Prologue

The days were long. Long as they had never been. The air was still in the room. Nothing

moved. It had been three days since I had locked myself in. It had been three days since I had broken up with Avantika. I read a page from my old diary, from three years back, where I used to recount every important day of my life, and the first time I had met Avantika was one of them.

There were other people in that incident, who were no longer in my life, but Avantika was and she always will be

.

I guess …

September 2019

Today was a day when I spent most of my time with my eyes and mouth wide open. Avantika had just landed and my best friend wanted me to meet her.

I was told that Avantika had been in rehab for her drugs and alcohol problem but that was more than a year back. I had already started imagining Avantika as a leather-jacketed gothic chick with metal piercings and black nail paint.

And then ....ther she was... !

That could have been the last thing I remembered from today had I had a weak heart. I had passed out for a few seconds for sure. My heart skipped a beat or maybe it just stopped beating altogether. I was choking. My stomach churned. I felt the blood rush down to the ends of my arteries and then burst out. I could feel my brain imploding. I was going to die and I was sure.

She is breathtakingly beautiful! She is a dream. Even better, you could not even dream of something so perfect. Plastic surgeons still cannot rival God, I thought.

She is so hard to describe. Those limpid, constantly wet black eyes and melancholic face screamed for love. The moonlight that reflected off her perfectly sculpted cheekbones seemed the only light illuminating the surroundings. Somebody stood with a blower nearby to get her long, black hair to cover her face so that she could look sexier flicking it away from her eyes. She has the big eyes of a month-old child—big and screaming for attention—a perfectly drafted nose, flawless bright pink lips and a smooth, pale complexion that would put Photoshop to shame.

Oh hell, she is way out of my league.

She was a goddamn goddess or she was the devil.

She could not possibly be human.

I just could not look beyond her face.

I was not seeing right, I was not hearing right. I was just lost in the reflecting pools in those

beautiful eyes. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would pop out of my chest any moment. She asked me how I was doing; her voice was music to my ears.

Drugs? Alcohol? Leather? She would not even know all that. I did see the remnants of a piercing just above her left eyebrow, and sure enough, a tattoo peeked out from under her sleeve: a red swastik sign. I told myself it was just a dream and I didn’t just see the prettiest girl ever.

I managed to answer her in what seemed like my fourth attempt at speaking after the first three ended in some soundless flapping of my tongue. It was a strange feeling—I was nervous, shit nervous. I felt small. I felt ugly. I felt insignificant. I looked at her and smiled stupidly. I wondered if her dog looked cuter than I did.

I spent the evening trying not to stare into those fall-in-love-with-me eyes.

I like your nose, can I touch it? I wanted to say.

I like your lips, are they for real? I wanted to say.

I like your eyes, can I stare into them forever? I wanted to say.

I truly have not seen someone who is so perfect in her existence that you feel worthless and depressed. The simplicity of what she came wearing, the honesty in her smile, the serenading voice, the depth of her eyes—unforgettable.

It has been four hours since I took her leave but I cannot get her out of my head. That smile, those eyes … they are just not leaving me. As I sleep today, I wish to see her again. Soon.

This was the day that marked the end of my reckless dating days, when the only

consideration while choosing a girl used to be whether she would kiss me or not. That day

was different. I needed her.

It had been three and a half years since then, and I had fallen in love with Avantika every

single day of the twelve hundred and seventy-five days that we had been together. I have

been more in love with her every new day. Between that day and today, she has only got

more beautiful, more charming, more adorable and lovelier.

Why me, of all the guys she could have dated? I had never managed to figure that one out. I closed my eyes and thought about what had got me here, alone and suicidal.

1

I had been tense for the last few days. Interviews for summer internships at Management

Development Institute, Gurgaon, had started; Avantika and I did not want to go to different

cities for our internships.

I had first met Avantika when I was studying engineering at Delhi College of Engineering

and she was studying at Shri Ram College of Commerce. We graduated from our colleges,

and joined the same firm in Hyderabad; things were going perfect for us. We were just

twenty-two but had started planning our future together. On days when we were sure that we

would always be together, she even told me what names she had decided for her kids. We

were that serious.

It had been a while that we had been working when recession hit our firm and I was

thrown out of the company. I worked for a smaller firm for a couple of months but it wasn’t

really the same. That is when we decided we needed to study further and started studying

for the management entrance examinations. Three months later, we were at MDI, a top-rung

management institution in Gurgaon, and we couldn’t be happier.

I hadn’t stayed away from her for a really long time now, and the prospect of going to

different cities for our internship scared me.

