Chapter 19

2 years ago

varshaoforange

@varshaoforange

The early rays of the sun poured through the windows the next morning, and Imlie tried to open her eyes from her sleep. She was parched and she started to sit up on the bed to pour herself a glass of water. She couldn’t remember a better night of sleep she’d had in the past months. It might have been the best night of sleep she’d had since coming to Delhi.

But something was odd; the pillow underneath her head felt hard and bony for some reason. Her whole body stiffened and she opened her eyes. What she saw was a hand on her shoulder, that hand was connected to an arm, and that arm was connected to…she looked up at the face of the person whose shoulder and chest she’d used as a pillow all night, and it seemed like all the air immediately had decided to leave her lungs. She was sleeping on top of Aryan Singh Rathore. She was in the same bed as Aryan Singh Rathore. She had used Aryan Singh Rathore’s body as a pillow all night, and now she was awake, again, she had to keep reminding herself of this, on top of Aryan Singh Rathore.

If her mind was playing a trick on her, it was an incredibly stupid trick, because it was completely unbelievable. Then in flashes the events of yesterday came back into her mind. Her conversation with Aditya, the rain, dancing with Aryan, the drive home, him coming into her room, her crying on his shoulder for what felt like hours, him comforting her. This wasn’t a trick, this wasn’t a dream, this wasn’t even a nightmare. A voice in her head started shouting at her to get off of him, to get out of this room before he could realize what had happened. But another voice started to ask Imlie: why had this felt so natural? Why did it feel so comfortable?

She looked back at Aryan’s sleeping face, she felt his chest rise and fall slowly beneath her, she admired the long eyelashes, the strong jawline that was plainly visible even beneath his beard. He shifted a little and his left hand moved from her shoulder to her back, enveloping her in a half hug. Imlie held her breath, though it was difficult now that her attention was on his upper arms, one now on top of her, and the other flexed so his hand and forearm hid underneath the pillow.

Imlie tried to figure out what to do. If she got up abruptly, it wouldn’t just be their awkwardness they’d have to deal with, she would undoubtedly hear some lecture about how she’d fallen weak before her emotions again, or worse, he might try to ask her if she was okay. Imlie didn’t want to think about yesterday, she didn’t want to think about the past month, and she most definitely didn’t want to think about the year before that. All she wanted was to move on, and bizarrely, she didn’t think being asked if she was ‘okay’ was going to help her. She’d received all the comfort she’d needed last night in a weak moment, and she didn’t plan on falling weak ever again.

Imlie felt Aryan shift again and immediately shut her eyes, this was the best plan. Let him wake up first and figure it out. She pretended to be asleep, and listened carefully for signs of Aryan waking up, and hoped she’d be able to keep up the pretense of being asleep if Aryan decided to push her off and leave her room quietly.

Aryan opened his eyes and it took him less than a second to realize he wasn’t in his own bed. He must have fallen asleep on the couch in the study doing work, except, even when he slept on that uncomfortable couch his shoulder didn’t hurt this much. He tried to move it and found that it was stuck. He looked down.

Shit. What the…shit. Shit. Shit. Shit! Aryan panicked. His instinct was to scramble out of the bed immediately, not giving a damn if Imlie woke up or not. He couldn’t believe he’d spent the night in this room. He’d just come in to give her the kaadha, and maybe to see how she was doing. He remembered the tears streaming down her face, the way she’d tried to push away from him at first, how she’d pleaded not to ask her to stop crying, how he’d had to stroke her head and basically hug her to sleep last night. He had to hand it to Imlie, she knew how to cry. He’d probably fallen asleep on the bed because she’d fallen asleep in his arms, while sitting up. Aryan remembered, as he looked at Imlie’s sleeping face, her eyes still puffy, but looking completely serene and calm now, he’d wanted to leave for his room, but she’d been gripping his shirt so tight, even asleep, that he couldn’t bear to wake her.

