“So we are not meeting again?” I look at him, hoping for a negation. I wanted him to say something along the lines of, “How can I not meet you? My days are incomplete without seeing your face.”

But we both knew he was not a dramatic person. It was me who brought all the drama into this relationship. From crying out loud at the slightest inconvenience to falling apart at the smallest goodbyes, it was me who embodied all the cliches one could think of.

It was a well-lit room with pristine wooden tables. The edges were carved perfectly. It gave a rustic feeling of being somewhere exotic. I kept looking at the drink in his hand. He was usually an avid drinker. Today, the time had slowed down; for him, his drinking and us. I looked at his face carefully, his eyes that made me question my own innocence, his lips that spoke lies in a perfectly plausible manner and his face that still sent shivers down my spine. We were perfectly fine a few months ago. And now this lad with this nonchalant masculine energy is making me question my entire existence.

“Say something! I want you to tell me what went wrong. I can’t keep up with this silent treatment. This breadcrumbing of yours. You come back when you want to. You leave when you want. I am not a marionette to be dancing at your will.” I try to provoke him. His demeanour does not change. Not the slightest flinch, not a hint of irritation. No smile. No signs of retaliation. He is just listening.

I remember the days when he enjoyed the “chase”. The calls, the attention, the consideration. Poof! It disappeared like baby teeth. Now he was a completely different person. Someone who I knew like the back of my hand, but with new lines I did not recognise. I kept looking at him–his hands touching his hair three times mid sentence, his slightly crooked front teeth, his big nose, long eyelashes. This face that I could download infront of my eyes in the remotest of places. This face that was sanguine, full of vigour, youth and energy had turned pale. Was it my bickering? Was it me? What was it?

“I kept calling that day. I felt a gut instinct that something was wrong. You told me you were home. But, I saw your friend’s story. You were partying somewhere. Why would you lie?”

It felt like talking to a wall. He did not respond. I remember the pathological liar he was. He would have had coffee for breakfast, yet insisted that it was tea and not coffee for some reason. The tendency to lie for the most trivial things. The foundation of our relationship was built on lies. Lies that haunted me yet ignited him. Lies that manipulated me yet guided him. I don’t know what kept us going. The chaotic duo that we were, could not be saved by the enormous love that we had for each other.

I remember that day he brought me a handkerchief. My mother shouted at me, “Handkerchiefs invite doom. They invite death or worse incessant tears.” I have cried hundreds of times since that day. He knew all along. Maybe the box the handkerchief was in was a premonition of my fate. Who knew that day when he embraced me in my room, it was a parting hug. Why would he sit there indifferent like always, just sipping at his drink?

I wanted to scream. The anxious attachment type I was, could not let him go. The rational type I was, could not hold on to him.

“You know you always hear me. Always. But you never listen.” I shiver with a teardrop rolling down my eye. It has been hard not to be able to cut ties with the thread that consistently strangles you. “Can you just respond for heaven’s sake?”

He stares at the distance admiring a nothingness I could not see.

I still looked at him. The face that promised me a future is ruining my present. I look at the face that spoke to me with such tenderness. The face that promised to change. The face that said, “When all of this is over, I will ask you to my family.”

Why did it have to end? I kept wondering. If it was a different woman, I would have understood. Like Bartika says, it takes no time for feelings to disappear. But I felt like there was no other woman. Maybe there were women. But not a woman.

He kept sipping on his drink. Now, took out his cigarette and looked around for the ashtray.

I did not mind him smoking. I never minded anything that he did. Maybe that’s where things went wrong.

“You know, waiting for you to love me is like waiting for flowers to bloom on a broomstick,” I control my anger.

He lets out a slow stream of smoke, which he watches curl into the air and vanish as easily as everything we used to be. He doesn’t answer, at least not verbally. Just a quick, uncaring look, as if I were just another moment, another puff of smoke that would eventually fade.

Finality presses down like a weight I can’t get rid of, settling in my chest. There won’t be any last-minute confessions, dramatic outbursts, or miracles that change the end. I'll be here, clinging to the ghosts of conversations we never had, and he’ll go, like he always has. Escaping moments and confrontations that are difficult.

The scrape of wood against tile is sharper than any farewell he could have given me as I push my chair back. I say, “Take Care”, but I'm not sure if I mean it. Perhaps it’s for me, or perhaps it’s for him.

The air feels colder outside than it has in a long time, and I allow it to sting for the first time. Because perhaps, just possibly, the only thing that still feels real is pain.