Jab We Met

It had taken Chiranjeev two months to stop flinching any time anyone spoke of love or happiness or asked him anything about Chanderi. He had learnt to cope but he didn’t think he had stopped missing her. They had become friends during their four-month engagement and she was the only friend he had outside of work. It had been fun telling her all the antics his children got up to.

It was Saturday, half of which Chiranjeev had already wasted cleaning his two-bedroom apartment. He had rented it in a building that was right opposite his school. The only reason his parents hadn’t created a huge ruckus when he had declared he would be living on his own was he would be saving on his commute time. Still, it had taken him a month to convince them.

Now, he was glad he had made that effort. He couldn’t imagine being at home, his parents smothering him with unhelpful advice like he should marry another girl. In this space, his own space, he could mope, cry and even miss her fiercely when he noticed that he hadn’t filled the half of the cupboard he had emptied for Chanderi’s use. That empty space had prompted the cleaning spree.

And if the cleaning spree was also helping him avoid the lesson plans his co-teacher had made, it was a win-win. He didn’t want to say they were bad…just they did not quite follow the format he had asked her to. He was particular about these things because Jaya was particular. He almost wanted to throw Swati under the bus – she hadn’t taken to him saying no to her proposal well. She had been trying to sabotage him since then. As tempting as it was to leave her to verbal lashing of their principal, he couldn’t do it.

With a sigh, he pulled his laptop towards him, only to be distracted by a far more pleasant notification on his phone. Two months later, Chanderi had reached out. His heart leapt as he swiped the notification away. He looked away but his WhatsApp was open on his laptop too and that 1 in the notification bar was staring at him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get any work done if he didn’t see what it said.

He swiped at his phone, put in his passcode and opened her message.

Hi Chiranjeev. This is Chanderi.

He chuckled at that introduction. Did she think he would have deleted her number? Wait…should he have deleted her number? Not knowing the answer to that question, he went back to the message.

Hi Chiranjeev. This is Chanderi. Uh…I guess you know who I am? Sorry this is awkward and you can totally say no but…can we meet? I need to talk to you and I don’t want to do it over a call or message. Please?

He replied instantly, fixing up a lunch date meeting for Sunday.

*

They met at Tea-light, a small coffee shop that was exactly halfway between their houses. It was a stupid choice Chiranjeev realised as soon as he stepped into the cafe. It was where they had met most often during their engagement. They had tried everything on the menu and it had become a running joke between them and the owner who had introduced a mystery item on his menu simply to keep them entertained and well-fed.

Before the memories could buffet him too strongly, he saw Chanderi at one of the tables. It wasn’t their table because they didn’t have one but it was a good choice. It wasn’t directly in the sun, it had a good view of the plants outside and the booth gave them a modicum of privacy.

She looked radiant in her blue top. He was a bit miffed that the break up didn’t seem to affect her. But when he saw the pain in her eyes, he realised she was probably just better at hiding her emotions than him.

“Hey,” he said, which came out hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey.”

“Hi. Thank you for coming. I just really needed to talk to you about something.”

He hadn’t even sat down properly before she had hit him with that. Okay, so they were getting right into it. That was fine with him.

“You said please. All your ‘I’ were capital. I had to say yes.” It was a joke from before and he winced at the poor way it landed.

She smiled. It looked a bit grim.

“I figured it out. Why I had to say…” she looked around but the soft hush of the crowd in Tea-light meant no one was paying them any attention. “No,” she whispered, “to you.”

*

They ended up not eating lunch. Once she told him her reasons, he was furious with her because they weren’t enough. He had said so to her and they had ended up arguing.

“I only wanted to tell you because I thought I owed it to you. That’s all. I don’t expect you to forgive me or anything.”

“Oh, so you didn’t come here to tell me to feel better about what you did?”

“Chiranjeev I…”

She choked on her words and for a vicious moment, he was happy. It was short-lived. He hadn’t known he was harbouring so much anger towards her.

Not wanting to say something he’d regret later, he had left the cafe, feeling as if the wounds he had taped shut were gaping once more.

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Chapter 10 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.