From Victim to Offender - II

The next Sunday came - the day she was supposed to meet Aashray.On the previous day she had got herself a nice new fashionable haircut and had got an expensive trendy dress for the meeting. This was a bit surprising because in all the time they had been together she never had "dressed for him". So why now? She had no answer to that. Maybe just maybe to let him "feel" that she was enjoying her life - the breakup had not affected her. Maybe just to make him a wee bit jealous - over what he had missed. The opportunity cost of the lost love.

In truth, the vamp that had so suddenly emerged over the previous weekend was now nowhere in sight. She was her old self - a bundle of nerves who wanted to cry at any given second without prior notice. The week had been a terrible one at work - she could not focus on a single thing when there were tough deadlines to meet. Her expressions were so obvious that her manager had even asked her if there was a personal problem that she was going through. In a quiet voice she had said "no" - a no that had sounded more like a yes. Thankfully the weekend swooped her in its arms and she spent a relaxing (crying+sleeping) time- a time to introspect and look back over the damage done.

Aashray had not called back even for a single time in the whole week. It had reconfirmed her faith that "all men were dogs" and that he was probably never interested in her - he was just using her as a trophy, someone to hang out with to kill the mundaneness of the college routine. College over, affair over. Out of sight out of mind. On one hand, these insights strengthened her vampirish self while on the other hand she was unsure if she was ready to face Aashray so soon again. She knew the moment he would be there in front of her eyes she will lose herself - absolutely, completely.

With this conflict in her head, she fought the battle of "to meet him or not". Maybe he was not calling because he was in a turmoil like her. Maybe talking would set everything back to where it was, before it fell apart. Maybe he really never loved her. Maybe....this.....Maybe that. In the end she decided that she would not go to meet him. She would wait until he would call and then would say something like "I forgot absolutely about our meeting....oh I am so sorry...I am with my friends right now...we are having a party..."He would probably say something like"its all right...carry on..." and then she would say "A promise is a promise...lets meet in about half an hour at the New Friends Colony Barista". And then they would meet, without her sounding too excited...Blah blah...

He never called. Not on that day or the day after or the one after that. For the whole evening she kept looking at the mobile, waiting for it to ring...but it did not. For a thousand times she checked the network...it was right there but no calls came. Tears, tears and more tears. So many of them that even the vamp refused to emerge this time....atleast the vamp had this extraordinary quality of wiping away her tears and giving her some courage to hold on.....She realised that she had been a fool all along loving someone who has been playing all along.

Late in the night, she remembered something that she had read long back. That it takes exactly 40 days for an activity to become a habit. Exercise for 40 days and you would start loving it magically on the 41st day, drink 15 glasses of water for 40 days and from there on the subconscious will take on - some of the things she has been trying to do since ages. Immediately she gets up and on a paper writes out the dates for the next 40 days. 40 days to forget the love of 3 years. There were some ground rules of course to follow, like not calling Aashray, engaging self in anything when his thoughts descended, not visiting places that they have been together, focus on the work front(it had suffered badly in the previous week) and not talking to anyone about him. She stuck the paper on the wall against her bed and tried to sleep even as her hands itched to cut off the dates......as soon as possible.

Days passed and as they say time healed her wounds. Maybe they did not heal but atleast she learnt to ignore the pain and the heaviness that threatened to break into a sob. Aashray never called back - she had been expecting his call(s) even when she had decided not to take them. It should not have mattered that he wasn't calling since technically she was out of the relationship. But it mattered...40 days was still a long long way off.

The wall next to the bed became some kind of a memorial....she would put up yellow stickies...that had plans of revenge, plans to ignore, plans to seduce him back and thoughts on forgiveness, besides other stuff. All these notes had one thing in common...at the bottom of each one of them she had written in bold "I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE EVEN IF I CANNOT FORGET". Nothing could probably sum up her upbringing and the conflicts in her head - the teachings of forgiveness that her parents had always insisted upon, the vamp in her that refused to forget and wanted revenge and her helplessness in bringing any of the so called plans of revenge into action because somewhere deep down it was impossible to hate him. We often choose to vote against what we cannot do, so she forgave him.......

(to be continued)