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SIXTEEN

Aditi

Aditi carried two glasses with her favourite wine to the living room where Lena was sitting on her usual spot on the couch like they'd been transported back in time.

The sight was enough to make her heart stop but she carried on like normal, handing over the wine and settling on the opposite side of the couch.

Far, far away from Lena's long legs and with a pillow between them just in case.

Just in case of what?

Aditi quickly took a big sip of wine. She felt foolish for inviting Lena inside and hoping that something might happen. Then again, Lena had said yes. And she'd said yes to a glass of wine too.

Did any of that mean something?

It was impossible to tell.

"When is your taxi arriving?" she asked.

"It's still trying to find a driver," Lena said, twisting her phone around to show the screen. "Maybe I should've got a taxi from near the station after all."

"Maybe," Aditi said but she didn't mean it. Any extra moment she got with Lena was so very precious. "I had a lot of fun tonight."

"Oh, good. I worried it might be awkward." Lena put her phone on the coffee table and stretched out into the pillows, groaning when she did. "I missed this couch. The one in my flat is shit."

"Is the couch all you missed?" Aditi asked before she could stop herself.

Lena drank some wine before she answered. "No, I miss all sorts of things."

She couldn't stop herself. "Like what?"

A long sigh escaped from Lena's lips. "Do you really want to go there?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know, it sounds like a bad idea."

Aditi gritted her teeth. "Yeah, you're probably right." She got up from the couch, not wanting to show the emotions threatening to spill out. She knew she was being silly, that this whole thing was foolish, but it still hurt to have it confirmed.

The screen of Lena's phone changed colour.

"They found a driver, by the way. Lucky you, " Aditi said, her voice catching in the back of her throat.

"Aditi. Wait." Lena chased after her. "Adi."

"Don't," Aditi warned, her hands trembling so much, she had to ball them into fists.

Lena easily caught up with her with those long strides of her and caught her wrist, her touch so soft and deliberate at the same time. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For tonight. For everything. I don't know."

Aditi's heart felt like it was being ripped into pieces. "What are we doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are we hanging out and pretending we're friends? We're not friends. We used to be, then we were more, now we're less."

Hurt flashed across Lena's face. "You're the one who insisted on being friends."

"For the sake of our mutual friends. Not because I wanted to hang out with you like this. Was it a date? Was it not? What is this? I don't know but it feels awful." The words tumbled from Aditi's mouth like leaves falling in autumn, once it started there was no stopping it.

Lena let go of her hand. "Wow, I didn't realise you were having such a bad time."

"No, that's not what I meant?—”

"If it's so awful being near me, why did you come?" Lena asked in that bitter voice that she used for most of the end of their relationship.

"Because I love spending time with you,you idiot! Because I love—" Aditi swallowed the rest of her sentence, horrified by what she almost confessed. Her stomach was twisted so tightly, she felt actually nauseous. She couldn't even look at Lena, not when her emotions were so fraught.

This had all become so messy, maybe staying friends just wasn't an option.

Thick silence hung between them, only making everything worse.

Aditi let out a heavy sigh, hating that this was how they were finishing the evening. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"It's not awful. Being near you. But it does hurt."

And there was the truth, the frustrating truth that Aditi couldn't escape no matter how much she tried. Being near Lena hurt because it only reminded her of everything they lost and what could've been. Everything she still wanted.

"You don't think it hurts for me?" Lena returned, her voice no longer sharp. "It hurts me too. It hurts so fucking much, I hate it."

To Aditi's horror, tears pooled in Lena's brown eyes and fell before she could blink them away. It was rare to see Lena cry and it broke Aditi's heart all over again.

"Oh, Lena." Aditi reached up before she thought it through. She just wanted to comfort her so she wiped the tears away with her thumb but the sadness remained in Lena's eyes. "Oh, my love."

Lena's tears kept falling and they stayed like that, hand to cheek, while both sobbed quietly.

“What are we doing to each other?” Aditi whispered, not sure if she even wanted to know the answer.

“I don’t know,” Lena cried. “I thought being apart was supposed to be better than fighting all the time. But it’s not.”

Another frustrating truth, one Aditi had found herself confronted with too. When they called it quits, there had been relief. It had been fresh air after a long sequence of suffocating fights. It was what convinced Aditi that breaking up was the right thing to do.

But now she wasn’t so sure. She still couldn’t breathe and she had this deep awful feeling inside her that she made the biggest mistake of her life.

"Let's sit down," Aditi suggested gently when she realised Lena wasn't going to stop crying any time soon. She guided her back to the couch and nestled her into the pillows, sitting down much closer this time.

It felt strange to be so close, to share something so intimate, but it also felt so right.

She held Lena in her arms and stroked her hair in the same way she'd always comforted her. It seemed strange and cruel that she was the source of both the tears and the comfort but Aditi didn't want to think about that.

For now, she just wanted to make the tears stop.