He fought the urge to laugh at the situation. Aryan never got more than four hours a sleep a night, not since Arvind’s death. Even if he did try to sleep for more than a couple hours, sometimes five if he was lucky, the same nightmare would wake him up. But last night, Aryan shifted his head to peek at the alarm clock on Imlie’s side table, last night Aryan had managed sleep for more than seven hours. And he hadn’t woken up once.

He looked down at Imlie and then the urgency of the situation hit him. If Imlie woke up in his arms she would not be laughing. She’d already been through so much once because people had assumed she’d spent the night with a man. He couldn’t do that to her again. She was barely twenty years old, and she’d only been in Delhi for a little over a year. He knew she was probably feminist and progressive enough to not judge anyone else for their relationships, physical or not, but he doubted she would be thinking progressively if she woke up right now. He knew it could trigger her, the same way that hut in Pagdandia, that wind storm, had triggered her.

He first lifted his arm from around her, careful not to snag his watch on her clothes or her dupatta, which thankfully was still tied over her shoulder, that way, even if she did wake up, she wouldn’t be too embarrassed or worried. He breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t budge after that. Now came the hard part. He removed his right arm from underneath the pillow, and managed to push Imlie off his chest and shoulder, and onto his arm, then he tried to pull away from her. It didn’t work as smoothly as he’d thought. He’d pulled too hard, and Imlie almost fell off the bed. He caught her by her arm to stop her from falling, but it was too late. She was awake.

Imlie couldn’t pretend to be asleep after that. First, it was getting hard to fight the laughter from feeling and peeking at Aryan’s maneuvers to extricate himself from under her. Secondly, she’d almost fallen off of the bed. And finally, Aryan had grabbed her arm so tightly to prevent her falling, that it hurt.

“Ow,” Imlie said, “What the hell?!” She gained her balance and sat up. Aryan let go of her arm quickly.

“Sorry, I—you were about to fall off the bed—I just…” Aryan fell silent. The awkwardness was worse than he’d imagined. He looked at Imlie and was shocked to find her smiling.

Imlie had to cut the tension somehow, so she smiled and said, “Do you know you snore? Like a lot? You should see a doctor about that.”

Aryan sat up on the bed, and then clambered off of it.

“What? I don’t snore.” Aryan blurted out, slightly incensed from the laughter in her eyes, he added, “So what if I snore, at least it was just your ears in pain. I woke up and felt like I was bench pressing all the weights in my gym. What the hell do you eat?” Aryan had no idea why he’d said that, Imlie probably didn’t weigh more than 50 kilos. He willed himself to shut up.

What came next he hadn’t expected at all.

Imlie grabbed the pillow he’d just been using and flung it at him, “You’re calling me fat? Me?!”

Aryan picked up the pillow and threw it back at her, she dodged it easily, “Aur nahin toh kya? Tum na, yeh kaada ki zaroorat nahin hai. Tujhe na, ek diet ki zaroorat hai.” (If not that, then what? You, you don’t need this kaada. What you need is a diet.)

Aryan fought a laugh and turned around to leave, and added, in hopes that the awkwardness was completely gone now, “It’s only seven in the morning, but you should get ready for work—“

WHAM.

The pillow hit the back of Aryan’s head again. He turned around, and looked at Imlie. She was standing victorious and grinning on the bed.

Aryan bent down and picked it up, fluffing it and grabbing it tight in both his hands, “Pehli baat, Imlie,” he walked closer to the bed, “tum bhool rahi ho ki main tumhaara boss hoon.” (First point, Imlie…you are forgetting that I am your boss.)

Imlie giggled and quickly bent down to pick up the other pillow on the bed, and stood back up, “Doosri baat?” (The second point?) She asked, having a lot of fun with this version of Aryan, who clearly wasn’t actually mad at her at all.

