Hridhi Chatterjee:157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE4FvG3dFAb
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5hmScytjJ
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUUVLhvrw4x
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 18.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuYj04UCV8U
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡositZpKWHM
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRkwRniVUlp
Pretending.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdtM1et6m3w
He was so damn good at it. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfj0GegPpnY
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9arlKGIJa
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQd6ctdTI0i
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZEaM4Wk0yl
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 . 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmxzVPekWDy
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT0dW6XfSzK
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:157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsuDmnbvpg6
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjeLlvvnai5
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQDMmrjyAW
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtkR04U0D8H
********157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv2t91Y7nSQ
Clink157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmOgJSupHAp
Clink.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIJslD2WWah
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—157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWXKuIi162
Clink 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIANmH36Oi
Clink157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1zOtaKy1FB
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGChjd73Wpv
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9LsTwpHCQ8
I simply learned to enjoy it. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwrC1ZWROIp
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjkszixyCKb
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3GNf2RbDwI
Clink 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9DQvMkCFM
Clink157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ30tMtPV5Sy
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaVLur2MsD9
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWAHlScXfp
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOTr7K3o5p8
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmQ4sgdSYBe
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtyYJBizim3
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡABBk2c5f7z
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvSbmwZIUMc
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6CjntXNiQw
Would that be the 2nd one? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTbGXVWX6P6
No…maybe the 3rd one?157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvmLovsFc9I
Fuck. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDJdylJRETG
Why are there so many switches?157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNM8Qy0aU0A
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrnsT1riMuY
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4GgKkaVUjQ
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkwKRs42PuN
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoRfnObIL6D
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?”157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW76MHFYkQr
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS4h6qshYNF
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTq8tGETxv
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6SVR0Rv1iA
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbPbvyFP6R
Oi, bae, how ya doin?157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQvG0w4dCBV
All okay? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyx2SDSjqjJ
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’. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJBS6T5xL3Y
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. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIoPM695TzZ
6:00 AM.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡykqBWV1yaY
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡreA98P1Meo
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVIfI5C0Kxt
Thank God, he was not home. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXsQbGX4tR
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCkuXzhZIQB
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFRDOPu7laK
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx6YU0asxSZ
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1qMydgpGPo
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWJ38iMYLfF
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3SlFgSDMbL
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT5c0CRjcUA
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4DXMQhaNup
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuFkJkri0KS
Can't you see? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtKYyOsyUvu
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwdjIQECxZc
Betrayed? 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkbiqhQkDbN
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzRBqqxxQ8c
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZbw5suoba
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and then Add to home screen.