Our Relationship Movie Isn’t Over Yet
Maybe There’s Still Time for a Happy Ending
Whenever I write a story, I always write the ending first, at least in my head.
At the end of this one, Jay and I are standing in a courtyard somewhere in Bombay. It’s near twilight, and though we can hear the clamor of the city outside these walls, all is still quiet here. There’s a lot ahead of us, and a lot behind us.
I feel a little anxious, but mostly calm, centered, and ready. It’s hard to be rattled anymore after all I’ve been through. By this point, the lockdown is only a memory.
I take an old, folded piece of paper from my handbag and open it for him. On it, written in gold, are the words “the movie isn’t over yet.” He sees it and smiles at it.
I ask, “Do you remember this?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, whenever I looked at it, this was what I pictured. This piece of paper alone kept me going through all those days of worry, loneliness, and uncertainty. Because this was always how I knew it would end.”
“Oh you knew, did you?” And I nod in response.
That’s the schmaltzy, golden-lit moment when we kiss, but it isn’t some stupidly overdone stage kiss. It’s soft and sweet, unhurried. Because we now have plenty of time.
That’s the vision I’ve been keeping in my head every day as I stare at the same white walls, the same unchanging view outside my window. That’s the end of the fucking movie right there. I’d watch it.
Would you?
—
It’s day one of lockdown, and I’m going to be stuck within these walls for who knows how long, alone. Without Jay.
I pace up and down the length of my small apartment, not sure where I’ve gone wrong.
Two days ago, I made a frantic trip to the grocery store. The aisles were small. There were no available carts. People climbed over each other to grab food from the shelves, a few of which were nearly empty. I carried two reusable bags with me, so I filled these with my groceries as I went, one slung over each shoulder, contorting my body so that others could pass around my rapidly widening frame.
The line to check out had stretched to the back of the store, so I set my heavy bags in front of me and pushed them along with my feet, a few inches at a time. It irritated me, how close everyone was to each other. At the same time, I knew this would be the last crowded, public place I would go for a while, so I tried to savor the fluorescent lights, the cramped aisles. On second thought, maybe this lockdown wouldn’t be so bad after all.
The transition was sudden. Within 48 hours, I went from donning a pencil dress and heels and making a 20-minute trip to the office in moderate traffic to hunching over a laptop at my dining room table in sweatpants, counting and recounting my groceries and wondering if there was anything I’d missed.
Discomfort and panic hasn’t set in yet. It all happened too fast. It’s all happening too fast.
Yesterday, I typed everything I bought and already had into a detailed list, copied it and pasted it on a message to him. It was sixteen items long, and even included a wishlist of things I thought I might eventually need.
He’d been sick with a cold in the last week, and wondered if he should still come over. I didn’t care. It’s not that I was desperate for company. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing him for weeks, given everything that had happened, that was still happening.
I messaged him this, though the thought of stating it so directly made me apprehensive. Until now, things had only been fun. But I saw our lockdown together as more than a distraction or a desperate move. It could change us. Regardless, it probably would, but I felt things would be better, that we would grow closer, if he spent those days here.
“Don’t worry, we will meet,” he’d messaged back. “Just give me a bit of time to get things sorted out.”
And so I waited. I hadn’t heard anything last night, and this morning I’d opened Instagram, only to see that he’d gone to his best friend Dev’s apartment last night with an entire bottle of whiskey. How was this sorting everything out? I would have been violently angry if I’d had the energy.
As luck would have it, I feel congested and weak. I’ve barely done any work today. I take naps every few hours because I can’t bring myself to stare at my laptop, to figure out how to move anything forward when everything seems to be standing still.
It’s highly unlikely that I have the virus, but that doesn’t stop me from layering this worry on top of my other worries. Will he ever come? And if not, how long will I be here alone? And will I eventually run out of liquor?
This was not how I had planned the lockdown to go. I pictured it as a Hedonistic, high-energy continuation of the last few weeks, a roller coaster of drinking and sex interspersed with Netflix and deep conversations.
