The table was already set when Radhika came back out, and she was surprised to find Appam and egg curry waiting for her. (A kind of rice pancake)
Radhika couldn't remember the last time she'd had a proper Kerala style breakfast. The sight of it alone was enough to make her salivate without her permission, and whatever awkwardness she had been carrying with her briefly took a backseat.
She sat down and it took everything in her not to dive straight in....
....
Radhika tore a piece of Appam and dipped it into the egg curry.
The moment it hit her tongue, her brain went completely offline.
It was the kind of good that made you close your eyes without deciding to. Soft, slightly sweet Appam soaking up the curry, the spices exactly right and the coconut undertone sitting exactly where it was supposed to be.
She took another piece before she had finished the first.
'Who made this!?'
Radhika knew the exact answer to her question , but nothing about the man before her suggested that he was capable of laying out such a spread that was able to do this to a person's tastebuds.
Radhika was completely enraptured by the food as all other thoughts were temporarily shelved by her since somethings were simply far more important....
....
She was halfway through her second piece of Appam completely at peace, when he spoke.
"The divorce will take a year—" Arjun said, not looking up from his plate."—Minimum...That's the waiting period."
Radhika's hand stopped midair as her gaze moved to him , and he was just eating, calm and unhurried like he had mentioned a trivial things.
'...I know that.'
She set the piece of Appam down slowly.
The thing was, she had come to this table with that exact sentence ready to go. She had rehearsed it in the bathroom mirror and had a whole practical, levelheaded conversation planned out and he had just... said it first. Without even looking up from his food.
And he was so calm about it.
Radhika turned back to the Appam and tore another piece, more aggressively than necessary.
She didn't know why his calmness was bothering her afterall it was the correct emotion to have.
She was also calm... Infact she was extremely calm.
"I know" she said while chewing on her food in a passive aggressive manner.
Arjun nodded and went back to eating, and that was his entire response as Radhika felt a feeling settle down in her chest that she absolutely didn't want to think too much about...
.....
Radhika finished the last of her food and glaced across the table at him , there were many things she wanted to ask about. About what happened next? What they will tell others ? How they will live their lives?
So she just decided to ask the most important one.
"What do we tell people?"
Arjun gazed at her as he stared at her for a few moments as if he was contemplating his decision.
"The truth," he said...then went back to eating.
Radhika's lips twitched at his answer. If only things were that simple. The truth right now was a story that would create ten more problems than it solved.
She looked at him and he was just eating same as before , calm and completely unbothered.
And that was the thing she couldn't work out.
She had dragged this man across Mumbai in a taxi. Had pulled him into a register office and made him sign forms and put a garland around his neck and the entire time he had just... let her.
Gone along with all of it with the energy of someone who had somewhere better to be but wasn't going to make a fuss about it.
'Why'
The question sat inside her head and she couldn't shake it off.
He didn't look like a man who followed strangers anywhere. He looked like a man strangers moved out of the way for. And yet here he was, eating his food like yesterday was just a thing that had happened.
She searched his face for something ...confusion, regret, amusement, anything — and found nothing useful.
'Why did you come with me.'
She didn't ask it out loud as she just kept looking at him, and the question kept sitting there unasked, which felt like it was going to become a habit with this man...
...
Arjun was in the kitchen doing the dishes as his mind was elsewhere.
'She was drunk'
Arjun set the plate on the drying rack as he dried his hands on a wash cloth.
'Who would even want to marry you?'
A thought formed inside his head , as along with it came a tight feeling in his chest.
She had been drunk and she had made a decision while drunk. In a year she would undo it and that was the correct and obvious outcome and he had already accepted it...
...