(All characters are fictitious, and adults only)
It is past midnight when my phone buzzes on the bedside table. I take a moment to open my eyelids.
I look sideways at my husband. He has his back turned away from me and is snoring softly. I straighten up and take a gulp of water. A message is showing on my locked screen. "I have fever." It is from my sister-in-law whose room is just down the corridor outside our room.
It is almost 1 in the morning. My husband Lokesh has an early morning flight, meaning that I will be anyway getting up just 3 hours later. It is purely bad timing that Meghna has fallen sick. Did she get wet in the rain while coming back from work last evening?
I realize I didn't check on her, as I was busy packing for Lokesh. He was as usual on his laptop, finishing some last minute pending work. He has some big presentation over the next two days.
As I scramble out of bed, and adjust my saree, I vaguely remember Meghna mumbling something about having had dinner outside. So she didn't join the two of us at the table. My parents-in-law have gone to visit their other daughter, who lives in another city and had a baby just a week ago. It's just the 3 of us in the house now.
Maybe she is hungry too. Feeling feverish on an empty stomach is even more awful.
I come out in the corridor and gently knock on her door. "Come in Bhabhi..." calls out Meghna.
She is sitting upright on her bed. There is a dimly lit nightlamp in the room. On her bedside table, I notice an empty bottle of water and a strip of paracetamol tablets.
The fan is moving slowly. The windows are also bound shut to keep out the outside breeze. It is apparent that she has a temperature.
Perhaps the fever is not so high, as she is not wrapped in blankets. I sit against her side on the bed, and place my hand on her forehead. It is mildly heated up. "What is the matter Meghna? Are you hungry?"
"No Bhabhi... I am just out of water. And I am getting these body pains, like what happens during onset of fever or something..." she replies weakly.
I feel a stab of irritation. Only for this, I was dragged out of bed after midnight. She could have easily gone in the kitchen to fetch the water. It is not like she is burning with fever and unstable on her feet.
But I cannot be angry with her.
There is a reason for that.
I also wonder why she woke me up in the middle of the night.
"I will bring the water. You keep lying down. Take a tablet and go to sleep. You know your brother has to get up really early today because of his flight. I have to cook something before he leaves."
She mutters something apologetic, and I make my way to the kitchen downstairs.
The kitchen is dark, with the light getting suddenly fused just this evening. I switch on the purifier and start filling up the bottle.
I get a little lost in my musings. It is little over a month since my marriage with Lokesh. My life has taken a complete U-turn. It has been a while since I sat down and looked back at how I was before. Contemplated things around me. I actually love going down memory lane once in a while.
How did I meet Lokesh in the first place?
What was the type of marriage actually? Love... or arranged? Then in the second case, it would have been arranged by --
"Bhabhi?"
It is Meghna, who has come down silently, and is now standing near the opposite counter. The water from the purifier is overflowing from the bottle, and I hastily switch it off.
In the darkness, I can still make out Meghna looking directly at me, with a pained expression on her face.
I know I have it coming. I am fearing the worst now.
"What is the problem Meghna?" I ask her as much normally as possible.
"Can't you guess...?"
"I-I..." I am at a loss for words.
"I cannot sleep...I stay wide awake night after night... and it is because of..."
"Me?"
She blinks away angry tears now; I have not seen them coming. This is getting pretty bad now. But maybe I deserve this.
"How can you be so ungrateful? Especially after everything I have done for you... this is exactly what you wanted right?"
There. She said it.
I wet my dry lips nervously. I know this was supposed to happen one day. The waves of allegations will come crashing over me.
I look at Meghna. My Meghna. The girl I loved. And still crave for.
We happened to be roommates in our college. Which led to many more things later on. But we ensured not even a single whiff of gossip would fly around in our circle. Nobody suspected us. Yet we explored ourselves in newer ways each night. We learnt the language of our silent moans. I came to know myself through her.
We faced a harsh reality check as our college tenure came to an end. The placements sessions started in their own flow, and we understood soon enough that we would be away from each other in a very short span of time.