingly, when I gave him my account number, he actually transferred me 15 bucks while I casually collected his account number like a genius.
The first time I had transferred him the rent, I had added 15 bucks along with it.
You know, he kept shouting about it for three straight months, but when I pulled my pretend-to-be-dumb act more often, he finally stopped and walked briskly back to the kitchen like a dog with its tail cut. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOn4hfsSTjC
6:00 AM.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqed4hrFgxq
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJiKDSmCec1
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwpXsmB4zeF
Thank God, he was not home. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGwDSkPt2Dx
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm0ZTJox6es
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEmo71ZJK3x
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBcxXBabGuQ
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrsDdv710KP
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7VHmdmRM86
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2foD7J8aOD
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9N8B8qbZmo
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJG3rel1Xo
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3w7A4ZNXMK
Can't you see? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYX1yAyan5h
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVnmfa7fotQ
Betrayed? 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsfoGP3jFZ0
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLmU3C0G3aK
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW9XIgZzUwP
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2HCI6AKfj0
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtdmA3A9NY
and then Add to home screen.