Shruti had had a good time, which was what she realized on her way home.
She was always having a good time and when she wasn't, she made it a point to make sure that it looked as though she were definitely having a good time. But at the juvenile basketball match; what she'd considered a pathetic excuse for a date, she was actually having a good time. She of course wasn't silly enough to assign all of the credit to the tall ex-classmate seated next to her, but she was certain that he had something to do with it. When he'd reached out to her on Instagram with a surprising confession about his crush on her in the school days, Shruti had been flattered. And when he'd asked to meet her, she hadn't even thought of saying no once. It didn't require the normal amount of waiting that she always made necessary before a date; she'd known him for a long time. It was just natural. What she had expected was for there to be some fumbling, bumbling awkwardness about having met an old classmate. But there was none, the scrawny-looking Ashish had grown into a man suave and charismatic; almost making her charisma look dull. Almost.
And while she beamed up at him every once in a while, giving him smiles that invited conversation; for she was actually interested in what he had to say, that was not all that was on her mind. In between the matches, when he asked her if she wanted to leave and gallantly put his arm around her while walking through the crowd (as if she were a precious celebrity and he, the security personnel); not even the deliciousness of his warm arm against her slightly bare shoulder had been enough to distract her. No, she was worried about her sister. Not because of the boy Vaibhav- Shruti trusted Shweta enough to know that she had good instincts- but because of the rest of the things. There was the fight with their mother that hadn't been like any of the fights that the hot-headed Shweta and Seema always got into.
No, this had been personal and cruel enough to cause a frigidity to settle over the household; the spite and insolence from both the sides driving her mad. And there was the fight with Riddhi that Shruti had found out about, quite surprisingly from Riddhi and not her sister. Riddhi had been genuinely concerned; asking Shruti to maybe find out what was going on in Shweta's head so that she'd realize she didn't have to be as alone as she pushed herself to be.
Now, while deduction and extraction of information was something Shruti was never bad at, there was the listening that she didn't quite enjoy. And when she'd spoken to Shweta, she'd wanted her to listen. Shruti had been too hasty in handing out her advice, she knew. But, at times she felt too frustrated and overwhelmed; to always having to play the role of the listener in their tightly knit, nuclear family.
Shweta was the hot-headed little baby of the family. Loud and cheery when the mood suited her, loud and angry when it failed her. Always jumping head-first into everything; her saving grace was the resilience with which she withstood the often-explosive consequence of her ill-thought-out decisions. Then there was their mother. Stubborn and rigid; too obstinate at times to even see where Shweta got her obstinacy was. Shruti was in no way their soft and sweet counterpart; having learned very early that at times the only way to break a loud argument was to scream louder. While she had also been blessed with the sunny-ness that Shweta had, she hid underneath it an emotional maturity that Time had taught her when Shweta had been too young to learn. The tendency to mask her feelings under an unreadable expression of perpetual bubbliness; the price of which she was only learning was very hard to bear.
In a way, both the sisters were identical- they were both afraid, hesitant, and tense when it came to romantic relationships. What they'd seen their mother go through, however young they had been, had imprinted them, made an unerasable mark. It was like a bruise, an invisible scar that left behind memories that scared them. Both of them covered this up with incessant jokes and a sunny attitude. Whereas a bit of maturity had erased Shruti out of her angst and given her a better perspective of the loneliness that haunted her so. Shweta, on the other hand still naïve, with little exposure to the world beyond her hometown hid behind a roguish view of life that shielded her and damaged her equally.
What Shruti, realized when she'd seen her sister was that she was letting someone in finally. While all of Shruti's consolation had been possibilities of what lay ahead away from home. Shweta, she realized was going the right way; allowing someone in. While Shweta may have not told him anything yet, Shruti knew intuitively that it would only be a matter of time before he found out.
And there Shruti found out, what had really been bothering her about Shweta.
A tiny bit of envy that had managed to wedge itself between their sisterhood; that while it had the ups and downs of a normal sibling-hood but it had never had the poisonous, venomous envy that was responsible for desecrating so many such relationships. But now, it was clear to Shruti and she was glad it was. For having identified it, she could crush it before it could extend its grasp any further. This was not allowing her to listen to Shweta; not just the frustration of being the only one who ever listened. This was Shweta, her little sister, moving on and learning how to allow people in once again while she sat burdened by the secret her twenty-year-old shoulders found increasingly hard to bear.
It had surprised her, how quickly her sister's demeanor had changed around the boy. Of the tenderness with which her eyes regarded him. Of the almost imperceptible admiration in her eyes and the one that bugged her the most- the look of trust. The casual manner in which the boy had spoken to Shweta, the posture with which she regarded him. It was almost as though they had been friends forever; Shruti had never seen Shweta look at even Riddhi with that kind of trust. She had never seen that kind of unabashed open-ness and that was saying a lot considering how extroverted and jovial Shweta was.
