Hridhi Chatterjee:283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMdF56Y1ikK
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjTELQOhpl
The very first time I saw him, his chubby little hands were resting on my friend's thin ones.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡprSOBcfNOa
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 18.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNWUnYeBoua
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.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNwe0ba0S6h
His hands signalled danger. He’d roll his sleeves up to his elbows, like one of those self-made billionaires pretending to be effortless. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWIwuKAQXW9
Pretending.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTBbLvlOdMa
He was so damn good at it. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFZ2bIahB46
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.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpVT4q6I3i
But still at times when I run out of topics I pretend to study, I look at his hands. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRIAe8LDenM
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.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4OuDwEJLPO
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 . 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIEIj98YnaN
Advik, how do you move your hands? How do you operate with those same fingers with delicacy and still hit hard on the drums? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Mw43G4ATZ
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:283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTJLDQKKRG8
How can we stay together when we can't even look at each other?283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv0zvQjUIj2
How do we stay under the same room and still bleed from wounds after fighting like wolves? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGK3BrbPvxE
How do we pretend to be greater than each other and still fail miserably? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ByDiWTwsP
********283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMnR9XZ2uR9
Clink283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6g3Aow4owM
Clink.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfkliiByAYk
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—283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEmssDGLgH
Clink 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzODymj8Dxm
Clink283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcurUlUEVOj
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8YogsEtZhN
I wouldn’t call it insomnia. I would never go to the therapist like those pathetic Americans. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdKaYcUN0A
I simply learned to enjoy it. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7nJmUEThdE
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0kTUP4MA8a
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡobX9R22YKw
Clink 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF0CUe08ZbG
Clink283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIGM1s9uCsh
I got out of my bed, my lips twisted in the most disgusted expression I could master,283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡavJeAODkD2
“Ring it louder, Advik—maybe He’ll finally pity you.” 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIGUOl7ATN2
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.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrPx3mLggKZ
I pulled the curtains. The sun was still hidden beneath the darkness. In our surrounding apartments, people still slept, thinking that it was midnight. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡELTXRIF2rN
The nearest apartment looked directly into my room. The curtains were half-closed. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2R8XPV6qsM
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.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg4v3tA9RDP
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWqUAxxm8A
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5QMuPnU8O5
Would that be the 2nd one? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUhGR0GgaDN
No…maybe the 3rd one?283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtfddl1MXo
Fuck. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlz63M6c2O
Why are there so many switches?283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAD7F9iRfn7
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBdAAqTL6W0
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaveWg7OFf3
The tiles screamed perfection, the walls shouted cleanliness and the furniture looked so dim under the sparkle that everything felt totally out of place.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYhz57Zbtlu
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ54CNdsZK1Z
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?”283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgIrFV8vRry
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrHHAzr3Cxl
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡllZNEFh6G9
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2f8wCzAYJ4
You just got to pull your cool-girl mode on.
Babe, I miss you…283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbNe58UAfJT
Oi, bae, how ya doin?283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2HyX2Ul64L
All okay? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9NyHSFuQ54
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’. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiUrWiHpgEC
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. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtESZtvMKAT
6:00 AM.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX739VeXuJ9
Now, it was time to take out the trash as always. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPeCSoN0QwQ
I scooped the black polythene bag and opened the door. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWknWN7JzgQ
Thank God, he was not home. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk5oe2dT3yz
I took out a deep breath. Finally! I was free.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWx6Eme88Cr
Like as free as a caged bird. Well, I wouldn’t include the smell of last night's stench along with it. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0rWGIV4lAH
I was just about to return to my floor, my hand finally empty when I noticed his hands. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSfVJZDesn
They were literally his hands. Like literally. I would never lie, mind you. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoUCey873Vo
I saw his hands on that girl's waist. Her waist. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFhLnTkcOID
I couldn't see his face. I couldn't see her face. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1jyCaAihX6
But his familiar hands were literally on her waist. Her hands rested on his. Just like a perfect couple. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3YStA6hhMr
And I felt his eyes on me, even though I didn't see his face.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSOTuM0zAg1
Pretending to be like those shocked, hurt wives who would never accept their husbands are cheating, I ran towards the elevator.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAZ9asSmvlp
Can't you see? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWojdqiRDc5
I was hurt. I was dejected. I was..i was..what else was that? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVfyDSAW5qg
Betrayed? 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNLsn6rfQs6
When I was leaving for work, he stormed inside the living room and I noticed that his hands were now fidgety. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBFrdHz866p
Perfect. Totally perfect. It was just the way I have always wanted.283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZU5uuL6hcf
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and then Add to home screen.