MIXED BAG

He had always been close to me, I cant even remember since when. Maybe before he became a famous actor, before I became a famous costume designer, before we were really adults.

And then she came, beautiful, talented, kind and immensely in love with him. And also, faithfully in love with me. Again, a famous somebody I cant remember.

Perhaps because I never cared to know. She never cared to tell. He never cared to formally introduce. I just knew her and she loved me, from the beginning, when she came. We must still be innocent children, or I don’t know if it was only me, when one day he took her to me and said that, she was his friend and from then on, ours. We always shared everything I guess. Every huge secrets of ours, every little treasure we found, every prideful possession we had, every this and every that. Is that why he shared her with me?

When she came, she didn’t intervene in what was ours. Because what was ours was strictly ours, she was told. And, magically, I didn’t intervene in what was theirs. Gladly she and I had nothing to keep from him. What I and she had in common was just, him. As time passed, as we grew up more, as they became mature adults from crushing proper teenagers and I became rebellious post teen from innocent preteen, I knew I lacked behind them, in my head. Or it could be that I was actually younger than them, a few years. Still, we were in mid twenties and I must have grown up, if she hadn't come to deprive me of my growth nutrients, the mature experiences I must have had or told by him. Maybe I had never grown up since she came.

And then that day came when I realized how all of those years had been terrible mistakes. Not one, not two, I cant remember how many but all of them.

That narrow balcony facing the long flyover and an endless broad maze of concrete roads seemed to be a sacred place. For us and for them. For us and for her. For the three of us somehow. It could have been larger than the guilty box in courts if not for the long tree that grew beside it. This little space housed a school bench and a small stool which we used to sit, talk, laugh on. I earned enough to buy a new spacious property but sometimes, you are so in love with your old pajamas that you wouldn’t trade them for two pairs of new ones and that was it. He knew that and she acted to understand. She had to.

I waited for him in the same balcony built over my crammed clothes manufacturing unit at the ground level and costumes warehouse at the middle and upper which was just a wide staircase, each step half occupied by packed inventory again and the balcony which, despite meeting face to face with roads still managed to provide fresh air. I wore a light peach chiffon knee length dress that day. I must be attending some party with him, I never wore something revealing so much skin while I crafted those dresses everyday. It was a happy occasion, it was supposed to be. The squeaking tin gate announced his arrival. He threw a glance at me, smiled lightly and sat on the bench, resting his arms on the half wall opposite to the bench and signaled me to sit. I smiled and sat. I didn’t wanted him to compliment me or judge me and he was aware of that. The way he looked and smiled was enough to tell me I looked fine, nothing to worry about. I wanted to know where were we going but without letting me ask he told that she would be coming soon and so she did, after he told me what set the realization in motion.

I couldn’t stop it, I remember, when she slowly started to intercede in what was ours with her presence. Before I knew it, we were spending quality time altogether. It was official by the time they ended being teens, that they were a couple. Doing the same what all the couples do, hugging, kissing or caressing each other every now and then, nothing changed between us, it was always the same. I was the closest to him and she had to love this fact, love me. She did it pretty well, all those years and must have continued to do it, till the end of our lives, or end of his. We never spoke of their relationship any more than friendship, I never wanted to know and they never tried to show. But it always pained me to see both of us becoming three of us. By that time, I only used to receive a quick visit by him on weekdays and occasional outing plans on the weekends. All of us used to be busy with work but soon his visits and our weekends started to mend with their meetings and dates and now almost every plan we made included her. Where was the 'our' territory that she couldn’t cross now? I never asked. He must knew it like he knew everything I felt, wanted, needed.

