Hridhi Chatterjee:198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrquP8ihi69
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cmORAmhwd
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTMA1I8XQM
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 18.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnNhfmc8G5V
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.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4PCbxKbrEx
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2eO9QmrBbs
Pretending.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEo495Lrc9X
He was so damn good at it. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4nUd4EG04D
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.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbxMfQY37S4
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqAkYw04Fc3
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.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDgtFdVhL97
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 . 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYlw576rktT
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKL6KlxAxvD
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:198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFwYDUa4mAk
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHkdvJVMhGj
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcYhuKjY0Ww
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdQCNjTE48z
********198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaLc1wZg8KP
Clink198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKwuuvzhnHn
Clink.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQOuwmxx0z3
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—198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jcFNGpmBB
Clink 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8NvXaOnhWx
Clink198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgyamCZYdv
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrGV0nAPoKL
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7pMfYkwvlk
I simply learned to enjoy it. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCrI98I2Oxt
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzpv7XeF6C6
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0U4VYvy2AL
Clink 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZvBzDPorU
Clink198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe5cjhR61un
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡay1kfVCPBK
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZERpwEgOIo
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.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn8IHbwr6oF
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3HLTl2j4IT
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPbPP2OR8Xd
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.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXZko1qwWmA
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsbDU2Zfgml
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbDbTECLsUQ
Would that be the 2nd one? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt3tcPcV5oh
No…maybe the 3rd one?198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4rLGGpOLnb
Fuck. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0gfx3m9bKa
Why are there so many switches?198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTonrBc3cvt
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXTzbVvHSCv
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrAzoivsy8Q
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx3hOufKIjd
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrptZbfxuDl
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?”198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8WnStox63
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBL0OStzvRh
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaD6cdwz8Vl
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhFj0bcLw1S
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡszJuT7MKsh
Oi, bae, how ya doin?198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcN0zH6x9hf
All okay? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtJIku5ntBe
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’. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡflex9lmUuw
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. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ15mXfpdm2w
6:00 AM.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4bekrLxeFk
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRiB6i9WrQI
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSCWrb2x6jX
Thank God, he was not home. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlbokFDG9Li
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBN7SvhLNrm
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa37WFpxWAZ
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgj7fo9Yqb
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsVGLu5Zcy6
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfSFKTbUBZy
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeN6NkCi2MR
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHu6Eop2tRD
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdQ3iwjOS0n
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ31VRSK8xdd
Can't you see? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVhJ9fgcCeK
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxd2axagP1G
Betrayed? 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwhxmUWyaqL
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7DF88hkdoM
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJxf32nVq3e
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and then Add to home screen.