In the movie, this would be the montage. We’d hit every high note. No arguments, no drama. My apartment would be a playground, the incubator for our relationship. We’d emerge from it after the lockdown, hand in hand, laughing at the rest of the world. “What was their problem? We had an amazing time!”
I knew this vision was unrealistic, way too much to ask for. Tensions are high. The apartment is small.
Besides, the timing is all wrong. This thing that we’ve agreed will remain undefined is too new, too fragile. He’s already written it off as a non-starter. In fact, the last time I saw him in person, we’d spoken about it.
He was getting ready to leave the apartment. I laughed, put my arms around his neck and said, “Face it, we’re eventually going to date.”
At that, he sighed and led me back to my bedroom, sitting me down on the bed for what I feared would be an entirely too long, too serious talk spurred by my offhand comment. We laid side by side. I faced him as he stared at the ceiling. He held me and I held my breath.
When we’d settled there, he began, “Look, there’s no way we can date, because I know it will only end badly.”
“You keep saying that, but how do you know that? It doesn’t have to end.”
It took a few moments for him to answer. “Because, I already know that I’m going to move back to India, and marry an Indian.” The words sounded wooden, like he’d repeated them many times. After a while, he said, “I mean, could you really see us starting a family?”
His tone made it seem like that was out of the question. The thing was, as we lay there together, I could see it. Of course, I hadn’t thought much about what a future with him would look like before then. I hadn’t drawn up the plans or ironed out the logistics. The whole idea was new, even a little crazy, but I wasn’t about to rule it out, and I didn’t think it was fair that he wouldn’t even allow its possibility into his imagination.
But I didn’t say any of that. I only asked in a small voice, “Well, why not?”
He ignored me and continued, “This thing we have, we should just keep it ambiguous, because I don’t want to hurt you.” I didn’t fight him. I wasn’t sure I could, and I certainly didn’t want to. It was past 3 AM, and I only wanted the conversation to end, so with that I got up and led him to the door.
After he left, I felt numb. The enjoyment of the night leading up to that moment had been erased. I didn’t even try to process what he said. I was tipsy and tired, so I climbed back into bed, hoping it would all make sense in the morning.
Even today, it still doesn’t make sense.
A month ago, the night I’d first messaged him after months of barely seeing each other, I hadn’t had any hopes of a relationship, much less of marriage. There was only a vague feeling, one that no one else had been able to stir in the nine months of my self-imposed dating hiatus. And trust me, many people had tried.
So I did something I hadn’t trusted myself to do in years. I followed the feeling. And it led both of us to a strange place.
Now, I’m mostly just confused. For the past few weeks, he’s acted more like a boyfriend than anything else, and now denies that this was ever his intent. His words and actions don’t align.
Fine, so this is a thing that will someday end. It doesn’t matter what the thing is called. The absence of a label won’t make its ending any less painful. Feelings can’t be controlled by labels. The question now is, do I keep moving toward the feeling or back away?
He messages me in the middle of the day, during one of the short spans in which I attempt to work.
“Are you on vacation yet?”
How do I respond to that? He says nothing about last night, nothing about his earlier plans to see me. But I don’t call any of it out, because I’m not that girl.
Instead, I tell him that business in in full swing, and that I’m feeling under the weather. He expresses his concern in capital letters. He also admits to the last hurrah with Dev. It was the first time he’d stopped by in three weeks after going out yesterday to buy supplies. Apparently, my long list had made him feel woefully unprepared.
But had I scared him off with my over-diligent planning, or something else? I respond, “That wasn’t the intent. I was letting you know what I had so you could buy complementary supplies to mine.”
He doesn’t respond to this, instead changing the subject to ask how I came to feel sick. He wonders if it’s the virus, and I tell him I’m not sure.
I sincerely hope I feel better tomorrow. Few things could be worse than spending the better part of the lockdown in bed, or worse, in a crowded hospital. On the other hand, if I am truly sick, it at least means that there’s a better excuse for him not to see me.
Of course, for his part, he doesn’t have much to say other than, “Drink fluids. No alcohol. Take extra care please.”
So I try to reconcile two simultaneous, conflicting feelings. How sweet. But also, fuck you.
—
Note: All names have been changed.