Back at the balcony, he said that he would be moving, got better projects and he was cheerful about it. I didn’t knew how to react knowing I wouldn’t see anymore of him but he would be doing better in his career. I smiled and winced like my heart was being pinned. I felt it physically, literally and it wouldn’t stop anytime soon. I wanted to shed tears of a confused cry, not knowing if of gladness or sorrow. I bit it back to hear the rest of the news. She was moving too, to the same city. They were planning to leave me alone. Before letting my mind think anything else, I calculated my risks of leaving with them. Pajamas can be overlooked, companion can't. But my earnings? My career? My business? These couldn’t be overlooked. I was so trapped. When the moment of panic subsided, for the first time after all these years, I let myself ponder over the agony I had been brooding unknowingly, believing to have extinguished it whenever it boiled.

It was never a thought that crossed my mind that it might possibly be her, who slowly enticed him in her love, captured his heart so lightly and firmly that he could never understand he had crossed the LOC that he himself had created between us and between them. She might have asked him politely to join our plans one fine day while making him feel guilty he didn’t give her enough time, that he ought to, without saying, for that was how her ways were. Maybe she cancelled her dates with him to be with us showing how she sacrificed her precious time with him and loved to have me because, he did. Perhaps, she wanted to be with him all the time, with me or without me to make him addicted to her and slowly detach me from them, as it had become. Maybe, oh just maybe, she won winning him from me when all I wanted was the little time he gave me to be ours; his and mine.

Anger seared through my eyes as the tin door squealed once again and she came in wearing a small smile and innocence in her eyes.

"You!" I gushed as the word grazed my throat before coming out. She looked quizzically at me and then him, who was equally confused as both of their smiles left their lips. Before she could ask what was wrong, I walked past her, almost pushing her out of my way through the door, down the staircases muttering it was her fault, cursing myself for being so stupid as to get dressed and wait to know all the shit they had planned. I fought with my tears and kept my pace fast because I knew they were following me, concerned and confused. I didn’t want to break down before them and accept what I had started to see behind the fog of my neglect. I still didn’t wanted to believe it, never now. There was an open ceiling change room outside the studio standing at the joint of the L shaped row of roofed ones. I had almost closed the door behind me before they barged in to know what I was refusing to tell myself.

What do you mean? Why are you so angry? What's wrong? Have I done something? Please tell me dear? What have happened? Talk to me!

She kept cooing with worry and I knew it was genuine. She would never stop caring about me until he does as if...as if I was her husband's little sister! Yes! maybe that’s how she always saw me, maybe that’s how he always saw me. No, I didn’t want to know who felt what about whom and she was compelling me to, with her continues nagging while I just wanted to be left alone and cry my guts out knowing he would be gone. I looked at him, he stood at her back panicking what to do while she was trying to talk. I tried to maintain decency and asked her to leave and then quickly added him with her. I needed space and silence. She wouldn’t budge. But what's the matter? She asked repeatedly and I kept asking her to go, once, twice, thrice, each time my voice raising. Finally to a scream, "GET OUT!!!"

They froze there with it and I couldn’t help but let loose those warm blob of tears that threatened to fall since long now. Anger still filled my eyes, maybe even more. The hurt look on her face was enough to make me believe that what I thought about her, trying to tear him apart from me and succeeding in it slowly, could be true but her intensions couldn’t be evil. She knew her place, and my place in his life and would have possibly made him aware of this fact too and hence putting me at his little sister's position, fought jealousy so easily so far. It wasn’t her fault, it was mine. This truth penetrated through me even more, even deep and even painful that I started blaming her for her goodness. Anything that could prove that it wasn’t me who was responsible for the hurt that I was going through at that moment.

"You wanna know what happened? YOU happened! And ruined everything! You came and separated us! Tore us apart! And now you are taking him away from me forever, you unsatisfied…!" I couldn’t say further. She was already bubbling with a mixture of anger and shock. I didn’t dare to peek at him.

"Wha? I? snatched him away from you?..." she started in a raised voice, I was hearing for the first time. But then, she was hearing mine for the first time too. She glared at me while I hid my eyes looking everywhere in frustration but them. I was ready for her comebacks, in fact, I wanted to hear them. So much to make my heart believe she really was a villain. But before she could go any further he held her arms and urged her to go out while she returned to her soft voice stuttering to ask me how could I blame her and felt offended. If they were going, I didn’t care now. I really needed some alone time but he didn’t go out with her. Was he ignoring my immediate need or had lost his ability to read me in the meantime, like I lost him to her, without knowing?

