Trouble ©

What is it about trouble that comes in form of guys and attracts you crazily to it? You are a sensible young girl who till now has always known better but then infront of this you feel powerless, you feel like you have no choice but to give in, it is not just a want anymore, it is an insatiable need and infront of all these feeling  you ask yourself- how bad can it be? Months later you do get that answer and you wish you could turn back time, to go back to the moment when you let your better senses go and the feelings take over.

It’s funny how all my life I never liked to play with fire. I was always the girl who played it by the rules, played it safe and played it in control. I wasn’t boring but I had hard limits set. What else would explain that I was 25 years old with just 2 relationships, both serious and both which ended because I decided that they had just run their course and did not make sense for me to be in them anymore. No I was not cold by any standard or calculative or mean. I was just sensible. Love was one thing, life was another and that’s how it was for me. No matter what Karan Johar or Yash Chopra tried to teach us, love was not everything. Period.

I had my friends falling for the girls and boys who from a distance one could make out were wrong for them. But they would let themselves fall for them and I would silently judge them and wonder why they were so stupid. Why give your heart to someone who you knew for sure would break it? Wasn’t the difference between a human and any other animal that we could think much more? I never knew I would ever be at that place. I think life does that to you, takes you to the place you always think you are too good to be at that. Life takes you there just to show you, who is in control and take away your misconceptions.

The day I met him, I think that’s the day I let go of my control for the first time. After that day I don’t think I ever got it back. I remember when I first saw. I was parking my car outside my friend Sonia’s house and as I was putting my head lights off I saw this guy (him) removing his jacket and handing it over to Chotu Bhaiya, my friend’s cook. From far away I could make out the look of gratitude on the Chotu Bhaiya’s face as he folded his hands and walked off to his cycle. That’s the minute when I got off the car and his eyes caught me staring at him even from that far away. It’s always like when we stare at people and they catch us staring me look elsewhere feeling caught, however I didn’t feel like I was caught, I just felt stuck, glued on to it, like I had to keep looking, like I was not doing anything wrong. It went on for barely ten seconds but felt like eternity, till Sonia came outside and yelled my name. After hugging her we went to take the alcohol and snacks that I had got out of my car. When I turned back to see he was gone. I asked her about the guy standing outside and handing over his clothes and got to know that he was Akshay her old school friend and he had given away his jacket because Chotu Bhaiya had to go back on a cycle to his house which was about 10 kms away wearing just a flimsy sweater and Akshay felt he needed warmer clothes. When I heard this I was like wow, who does that at our age specially. Kindness like that always touched me. After picking the stuff as we walked in she told me more about him. Things complete opposite of kindness. He had had a laundry list of girlfriends till date, never staying with anyone longer than a few months. He was known to have flings, be promiscuous and break hearts like they could be glued back to perfection just like that. That’s intrigued me, the kindness and the evil casualness put together. In retrospect I feel that was so foolish of me. It’s a stereotype isn’t it- the bad boy with a heart of gold. 

I was surprised at how I behaved that entire night. Wanting to catch glimpses of him throughout the party as I had not been able to look at him properly but only from an angle, my eyes continuously scanning whichever room I was in to see if he was there. It was illogical and that’s what made it more amusing for me because illogical was not my department. My wishes did come true that night, after few drinks when I went to the loo there was long line which I refused to wait in and went to Sonia’s room to use the loo there. When I opened her door, there he was.  All 6 feet, tanned skin of him just few inches away from me and I could see him clearly. To say he was attractive was an understatement. If I was a dog my mouth would have opened and I would be drooling right there. Without thinking I just closed the door behind me and stood staring at him with my drink in my hand. His chocolate brown eyes piercing back into me. I think I stared for a few seconds too long without anything that he finally spoke up to ask my name. If I remember correctly I think I didn’t reply for atleast 1 minute which possibly made him think that I was an idiot. Once I did get my voice back and my “buzzed”ness under control, we chatted for a few minutes about how we both knew Sonia and thought she was so awesome, where we lived, what we did, etc. The conversation just flew. It was weird that we didn’t need Sonia to introduce us. We had managed to get introduced just fine. He cracked a few jokes, I laughed which reminded me how much I needed to go to the loo but I could not pull myself away from him. And then I did something which I had never done before. No I didn’t sleep with him or kiss him, I wasn’t promiscuous. But when he asked for my number, I immediately gave it to him. Infact I spoke out my number so fast that he has to ask me to say it slowly. I felt so goofy then. Like he was some angel who was walking on snow and I was like this idiot roller skating on the road and falling again and again. No one had ever made me feel inferior ever and he managed to do it. I never particularly though I was a Greek goddess but I knew I was fine and did have manage to have men fall over me when I made the little extra effort to dress myself up well. But again I never went for looks; I was more of the content girl.

