Page 30 of Cherish my Heart

He starts chopping onions—precise, fast, no hesitation. Every movement is efficient. Every gesture is exact.

It’s... weirdly hypnotic. Especially when his hands are veiny. Did I tell you I have a thing for veiny hands?

I watch him work in silence for a while. There’s something grounding about it. Like this is who he really is—quiet, capable, and used to doing things himself. No boardroom. No shouting. Just a man and a pan.

“So...” I began slowly, “I have always been curious…” I bite my lower lip, wondering if I should actually ask this or not.

“Don’t make me solve riddles,” he says as he looks at me without raising his head from the chopping board, “just ask away.”

“Okay,” I say, rubbing my hands together, “why don’t you use your surname?” I exhale.

His hands are still for a second. Just long enough for me to notice.

He doesn’t look at me when he answers.

“Surnames are about belonging,” he says. “Family. Identity. History. I don’t belong anywhere.”

The words hit harder than I expect.

Something inside my chest tugs—sharp, unexpected. It’s not pity. He wouldn’t want that. It’s something quieter. Deeper. A kind of ache I didn’t see coming.

I bite the inside of my cheek.

Because I know what it feels like to have a last name that carries weight. One that walks into rooms before you do. One that’s spoken in boardrooms like it’s a currency and whispered behind your back like it’s a scandal. I know what it’s like to feel owned by it, to be constantly measured against a legacy you had no say in building.

But this… this is different. This isn’t heaviness.

This is emptiness.

This is absence. A blank page where a story should’ve started. A silence in the spaces where most people have Sunday memories and birthday rituals and awkward family photos. This isn’t suffocation. This is erasure.

And somehow, that feels worse.

There’s something about the way he says it—so matter-of-fact, like it’s just a logistical detail. Like not belonging is just a bullet point in a résumé. But I hear the echo behind it. The years that must’ve stacked themselves inside him, one after another, without a single person to claim him.

What does that do to a person? To never hear your name said with love? To never have someone who remembers the version of you before the world hardened your edges?

I don’t know how he turned into the man standing in front of me—sharp-eyed, immaculately controlled, relentless. But I’m starting to understand why.

I don’t say any of this. I don’t say I’m sorry because I get the feeling he’d hate that more than anything. I don’t ask questions. I don’t offer anything back.

I just watch. Just watch as he adds mustard seeds to hot oil, then curry leaves. The smell rises instantly—warm, familiar, and a little nostalgic.

He adds rinsed poha, stirs it with a practiced hand, and sprinkles some salt and turmeric like he’s been doing this forever.

The silence isn’t heavy. It’s... respectful.

Then he sets a plate in front of me.

I blink. “This looks edible.”

“You’re welcome,” he says dryly.

We eat.

And I try not to look at him too much. Try not to notice how he eats in small, quiet bites, like he’s measuring every spoonful. Like he doesn’t let himself enjoy things too often.

It’s kind of heartbreaking.