‘Are you one of those people who believes that a half truth is a full lie?’ my brother asked me randomly while we were talking about food. Why he’d asked me that question I’ll probably never know. But I didn’t need to, I didn’t ask. I felt attacked but I kept my calm and changed the topic praying that he wouldn’t press for an answer because I really didn’t know. 

The whole day I couldn’t think of anything but that question. And that question triggered so many memories. Many nights after that call, I’d lay awake thinking of it, his question dawning on me like the harsh summer sun, burning through my skin, opening wounds, leaving scars and burning a hole in the closet I had built inside of me, letting my demons out. Consuming me so slowly, I could feel every second of it.

Memories of that day clawed back into my life. Memories I’ve been trying to bury under the weight of the new and reckless memories that I’ve been trying to create. For a long time I chose not to talk about it, as though that would make me feel like that day didn’t exist. The more I didn’t talk about it, the more I hated myself, blamed myself even though I really did nothing wrong. I didn’t know that a single dawn could sway my every decision, every choice, every action and everything I say. 

So many memories of you. I don’t know if you’ve always given me incomplete stories, half of a picture. Have I always made myself believe a half truth? or has it always been a full lie?

I can’t seem to hate you, K. Even though I really want to, in fact there’s nothing I want more than to hate you. To push you out of my brain and expel my memories with you like it meant nothing, like you meant nothing. But like Appu keeps his broken pens even though they don’t work, I keep the good memories of you. Believe me, I wish I could stop, I wish I could forget. 

Before, I used to think of you in pretty colors.I used to think of all the nice things you did for me. My favourite was how you carried me home piggyback when my chappal broke and thorns got in my leg. You carried me home, saying silly things and calling me silly names. We were 10 then. And my ten year old self felt safe, happy and I probably liked you more than I liked most people. I think of all the times you saved me from Amma’s scoldings, all the times we wandered off, little kids having fun and enjoying each other’s company.  

I remember you making fun of me in the back of Y’s car for not knowing the lyrics to some Justin Bieber song. That is why I started listening to English songs. I wanted you to like me, so we could be just like best friends. 

I used to write in my Diary that one day I hope to find and marry someone who was at least a little bit like you and a little bit like dad. 

I remember the summer I realised that both of us loved books.We spent hours talking about which Magic Tree House books we had read, which books we liked more than others. I enjoyed every second of that conversation. 

And one day we went clothes shopping with our parents and since we weren’t really interested in that, we walked around the store just talking and laughing and we heard one of the employees saying that we’re probably ‘girlfriend-boyfriend’. I remember us giggling and pretending like we hadn’t heard. 

I remember us laughing, dancing, talking, walking, doing dumb things. I remember everything. Just like I remember the first time you made me feel weird. Uncomfortable. 

It happened when we were maybe 14 or 15? I was sitting on the sofa watching TV. You came out of nowhere and decided that you wanted to watch some other channel. You tried to take the remote from me, it ended in us having a physical struggle, and before I knew it, you were on me, our bodies tangled up, I could feel your heartbeat, your breathing. It didn’t feel right. I felt very uncomfortable so I just gave up fighting and gave you the remote. I tried to push away the discomfort I felt, maybe it was all in my head, maybe I was making all this up. 

Later that year, we met at a wedding and you had to leave early, and for the first time, as you left, we hugged. It felt nice. Like a promise that we’d stay in touch, meet soon. It felt like we were the two little kids who were best friends again.

That’s my last fond memory of you. That hug. 

Now, I think of you in Rotten smells. I become very uncomfortable. The idea of even being in the same building as you gives me panic attacks. I’ve avoided meeting you in the last two years, and in the rare instance that you’re in my proximity, I try to ignore you. 

I remember not getting out of my room when you came home and stayed the night.I kept myself locked in the guest room because I knew my room was too close to the room you were in. And early morning, next day, I left home before you woke up and went to S’s place. She was the only person who could keep me from shattering. I kept calling mom and came back home only after you had left.

 Why? Why did you do this to us?

“You are eighteen, I am eighteen” I remember you saying as you tried to force yourself on me. Shifting me in different positions so I couldn’t stop you. I remember you kissing me. You tasted like cigarettes and smelled awful. Your hands everywhere, inside my t-shirt, trying to unhook my bra. I’ve never been more grateful for wearing a sports bra. “Pretty Please”, you said as you tried to convince me to let you touch my breasts. I didn’t. 

For a while after that incident, I tried to blame myself for it. I wanted to believe that I had somehow asked for it. You had come to my room earlier in the morning that day, maybe at around 4:00am and you woke me up from sleep, before all of this and told me that you were leaving then. I gave you what I thought was a goodbye hug and I drifted off to sleep until you woke me up again. Your hands on my skin. So much happened, some thing’s I’m still not comfortable talking about. But it had all been a lie. You didn’t leave until the next afternoon. 