"Calm down. Its ok, its ok…" he maneuvered around the entrance towards me as if I was some pissed out animal and he was an effective vet and that made me even more vigorous. I pushed at his shoulder and ran past him and her, who was waiting cross armed outside to the adjacent room and closed the door behind me. He started banging on the makeshift aluminum sheet door while I wrenched my intestines, twisting them into knots and jerking my hysteric lungs to nausea with my painful wailing. It was something unbearable for me. Much harder than having her in our lives, her touching him, hugging him or kissing him. She could even marry him and raise his kids, I wouldn’t have objected, I felt, but, she was taking him away from me. Cutting my lifeline, smothering me to death. In the midst of my pangs I realized why was I throwing such a fit, he really meant life to me. I couldn’t live without his support, I was so crippled.

When he didn’t stop banging, I had to open the gate letting him storm inside terrified. He jerked the door behind him and held my arms, looking directly in my eyes. He never held my arms before, nor my hands or even a finger, except to play games or help me cross roads safely, never while we were alone. It was awkward and at the same time indefinably mending, healing. I pushed him away, not wanting any new feelings to arise which could add up to my sorrow of longing later. He apologized. I didn’t wanted to hear what he had to tell me further. I had no guts to know that he was sorry but he always loved me like a sister and it was time to move forward with his love for the girl who might be his partner in future. I had no strength to tell him that I never loved him like a brother or a lover. That I loved him like more than I could love anyone, any friend, any lover, any brother, any companion, any partner, anyone. That I loved him like life, free of any other relation. I knew he wouldn’t understand me, he recently had lost the tendency to. And now I wouldn’t, couldn’t stop him from moving on just because I wasn’t ready to. I interrupted him with my silence.

She entered again mumbling nervously, asking him about the situation. He lightly pushed her out promising to explain in a minute.

"I'm sorry. It was a stupid experiment and with time, we forgot about it." he said after she left, pinching the bridge of his nose with a hand and resting the other on his hip, guilty laced in his words and plastered on his downed face. I didn’t understand, I did perhaps but I felt like skipping it. I stood silent, letting more warmth escape my eyes leaving me cold. He came forward and held my hands in his, the touch trickled my skin and I retorted immediately but he didn’t let go this time.

"I knew it had to be you all along but you? didn’t. Never! let me catch a hint ever." he shook his head in between, preventing his voice from cracking. I knew where this was leading to and I had dreaded this always until she came to my rescue, falling for him, loving him and doing all that I didn’t want to do with him. He let out a chuckle suddenly, through his sobbing voice.

"You took so long that I forgot I ever wanted this from you…this! This reaction. This hint." he explained looking at my non believing face. I wanted this conversation to end now. I wanted him to pack up and go away with her. I wanted to abandon my house and business and run away some place they could never visit me. But I couldn’t live without him so I must as well wanted to die.

"When I brought her, you didn’t do it, not when I said I love her, even when I started to kiss her, letting her infiltrate our space. You never complained and we thought you didn’t care. We thought, I must move on." he confessed and for once I almost opened my mouth to say, I cared! More than he thought I could. But I didn’t dare do it. I couldn’t believe she had encouraged him to stir some feelings in me by letting herself to be used as a tool. I couldn’t believe he was pushing me into all that. Into breaking all of our hearts again to shreds. She called for him impatiently. Suddenly I started to feel guilty for blaming her. I realized she loved him more than I could ever love him. No, not that much but certainly in a different context. My love for him was selfish and hers was selfless, so so selfless that my eyes filled themselves again.

"Don’t worry about her. I'll explain everything to her…" he said sensing my tears.

