Footprints on Sand

Eight [A]: Pauses

Arnav had excused himself after the meeting to his room to only pace around the length of the room with aggravation sinking into his bones. He hadn't expected Aman to side with her just as his family had. He had started seeing the reason Akash was leaning towards her. He was married to her sister. Of course, Akash would feel compelled to look after his wife's sister in any way he possibly could. He was his younger brother, and Arnav had seen Akash be just as fierce as him when it came to family.

But Khushi Kumari Gupta was Akash's family. Not Aman's.

Arnav felt his hands tremble with the anguish. He felt frustration creep up recalling the conversations over the breakfast table. There was her, and then there was Aarav. He inhaled deeply, hoping his bruised ribs would ease up but the weariness from last night's fever felt like it was sinking in. His gaze involuntarily fell onto the four frames with their photos hung on the wall. These photos were the first ones he had seen the moment he entered the room.

He stepped up closer to observe them. She had said it was from her friend's sangeet. The other one was from last Diwali. The one where she wore yellow and had bangles in front of his face was from Akash's wedding preparation. His eyes rested on the photo from Diwali. Her hair was perfectly curled to frame her face. Her hand wrapped around his arm. His hand lay on the shoulder of Aarav. Her face was radiant, a smile that reached from corner to corner of her face. His eyes then looked at his own reflection of the frame. The man whose shadows reflected off the glass in front of the photograph wasn't the man who was in the photo. He wouldn't wear a sherwani like that. He didn't remember the last time he smiled the way he smiled in that photograph. His head raked through the memories, hoping there was an instance where he had looked just as he did standing next to her.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember. Lavanya used to be funny at times. She would say things that he found amusing. There was Akash, he had the oddest quips and the most absurd reactions to everything he would share about him studying in the U.S. He was sure he would've laughed, and been content with something his brother had said. But all that he found when he looked back, was the one-way street he built towards getting back Sheesh Mahal.

There was his sister. Di with her absurd claims about love had made him laugh. He closed his eyes, trying to remember Anjali and him laughing as they used to before they came to Delhi. There had to be moments where his smile reached his eyes. He opened his eyes. Had he truly forgotten to smile? He couldn't understand himself. What about this girl changed him enough for him to let go of the clothes he preferred wearing? He observed the photo where her hands were in front of his face. He was looking at her but there was something else striking in his eyes. His lips were curved into a smile from one end. He couldn't imagine any of his ex-girlfriends behaving with him the way this moment was captured.

His eyes rested on the shadows of his own reflection again. There was pain threatening to bubble from the lack of control he felt over his own life. How could he simply forget parts that mattered? He stepped away from the photos, unable to grasp onto the way their arms were intermingled in the photo taken at her friend's wedding.

He sat on the edge of the recliner. His arms held onto the edges of the recliner as he tried making sense of it all. He remembered his work but he forgot his sister's grief? He never thought he'd be a husband to begin with. Forgetting that didn't matter to him, but his entire life has been about being the best for his sister. His didi was his life. Since they were young. She was his favorite person in the world, and he just forgot the biggest betrayal she faced after everything that happened with them fourteen years ago. No, it'll be sixteen years now.

"How could I?" He mumbled finally. His voice echoed in the room. He looked at the empty bed in front of him.

She sat right there last night, worrying about his health. Khushi Kumari Gupta. He shook his head again. It was as if his peripheral vision and thinking had narrowed itself down honing in on no one else besides her. He was in midst of deciding whether he should get the bedsheets changed when Hari Prakash knocked on the door and brought him out of his reverie.