I was still ready to forgive you, push the incident away as a mistake. I wanted to believe so badly that you regretted it. That’s why I replied when you messaged a few days later. And then you go ahead and ask me for suggestive pictures of myself and that’s when it dawned on me that you had absolutely no remorse. I had been in denial until then. I wanted so badly to feel like I had some kind of control over that situation. You left me feeling so impuissant.

You told me many things before it happened. Had it all been a lie? You told me about your girlfriend, you even spoke to her on the phone. And when I, in an attempt to keep you off of me, asked you why you were cheating on her, you told me that she wasn’t your girlfriend anymore, that she was an ex. That you had half lied to me, like somehow, that justified your actions.

It took me so long to sleep in my bed after that day. So long to feel safe in my own room. So long to not feel uncomfortable when I got hugged. So long to understand what had happened and acknowledge that nothing is ever going to be the same. So long to trust, to accept, to love.

I try to hate you K and I do hate who you’ve become but the kid in me still likes the boy who would walk with her and tell her things about science and books and music and magic. It’s been two years since that incident but I still find it hard to sleep at night. My body remembers every touch of yours in violent detail. It would have been easier for me to move on and forget about all this if it hadn’t been you. I would’ve told my parents if it weren’t you. You being the person who did this to me hurts most, makes it all so much more complicated. 

What do I do with all these memories? With the half truths? Or were they full lies? Are they the same thing?

On the nights that I can’t seem to fall asleep, I remember that movie we left unfinished. Is it weird that I don’t want to watch the rest of it without you?

You have the kind of smile that they talk about in those cheesy rom-coms, the kind that lights up any room, the kind that you can’t seem to get enough of. And even though I make fun of how you sound when you laugh, it is one of my favourite things about you. The noise that helps keep me sane on days where I feel like I’m losing my mind. It’s the sound that plays in my head every time I see a funny meme or video. It’s the sound I could play in my head over and over a couple times before I creep myself out.

I like to pretend that you are by my side sometimes, I talk to you about my day and all the creepy things I did even though it’s not really you I’m talking to. Sometimes I pick the phone to call you up, but I don’t, because I know I don’t have it in me to hear your voice and not start crying immediately. Sometimes I wish I could just run to you from across the quadrangle, and give you the tightest hug. A hug that would tell you how I feel because it’s a feeling I’ve never had before, the kind I can’t explain in coherent sentence’s. 

I always believe that expectations hurt. But maybe because I was around you for so long, I can’t stop expecting things because you were everything I didn’t even know I was looking for in a person. You always kept giving, adding little things into my life that made me more me. 

If I knew this is how I would feel, I would have maybe walked with you every time you stalked some random guy. Maybe I wouldn’t have walked the other way when you wanted to walk behind R in the rain. Maybe I would have walked with you, maybe even ahead of you (because you walk so slow, obviously). 

 It’s still a mystery to me, how I’ve still not met V even after making conscious efforts to meet him. How even after waiting at the bus stop for many hours and going to your terrace randomly, he never showed up until seconds after I left. Maybe this was how it was meant to be. Maybe he exists better in my imagination, maybe it’s a secret I’m willing to let you keep.  

It’s always the worst when I’m traveling, and even after two years of doing it on my own, I don’t think I’ll quite get used to it. Sometimes when I’m listening to songs on the bus, I like to take my earphones out of one of my ears and imagine that we’re listening to it together. Is it normal that when I take a Volvo bus these days, I don’t want to sit on the window side because that’s where you usually sit and I like to think that maybe you’ll get on the bus from Karthik Nagar? And whenever I travel to a new place I always think about how you would obviously know where we’re at because you saw the place in some random movie or dream (XD). 

Maybe you’ll find it interesting that I can no longer walk around Marathahalli singing songs and making weird plans because you aren’t there to do it with me. How every black wall, cats and half of my playlist reminds me of you. 

I know that I’m the funniest person to ever exist, but I don’t quite feel like it now that you aren’t around. Sometimes I wonder how we’ve not really had a big fight or falling apart. And as much as I don’t like to believe it, we’re both quite the opposite of each other but somehow we manage to go together perfectly and work through our differences. And as much as I hate being clingy or too cringe, I couldn’t give a damn when it’s about you. So, I’m going to shamelessly be the sappiest person to have ever lived. 

Sometimes I feel like I should’ve always been this expressive, and not quite closed up because there’s so much I’d like for you to know. In the end, I guess it’s always the small things that make the most difference. It’s the sneaky smiles, giant hugs, bouncy coconuts, creepy dances, the silence of your terrace, the bench in the park, the black paint, the softie cones, the snapchat videos, failed workout plans and a million little other things that I hold onto and within which my mind finds solace. 

“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes”
~Vladimir Nabokov