"She knew it all along, it had to be you." he pressed further so as to make me feel non liable to her. At this point, I started questioning myself, if I really deserved to be loved by him, and by her. If she deserved to be loved and then not loved by him and by me and if he deserved to be forced to love her and love me not. Who was guilty of what? Was it me who couldn’t love him fully, was it him who couldn’t stop himself from loving me or was it her for willing to do anything in love for him? Maybe all of us, maybe just me. He drew in closer and I shifted uneasily. I couldn’t think of him and me romancing, holding hands, hugging tight, kissing and I couldn’t think further before grossing myself out. Nothing wrong with his handsome face and features, this kind of feeling was something I could never let to creep in our sacred love. For me, our love was too pure to have physical feelings involved. It was something that could damage our relation beyond repair. I was scared of it and he had been cautious before, she entered our lives. Before her, there had always been a possibility of us falling for each other eventually and I always felt sad at the thought that he wouldn’t be happy with me. When she came, I was relieved to know he had already fell for the right person, who would keep him happy, fulfilling all his needs, that is how I defined happiness for him. While he tried to read my face and decide to hug me or not she called him again.

"I'll just explain her and be back." he said passing a coy smile and touched my cheek to wipe a tear, then exited. Before the door retorted, I cached a glimpse of her worriedly shaking her hands as he approached her and calming down to see him.

I aligned myself at the door trying to think, to reason with the situation. No matter however hard I tried, the only thing that hit me repeatedly was the question, 'Can I let him touch me for the sake of my life?' and slowly it gave rise to others. Wouldn’t it be unfair of me engaging in acts of love feelingessly, or worst, forcefully? Wouldn’t it be a torture on both of us? Wouldn't it be injustice to her and her love for him? Didn’t he say that they forgot he even wanted me, with time? Isn't it possible that if I just, for this once, be less selfish and let them be, they would forget about me and him, again? Can't this be a little less complicated?

My head throbbed with numerable questions I had no answer of or I feared to answer. I held my head and closed my eyes. A different question crept my head with instant answer. If I can't let him touch me, would I let someone else touch me? I opened my eyes to see my hands. Once he held them firmly, I had forgot where they were. I asked myself again. If I cant live without him, can I live with anyone else? "no." escaped my lips. Now that the commotion in my mind had somewhat ceased I could hear what they were talking about. He was telling her surprised how he never expected I would ever react and asking her if she was getting him. She said she did and it was amazing, her voice sounded hollow and fake as she tried to be cheerful. He told her he wouldn’t be leaving now and that he was thankful of whatever she did for her. She laughed disheartened and said that, he knew why she did it. She loves him and she loves what he loves. He fell short of words, I assumed, as he said that he would miss her after a pause. She quickly informed that she wouldn’t be going either, alone. He told her that I would be happy to know that but she whined that, I believe she snatched him away from me, I must be hating her. I didn’t need to hear after that.

I closed my eyes once again and let out a sigh. My tears had dried sticky on my face and I made up my mind when he knocked on the door before coming in. I saw his face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, his shaggy hairs, the reassuring smile that touched his lips, the knowing shade that his brown pupils had, his broad hands that held mine minutes ago, his tall stature that exceeded mine by around half a feet. I noticed myself noticing him. Noticing him the way I never noticed him earlier or anyone earlier for that matter. He read me I think for he came forward and enticed me in his arms without hesitating and for once, I didn’t fight. I let myself sink in his embrace and to my surprise, I didn’t feel disgusted as I had always believed I would. As I held my arms up and against his back, I knew this would not ruin what we earlier had, instead strengthen it. That this would not loose its charm because it was my first time hugging a guy, hugging him but it would always remind me the first time whenever I would do it again. I wouldn’t regret this, not with him.

When he let go of me, I wasn’t needed to say it, he knew I would take time. Then she came in smiling, a smile I can just relate with the kind of smile that only a parent can muster when their child breaks their old records and sets new. A smile that had both sorrow and happiness. She mouthed 'don’t hate me' and I mouthed, 'I love you' before she threw one more, more confident smile and left. This was going to be the start of a new life long friendship, I felt. When I looked at his face, I knew I was ready to grow up now, with knowing experiences from him, creating experiences with him.