Cupid never had a chance in their messy, parental-restricted love story
Karishma Jha, a twenty-one-year-old recent graduate with the world at her feet if only she chose to face it. Plagued with the worries of the future and yet healing from the scar...
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Rishabh hauled the big box with the dismantled bookshelf in his hands while I held the small box of cutlery, a congratulatory gift on our newly marital life. What a bunch of hoax.
Just as I descended the car, a hiss startled me. For once in my life, I did something right and did not drop the box. The maker of the sound peeked his head from behind one of the columns in the basement. I recognized the flat, black-and-white face. He had troubled his poor owners so many times by escaping. All the residents of this building were always on an unofficial lookout for this cat.
He followed me with his beady eyes as I walked around the front of the car.
"What is that cat's problem?"
"Oh, he is our neighbor's cat. The one below your flat. He does not like me." I did not state the reason for this enmity. Which might have been me spraying water on it while I watered the plants on my balcony.
Till now, he had snarled at me, choosing not to scale the distance between our houses, unlike the one next to me. However, now that he had found me in open ground, he was hellbent on getting revenge.
As I walked towards the lift lobby, he weaved between my legs, trying to trip me. He succeeded, only marginally. Because I lost my balance and had to free my hands in order to lean against a nearby vehicle to catch myself. The box fell, and glasses shattered everywhere. They had not even packed it properly.
Satisfied that he had finally gotten one over me, the wretched cat sprinted away. Rishabh stood there helplessly, with his mouth slightly open. Everything happened in just a matter of seconds and there was not much he could do.
With a muffled curse, I tried to step around the glass shards but a sharp pain in my sole made me lose my balance again. I squeezed my eyes shut making my peace with getting a handful of shards in my ass when Rishabh caught me by my underarms. The bookshelf crashed on the ground with a loud sound.
"It better not be broken," I cried out more worried about my new purchase than my bleeding foot.
"To hell with it. You have cut yourself." He kneeled at my feet and took off my right shoe. He placed the ankle on his knee trying to assess the injury.
"Get up, get up," I pushed his shoulders, hovering on one foot. "You might get hurt too." The shards of glass were all around us.
Pretending to not have heard me, he continued to poke around. I took a deep breath. I did not want it to get to this, but he left me with no other choice. I pulled his hair. Hard.
With a sharp yelp and even sharper glare, he finally got to his feet but did not move away. I hobbled on one foot and looked around me, trying to figure out the safest space place to put my feet without further injuring myself. But it seemed impossible.
Rishabh apparently came to the same conclusion in his head as he lifted me in his arms. Bridal style.
"Hey, hey. You will pull your back. Put me down. Right now." I protested.