Aryan raised an eyebrow, a smile dancing its way onto his face now, “Doosri baat, mujhe haarana pasand nahin hai. main haarata nahin” (Second point, I don’t like to lose. I don’t lose.)

Imlie, using the pillow as a shield, walked back to the other side of the bed and stepped off of it. Her eyes not leaving Aryan’s slow pace towards her.

Imlie moved quickly before Aryan could make his move, she ran to the door and shouted back at him, “Tum woh teesri baat ki udhaar dene ke koshish karo, tumse nahin ho payega!” (Just try to give me the ‘debt’ of the third point, you won’t be able to!)

Aryan chased after her. He saw Imlie run through the corridor until she made it to the stairs, looking back at him as she ran.

“Imlie!” Aryan shouted, “Main woh teesri baat bol ke rahunga, tum dekhlo!” (I will say that third point, you watch!)

He chased Imlie through the living room, the kitchen, and the other rooms on the ground floor of the house. Whenever he managed to catch up with her, she’d wield the pillow expertly to push him back, her laughter rang like music throughout the house.

Imlie couldn’t stop laughing, she saw Aryan trip over chairs and dodge end tables as he chased her, failing to hit her with the swinging pillow in his hands. They’d made it back to the living room, Imlie stood staring at Aryan, the pillow as a shield again, but a sofa in between them. She tried to figure out which direction Aryan would take to fake him out. She darted left behind the couch, but she’d miscalculated, Aryan went behind as well. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, not hesitating in swinging the pillow at her with his other hand.

They fought messily, playfully, like that for a few minutes. Then Imlie heard a magical noise. She’d been noticing the grin on Aryan’s face this whole time, but for the first time, she was hearing him laugh with his whole body. It wasn’t a chuckle, but a full-body laugh. For the first time Imlie saw his smile overtaking not just his face, but seemingly changing his whole character. She was mesmerized, completely overtaken by this Aryan. The Aryan Singh Rathore was having a pillow fight, with her.

Aryan honestly couldn’t figure out what had come over him. He hadn’t laughed like this in years, he hadn’t smiled for this long even once since Arvind’s death. It felt like Aryan was back to four years ago, when there wasn’t a worry in his life. When his sister and brother-in-law were happy together, when Aryan almost never saw a speck of pain or sadness in his mother’s eyes. He stared at the woman that had made this possible, the laughter and silly insults not breaking between the two of them. Her face was aglow, a complete 180 from the night before. Imlie was laughing and smiling even harder than she had been in the rain yesterday. Aryan realized that the smile on her face, her laughter in his ears, it made his whole body warm up, like someone had just lit a blazing fire on a cold day.

“Aru! Imlie!” Narmada walked downstairs, a sleepy Arpita following her, “What are you two doing?”

Imlie and Aryan froze in mid-battle, and looked at Narmada and Arpita. Imlie dropped the pillow, and straightened, trying to come up with an explanation for why she was smacking Aryan with a pillow at seven in the morning. No plausible explanation came to mind, not to mention the truth was more ridiculous than any story she could have come up with at that moment.

Aryan blurted out nonsensically, “She said I snore!”

Imlie shot him a confused look, he looked at her, his eyes telling her, I have no idea why I said that.

Imlie looked back at Kaki Maa and Arpita Didi, “Yea, well your son said I was fat.”

Aryan dropped the pillow and crossed his arms, facing Imlie instead of his mother and sister now, “Maybe it was a tasteless joke, but that doesn’t mean you get to hit me with a pillow, twice!”

Imlie crossed her arms too, “ABP, mainne tumse pehele bhee kaha hai, tum jokes mat maro. Jokes mar jaate hain.” (ABP, I’ve told you before, don’t tell jokes. Jokes die.)

Aryan picked up the pillow again and threw it at her, “Mere jokes tumhara har din ke bakavaas kahaaniyon, ya tumhara kharaab gaana se behatar hai. Tujhe gaana kisane sikhaaya? Mujhe lagata hai ki tujhe us shikshak se apanee gurudakshina vaapas le lenee chaahie.” (My jokes are better than your daily nonsense stories, or your bad singing. Who taught you to sing? I think you should take your gurudhakshana from that teacher back.)