‘I am sure I will screw this one up,’ I said, rubbing my sweaty palms together. The

company had shortlisted fifteen students for the interview stage. They had planned to take

just four. Avantika and I were among the last few in the preference order that the company

had stated.

‘You will not screw it up. Relax,’she said and rubbed my hands.

‘But what if they take the first four guys and leave the campus? We might not even get a

chance for an interview!’ I grumbled.

Many companies did that. They did not want to interview a whole lot of people to choose

their interns. They specified an order in which the students should come. If they liked the

person, they would take him or her and close the placement process. The students lower

down in the interview schedule often didn’t get a chance!

‘Let’s hope for the best!’she said.

‘Avantika? Rubbing your hand like that on my shoulder would only distract me,’ I pointed

out.

‘You clear the interview and I will do it without your clothes on,’she winked.

‘I won’t get through.’

‘You will. Trust me,’she said.

When two beautiful eyes look at you and say something with conviction, you cannot help

but believe it. She smiled at me and it calmed my nerves a little.

The first interview was over. The guy came out smiling and with an offer letter in hand.

My hopes died. There were just three more seats to fill up and there were ten interviews

before me. There was no way Avantika and I were clearing this interview together.

‘Now what!’ I said.

‘Relax, Deb. There are still three seats left.’

‘And ten guys to interview! What if they choose even two?’

For the first time that morning, I saw her a little tense. ‘I should go talk to the guy

handling this thing.’

‘What can he change?’ I asked irritably.

‘Let’s see,’she said and handed over her file to me.

Avantika looked stunning that day. She seemed to have jumped out of a women’s formal-

wear fashion magazine: the short business skirt she wore looked fabulous on her, and a

perfectly fitting blazer and shiny black pointed stilettos completed the power-woman

picture. She made the clothes look good and not vice versa. There were whispers in the

corridors of our college that morning, ‘Obviously, she will get through! She is so hot!’

Avantika got up and walked up to the college representative who was handling the

interview process. There were hushed whispers around me. I saw Avantika tell him

something, her eyes stern, but her smile was in place.

‘What is she doing?’ I heard the guy sitting next to me ask his friend. Avantika talked to

that senior for a little while, came back, and sat next to me.

‘What was going on there?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. Just be prepared. You will be the next one to be interviewed. Do well,’she

pulled up my tie.

What!

The guy from the interview room came out. He was not selected.

‘Debashish Roy, you’re next,’ the college representative said.

I got up and entered the room. The whispers of other shortlisted students grew louder; no

one was happy that Avantika had charmed her way into getting her boyfriend into the

interview room.

No one said anything to her.

Avantika had always been intimidating for people who did not know her. One stern

statement from her and the authority crushes you. One smile of hers and you are charmed,

lost in those beautiful sparkling eyes and the dazzling smile. It had been three years and I

was still trying to cope with these.

The interview was slightly long, but I had been taught well by Avantika. Soon, they

slipped the offer letter in front of me. I signed the document and came out smiling. People

looked at me, disgusted. ‘Fuck you,’ I muttered under my breath.

I sat there with Avantika and hoped no one else made it. The next few went in for the

interview and no one got selected. Eat that, motherfuckers, I said in my head every time

someone left that room without an offer.

Finally, they called Avantika in. There were still two seats left. And as expected, she

came out flashing an offer letter.

‘To my room,’she said, even before I could congratulate her.

Twenty minutes later, we were in her hostel room, wrapped around each other. Our well-

ironed suits lay crumpled and strewn across the floor. Our bodies were a tangled heap,

intertwined, our fingers wrapped around each other’s. She was still wearing her stilettos.

My socks had still not left my feet.

‘That was good,’she said.

‘Good? That was awesome.’

‘Yeah. You were good. I was the awesome part of this entire session,’she winked.

I was still tired and panting from the lovemaking, when I saw a few tears in her eyes.

‘Aw! What happened, baby?’ I asked her.

‘I heard someone call me a slut today,’she answered.

I knew people would talk. ‘You’re mine, baby,’ I said.

‘They don’t matter anyway. We do,’she said and wiped off her tears.

‘Just curious—what did you say to him?’

‘I just requested him that since you have no other shortlists, you should be allowed in

first. That this was your last chance at a decent internship …’

‘Didn’t he know that I had three more shortlists?’

‘He forgot,’she smiled naughtily.

We kissed.

I was happy that we had got into the same company and were going to the same city for

our internship, but I did not like that she had to flirt with someone to get it done. People

talked about it for a few days and then forgot. It hurt her when people said things about her

behind her back, but she tried not to show it.

Assholes.

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