Shruti had always been a very clever girl. Reading onto situations and assessing the mood and then readjusting herself to what the situation would bring. It was almost as if she knew even before words were uttered, the kind of impact they would have and how she needed to brace herself for it. While she was outgoing as well, she controlled her emotions well. She'd evolved into a more subdued version of herself. Where Shweta was the emotional boisterous one, Shruti calculated her loudness and the implications it would present.
But she hadn't anticipated this. None of this had been planned or structured carefully. She didn't know her way out of this unyielding swirl of emotions that threatened to spill over. All that she had kept within, filling herself, absorbing all possible pain; until now it was too much.
Maybe it was the fact that she had never seen this coming; all of these crazy happenings in Shwetas life had triggered her. To realize that she herself was stagnant and still; just the way she had always been. Always there, the constant of the family never daring to make a move for fear of disrupting the still waters; afraid of the demons that lurked within.
Maybe it was time to swim to the depths and face her fears once and for all. Look it in the eye and see it for what it really was. Maybe then, would growth happen.
"What on earth are you so grumpy for?" Nani's voice sounds and Shruti looks up in surprise to see her grandmother at the gate. She didn't realize she'd walked all the way home, yet.
"Nani! Why are you standing at the gate?" Shruti smiles.
"Oh, I was just bored. But now that you've come, maybe I don't need to stay bored anymore!" Nani says, chuckling.
"Well, we'll take care of your boredom. But you could have watched the television or spoken to Shweta." Shruti says, feeling anxious as the last words roll off her tongue. It was just a tentative guess that Shweta was home. She hoped she wouldn't be landing Shweta into more trouble.
But luckily for her, Nani snorts. "Oh, little Shweta? What would I talk to her about? Besides she's been sleeping like a cat since she got back. You should see her!" She's curled up on the divan in the veranda. "Anyone would think that she'd been up all night for the entire week!"
"Maybe she's just tired. She had been up all night working for her project the past two days." Shruti says, knowing that Shweta had been up even if it hadn't been for her project.
"Why didn't you say so in the morning then? I would have forced the poor child to rest." Nani says, holding her hand up to her heart.
"It must have slipped my mind. But never mind that. We should let her rest. Did she have lunch?" Shruti asks.
"No, she told me she'd eaten some muffins at school. Hmm, I must give her food once she wakes up. But for now, let her sleep. I think I'm going to go put a thin blanket over that poor girl. She's still asleep in the veranda and the mosquitoes have begun coming out now that its evening. Why don't you wash and eat something as well?" Nani says, flitting away to tend to her business.
A bit later, with two rotis in her belly, Shruti makes her way to the terrace. The turmoil within her heart hasn't yet calmed and then there was that other something that she'd been intending to talk to Shweta about. Would she ever even be able to talk to anyone about it? She knew she wouldn't be able to talk to Shweta as she had initially planned. She wanted to, very badly but she chickened out every time she tried to.
It was something that had been stuck in her mind but she'd never voiced it out loud. Even in her own presence; she'd never had the guts to. She knew it wasn't really her fault but she'd kept it within for so long that now she couldn't help but feel more burdened. Maybe, if she'd told them all about it exactly when it had happened but she'd felt like that would be selfish. She hadn't wanted to hurt anyone and least of all the two people she loved the most in the world. Initially, she hadn't planned on telling anyone, ever. She had been intent on keeping it to herself but lately, she'd begun to feel guilty about it. Was she the only one who needed to know about it? Did she have any right to keep such a big secret from her family? What would Shweta have done, had she been in her place? Wasn't it ironic how Shweta had been calling her sorted but now she was the one wondering how her little sister might have acted?
She wanted to open up to someone. Though she'd managed to keep the secret with a maturity that surprised herself, she wasn't sure how long she could hold onto that piece of information. The guilt had been strangling her lately and she wanted to tell someone. Most importantly someone who knew. There had only been Seema and Shweta who knew. But the amount of pain that it would bring forth for either of them had been something that Shruti didn't want to cause or witness.
She takes out a cigarette from her emergency stack and lights it. She smiles as she does so. What would maa think if she saw me this way? What would Shweta think? Her mother's reaction would be comical if the situation wasn't so serious. Shweta would be shocked and then later beg her to allow her to try smoking as well. Shruti shakes her head. She couldn't mess with this already delicate balance her family had. If she had to keep it within herself for the rest of her life then so be it. But she needed to find a release; however small it might be.
So, she takes a drag and lets the smoke out admiring the way it made her feel. She sets her phone to record it and then she says the words out loud.
"I met Papa in September, two years ago."
A/n: What are your thoughts on this?? I'd initially intended it to be the same chapter but it became too long.
Hope you're enjoying it!!
shortgirlbigbook â¤ï¸.