Imlie stuck her tongue out at him, “Tumhen bas jalan ho rahee hai.”

Aryan wanted to respond, but Maa interrupted him.

“I don’t understand anything you two are saying, but enough. That’s enough. Shaant ho jayo tum dono,” Narmada said. (Calm down you two.)

Aryan and Imlie looked at the floor, Aryan kicked the pillow at his feet at Imlie one more time, smiling. Imlie kicked it back, fighting another laugh.

Arpita looked at the two of them, clearly she and Maa were missing some key information, but she didn’t care, because the smile on her brother’s face was something she hadn’t seen in years. That boyish grin, that was something she and Maa had tried for months to bring back, and somehow it was back today.

Narmada looked at her son’s smiling face and then at Imlie, she was so curious as to what brought this on, but she doubted she’d get a response, so she just asked, “Imlie, ab tum better feel kar rahi ho?” (Imlie, are you feeling better now?) She knew she probably shouldn’t have asked, but Imlie felt like more than a stranger to her by now, Narmada could barely sleep all night worrying about her. She had to fight the urge to go into her room multiple times last night to check on her.

Aryan stiffened, glancing at Imlie, if there was one thing he’d figured out from yesterday and this morning, Imlie didn’t want anyone asking her if she was okay. Before he could change the subject however, Imlie answered.

“Kaki Maa, main theek hun. Actually, mujhe lagata hai ki aaj main duniya se lad sakati hoon aur jeet bhi sakati hun. Main abhi abhi aapki bete ko haraayi hun, uska pehla haar.” Imlie laughed and looked at Aryan, shooting him a wink in response to his glare. (Kaki Maa, I am fine. Actually, I think that today I can fight against the world, and I can even win. Just now I made your son lose. His first loss.)

Arpita laughed, “I’m so glad Imlie, it looks like the rain didn’t make either of you sick, Aru, I think your kaada worked! And Imlie, I don’t know what magic spell you case on this ‘useless nalayak behsa,’ but it feels amazing, as his big sister, to see him laugh so much for the first time in ages.”

Imlie smiled, glancing sideways at Aryan, and she walked towards Arpita, putting on a face of fake concern, “Didi, mujhe yakeen tha ki main sadame mein hoon. Mainne aapake yeh UNB ko itana hasate hue kabhee nahin dekha. Kya aapako lagata hai ki use doktar kee zaroorat hai?” (Didi, I was sure I was in a shock. I haven’t seen your UNB laugh this hard, ever. Do you think he needs a doctor?)

“Maa, Didi, aap dono yeh nautanki ke baaten main mat aajaye. Aap dono mere side par hona chahie.” Aryan whined. (Maa, Didi, you two shouldn’t be convinced by this drama-queen. You two should be on my side.”

Narmada patted Imlie’s cheek and Imlie laughed at Aryan’s protests.

Imlie grinned, “Mujhe lagata hai kee aapakee bete ko aur kasarat karane kee zaroorat hai. Accha, main nahaana ja rahee hoon.” She was about to turn towards the stairs, but she looked back at the three of them, meeting Aryan’s eyes, and added, “Aur ek baat, Kaki Maa, aapaki bete kee kandhe — oops, sorry, aapaki bete kee kaadha — bahut kadak tha.” (I think your son needs to exercise more. Okay, I’m going to shower…One more thing, Kaki Maa, your son’s shoulders — oops, sorry, your son’s ‘kaadha’ — was very strong.)

Imlie skipped up the stairs.

Narmada and Arpita turned to Aryan, both of them asked him, “Kandhe?”

Aryan’s ears reddened, he rushed out of the room, shouting to them, “I’m gonna go run a little before work.”