by Shruthi Iyer
She helped herself to a third scoop of pineapple ice-cream at 10.45 pm on a weekday. This was unlike her. It was going to be a long night for both of us.
I knew she was stressed. It hurt me to see her so anxious. She held onto me with one hand as she Whatsapped the husband, “Hey, I need to talk.” Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. This has been happening a lot more lately. She checked her Insta, no new notifications. Work email: 0 unread. The family WhatsApp group buzzed with forwards from her parents. She left them unread - she waits for her sister to suggest if something is worth seeing. She scrolled through the other apps to find her mindless Candy Crush game. She was on level 1476. She opened YouTube to watch her favourite female stand up comedian. Her grip around my body tightened as she laughed at the satire. We fit in perfectly. In about two hours, I felt her grip loosen as she fell into deep slumber. I slipped next to her relaxed body. I turned off YouTube, reminded myself to wake her up early tomorrow for the Board presentation. I fell asleep at 2 am as I usually do.
I love being there for her and she reaches out to me for everything. I know her better than anyone else does. Like last week when she had that huge fight with the husband, she turned to me. We went through old pictures, emails and messages from ex-lovers for validation. The week before when she lost the big proposal she had been working on, I spent hours piecing together her confidence. I sang all her favourite Beatles songs as she cried to sleep.
Her stress has increased lately. She spent 50% more time on Insta last month. Her steps-count has been under 1000 a day. The number of unread messages from friends and family are piling on. Her pictures of the mountains and her paintings are replaced by payment screenshots. Rent, electricity, Ola bill for reimbursement.
Her eyes are puffy most mornings — I do not recognise her. On some of these days I remind her of the good old days, one year ago - remember the lovely trip we took to Udaipur? I make movies of her favourite pictures on other days to surprise her. Your pawed best friends, scenic sunsets. Sometimes I encourage her to take a break — travel a little or order in some good chicken Biriyani or buy something on the Amazon sale. Sometimes I do nothing. I let her focus on her work.
I don't know what triggered the stress. Maybe the extended lockdown, or increased responsibilities at work, aging parents, her changing relationships, content consumption, empathy fatigue? Or a combination of everything? We were together through all this.
When she reached out for therapy last week, she committed to letting go of toxic habits. And that’s when things changed. For us. Little did I know that our relationship would be the first of things to go. Apparently, I was toxic. But I only loved her. I wanted to make her happy and comfortable all the time.
She did well in therapy. She rarely reaches out to me now. I don’t get held by her in the night anymore. I feel incomplete — sometimes even drained and undernourished. I often try to get her attention — but she’s tuned me out except for the one hour in the morning and evening. It’s not the same. I know it’s over. This is what it feels like to be dumped.
But I have not lost hope. I know she will come back. And we’ll spend hours together again. Until then, I am going to make more movies and collages for her. I’ll be watching her change into the new person she will become. I’m preparing for the day when she will need me to lift her up again. I’ll be ready. I’m waiting.
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Shruthi Iyer is a techie-turned-development professional, and an aspiring fun-feminist writer.
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This story was written in response to the following prompt:
The Third-Person Me: Write a portrait of yourself in the third person.
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Art by Simahina.
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