Page 3 of No Other Love
I couldn’twantthis woman anymore.
Now, hurt and old grief moved through Anika’s expressive eyes.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I know you hate it that I got promoted. That I am not just Dr. Anika Chakraborty, MBBS anymore. I’m Dr. Anika Chakraborty, MD in pediatric surgery. It kills you that I was able to manage the internship at the hospital and pass my exams too, doesn’t it?’
My jaw tightened, as an instant denial sprang to my lips. But I swallowed it down because she wasn’t fully wrong. She just was wrong about thewhyof it all.
‘I don’t think we have to discuss this again, do you?’
‘No,’ Anika said bitterly. ‘No, we freaking don’t. I’m sure your mom will love that I’m finally out of your life for good.’
My eyes flashed. ‘Don’t you dare bring my mom into this, Anika. She isn’t responsible for what happened to us.’
‘No,’ Anika shot back. ‘She isn’t.’ There was a pregnant pause before she continued with all the venom, I knew she carried in her heart. ‘But she didn’t help things either, Vik. And I’ll take care of rent and the utilities and everything from now on. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.’
‘You’re my wife.’ The words were a declaration.
A curse. My curse that lived like slow-killing poison in my blood.
They made Anika pause in the act of unwinding her gorgeous jet-black hair.
I clenched my fists as I saw it, as I’d always seen it a million times.
Anika undressing was erotic and sensual because she was so uninhibited, so unselfconscious about it all. She claimed it came from having lived in boarding schools all her life, but I suspected it had more to do with who she was on the inside.
Unfettered. Free.
I came from an ordinary, middle-class, small-town family with conservative parents. The first time I had to take a shower in the common bathroom at the medical college in Mumbai, I’d almost gotten on the bus straight back home. As it was, the seniors had ragged me mercilessly for wearing tightey-whiteys.
Unwillingly, my eyes went to the sexy, silk boxers I’d packed along with the rest of my stuff. They were Anika’s doing. She’d said she preferred me feeling like she was touching me all day long.
She was insane like that.
I kissed her senseless, when she told me that after gifting them last Valentine’s Day. Then she’d actually touchedmeand then there was no more talking. Only loving.
God, how I wished I could turn back time and go back to that moment and tell her I loved her, I loved only her. I had since the first time she’d sat next to me in Basic Anatomy class and forgotten her goddamn textbook, that I didn’t give a fuck what promotion she got…
In fact, I could do it even now.Couldn’t I?Hope, that fickle bastard, sprang through my veins, cutting through the poison. Of course, I could fix it. Of course…
‘Anika,’ I began rustily, pathetically eager.
‘Well, the lawyer said I’m your wife for six months only because we wanted to try counseling,’ Anika observed coolly. ‘And he was clever enough to get the judge to agree to remote couples’ counseling so you could go be a saint in the village and I could continue working here. So, it’s only a technicality at this point, isn’t it?’
How cold she sounded. How unfeeling.
She continued unbraiding her hair, averting her face from me. But her voice was cool, pitiless.
And I remembered what the hope had made me forget for a minute…we’d hurt each other too much. Been through hell. There was no going back now. This is what we were. This is what we’d become.
Strangers.
‘I’m not trying to be a saint,’ I protested. Like I had a million times. ‘I just think…’
‘I know. I KNOW!’ She threw the scrunchie holding her braid together on the floor. ‘And it doesn’t matter anymore.’ She took a deep, sniffling breath, which did interesting things to her scrub top.
‘I’m going out now. I’ll stay with Anu tonight. You can leave your keys on the table.’
The cold statements hit worse than a punch. ‘You won’t even come to see me off?’ I asked, hurt beyond belief.