Chai Therapy - Chapter-2

 

Chapter-2

Nick & I

Note: This is continuation to Chapter-1. 

I started my evening routine of soaking myself in the bubble bath, attempting to ignore The Fairy Godmother. The synopsis of what was going on was annoyingly humiliating.

Last summer, I had met Nick at the engagement party of my best friend Nicole, allegedly my conjoint twin since our teenage years. The four of us would occasionally hangout together and we’d always be joking about how I was living the dream with my own version of The Knicks; Nick and Nicole.

By autumn, Nick and I had developed a routine wherein we would catch up after work and he’d join me for a coffee at my condo and we’d spend our evenings together. We would meet up with Nicole or Nick’s friends over the weekend and take trips to mountains in the North or get vibing in clubs of the city.

All of this lasted until the end of autumn when Nick had started to act distant and decided that it was time to end our relationship in the classiest way possible, by having a conversation about wanting to be just friends and nothing more.

The impact of this breakup was making me try everything to restore my life into “living the dream” status. I had pestered him to convince how the relationship was right for the both of us, had issued a general apology for him to forgive me for the mistakes I might have committed that I had no knowledge of and even tried to emotionally blackmail him by asking him to “return me the Nick that belonged to me”. When nothing else worked, I tried to be friends with him by hanging out with his friends and Nicole every time anyone made a plan that involved Nick.

I would deliberately walk in his neighborhood and run into him on occasions; act breezy and insinuate to have a coffee together at my condo. After we were in the unit, I’d try to seduce him, or beg him, or remind him of the times we enjoyed in each other’s company. It would mostly work, and at times, he’d walk away. Every time it worked, his face would turn into his “Look-What-You-Made-Me-Do” expressions and I’d go back into being miserable.

Link to: Chapter-3 

Chai Therapy - Chapter-1

Chapter-1

The Fairy Godmother

It was April and the weather was gradually warming up. I was finally able to have my evening coffee on the balcony of my condo while breathing the spring air and enjoying the colors painted by the sun setting on the horizon of Lake Ontario. I stood there, imagining shapes in the sky that weren’t really there and watching porter planes take-off and land on the runway of Billy Bishop airport.

I was deeply engrossed in the view, except for a portion of my mind, perhaps the most significant one, that wondered what Nick would be up to.

Nick and I used to enjoy our evening coffee together in the balcony of my condo last autumn, when we were still together. I would lean against the parapet of the balcony and he’d lean beside me. He would rest his palm on my neckline and sway my hair on one side using the back of his hand in one swift motion. The crisp fall air touching my neck would make me cold. He’d run his slightly chapped, warm flimsy lips from the edge of my shoulder to my neck, exhaling his scent on me, sliding toward my ear. He’d slowly whisper my name.

“Ana,” I jolted as I almost heard the musical magic his voice would add to my name and scalded my hand by spilling coffee over it. The burn from the coffee brought me back to the realization that Nick was already gone and that I was back to the isolating life of a single woman in her early thirties living in the city.

I raced in from the balcony to my kitchen to hold my hand under running cold water, crossing the tiny living room on my way in. It was decorated with coffee tables on both the sides of a sectional couch. The wall behind the couch donned an oval mirror that was edged with curling leaves. I could always see fragments of different women in that mirror, all the women that I have been ever since I started in the city.

There was a professional who wore blazers and pump heels, and there was a laid back one who wore PJs and her hair in a messy bun. There was a party hostess in a cocktail dress, and there was an athlete in her racquetball attire. And while the fragments of these women paid inconsistent visits, there was one woman who would be constantly present in the mirror, the one I would deliberately ignore, but she’d always make her flamboyant presence felt. She’d be comfortably sitting in her rocking chair, twirling wine in her glass and smiling; wearing a comfortable skirt-blouse and her hair casually untied. I call her, the Fairy Godmother.

I had ignored her for the longest time since I preferred not to empower her with the freedom of speech or being opinionated. However, I realized now, that she had assumed her power over me as I saw her get up from her chair and walk to the front of the mirror while I cooled off my burnt hand under the faucet.

She stood at the edge inside the mirror, still twirling her wine and smiling at me. I walked into the living room for her glances could no longer be ignored.

“Can you give me a synopsis of what’s going on?” She asked.

“The weather is nice,” I blurted out and ran into the bathroom and turned on the faucet in my bathroom to draw myself a bath.

“You are going to be so much more difficult than I thought.” The Fairy Godmother muttered as I headed out from the living room and the voice of Fairy Godmother faded away under the noise of water gushing into the bathtub.

Link to Chapter-2