The next few days we exchanged BBM pins and were continuously messaging. I wasn’t innocent, we were flirting. The usual dance that men and women do before they start dating, it was that and much more. I didn’t meet him during those initial days but I was still so attracted to him that I didn’t know what to do. All this while all those things Sonia told me about him actually didn’t bother me. For a change I wasn’t thinking ten steps ahead, I was just enjoying the moment. I think that’s what it was for me, it was different from what I was used to, what I had known and done all 25 years of my existence. This was adventurous and fun and when it came in a package like that, well it was damn hot too. The BBMing led to calling and meeting and more I got to know him, the more wonderful a person I got to know he was. He had extreme love for his family and his younger sister was the apple of his eye. Brought up in typical Indian style, to see the love he had for his family was endearing for me. He was the guy who volunteered at a pet shelter. He was the guy who gave 100 bucks to the beggar children just like that. He was the guy who would rather go meet his grandparents driving 300 kms to Jaipur than go to a pool party. He was the guy who would generously give tip even when that was all the money he had left for the month. And all this while he was oblivious to all the good he did. He had a big heart and I beginning to fall in love with that heart. At times my brain used to ask me to think about what Sonia had said and I used to ignore it thinking they were all rumours. You tell me, how could I believe then that someone with a heart like that could ever play games with anyones heart? I was falling hard. 

Somewhere Sonia caught sense of what was happening and told me she needed to speak to me. She questioned me on my feelings for Akshay and I lied outright to her that he was just a friend. I didn’t want to admit to her what I was beginning to feel for him because I knew she would not like t. But being my friend for 5 years she knew I was lying and she warned me point blank then about as good Akshay was as a guy, a friend, a person, that awful he was as a boyfriend. She told me about the last girl he had been with and how he had cheated on her not once but three times, in one single week with 3 different girls. I could not believe that, I kept quite buy in my heart  defended him, making excuses for him like it was all just  a misunderstanding and people were blowing things out of proportion, how he had just not met the one, etc.  She kept telling me about all his exes, his flings and his one night stands. How he always left a line of brokenness where ever he went. I was scared then, scared of who I was falling for. I still thanked Sonia and told her I had to leave. There was just too much on my mind and when I didn’t answer his calls and messages that night he knew something was wrong and asked me to meet him in the park near my house.  It was 1 in the night but I still decided to sneak out and go. I thought this was my chance and I would tell him all that Sonia had told me and he would obviously tell me it wasn’t true and all exaggerated and it would all be okay.

I remember him already sitting on the bench when I reached. I took my place next to him. He didn’t say a word. After a few minutes, his hand moved on top of mine and I felt the biggest rush of my life and pulled it back. There was silence and I knew I had to ask him now or I would forever lose that chance. I looked the other way and bluttered it all out, everything that Sonia told me. I kept speaking and speaking and then I stopped and I looked up at him. Expecting anger in his eyes and his statements of denial to begin. But what I saw was so much different. There was a pain in his eyes, in the heaviness way and he just looked into my eyes and told me that he never meant to hurt any of them. I could not believe it, I looked away. A part of me was shocked that it was all true, another part of me wanted to ask him how could he cheat on a girl with 3 different girls and not mean to hurt that girl, another part of me wanted to just walk off and not talk to that piece of shit again, another part of me wanted to hit him for hurting so many women, but this other part of me wanted to hug him and understand that pain in his eyes and then take it all away. I think that this other part was the strongest that night. I didn’t hug him but I could not get myself to walk away or do anything else. Then I looked up at him and he was looking at me. My mind told me then very clearly- he was trouble and I should walk away, run infact but my heart it didn’t want to move. And then before I could think anymore, his lips were on mine and he was kissing me. My brain was screaming at me to run away now but I could not move and before I knew it I was kissing him back and that voice in head it was drowned as that kiss consumed me. I had willingly given in and now I think how manipulative he was to corner me like that and put me in that spot.

I think there was no turning back then, and that day when I gave in, he has already opted out. I was not going to be the girl that would change him, the girl who finally took away his heart..how could I be? When I was in his heart was nowhere in sight. It was just passion, fun and a lot of laughter. Maybe it was the chase that was exciting for him and once the chase was over his interest was also gone. We were together 3 months and it did end like it always did for him. His interest dwindled and he walked away. All those 3 months I thought things were fine and our flame was growing not knowing that the flame was infact growing powerless by the minute. One day we had stupid fight over which channel to watch at his place and when I went home and tried calling him not giving much thought to our fight, he never answered. Several calls and messages later, there was still no reply, no call back. I even tried going to his home over the next few days. He wasn’t home whenever I went. I didn’t know what was happening. I was confused and thought I had done something wrong and if he told me I could correct it. I re-ran our fight in my head a million times trying to decode if there was something more to it than just a fight about a channel to watch. Within a week of this happening he wrote me an email- about how nice I was but he could not do justice to me and we could not work out hence we could not be together and wished me a nice life. It has been just 3 months but when I read this letter I felt like someone had had pushed my head inside a water tub and was trying to drown me. I had spent a week analyzing my actions trying to wonder what triggered him to not talk to me so that I could correct them and make it okay but he had just cut the cord saying we could never work when in 3 months I had never felt that once or even felt that he felt that once? I used to blame myself then, I did for a very long time. Only later I realized I was never at fault. It was just how he was and I was stupid to give in. I dated him for 3 months but it took me a year to get over what had happened to me.  I had lost control of my life, my relationships.

Now when I look back I have made so much sense of it but I still do not know why he was the way he was and why I fell for him so hard. I sometimes wonder if there will be any girl who will change him, get to his heart. I sometimes even wonder why I could not be that girl and then I scold myself for feeling that.

So life dragged me down from my mighty throne from where I sat and judged people right down to the floor among them with my heart bandaged. I wonder who is judging me now.