Vishnupriya Prabhakar
He looked at her humming to her self in the kitchen. Oh she looked so happy, you could see it radiating from her. He felt a pang of guilt in his stomach make its way up his throat. "It's okay", he thought to himself, "you are not at fault".
He continued to look at her. She looked so happy, he couldn't remember the last time she looked so good. They've been together for so long but, he didn't know her for who she was, neither did she him.
They spoke to each other last night, they both admitted a few things that they shouldn't have. Maybe that's why she was happy, she had gotten rid of the burden weighing her down for so long. He would sometimes hear her muffled cries from the bathroom but couldn't bring himself to confront or comfort her. They were both guilty, two lovers gone bad.
The night brings you face to face with the darkest corners of yourself, it forces you to face yourself. It slowly unwinds your mind and brings in front of you that which you have dismissed, the incidents that should have made you feel something but you chose not to feel. Being honest with yourself requires more courage than being honest with anyone else, it weighs on you until you confront it. It was her who admitted it first, he had heard her sobs from the bathroom just before she came to him. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face bloated and her cheeks wet. She was trembling all over when she told him. He felt a sharp pain in his chest when he saw her so miserable, the woman he loved in pain was a sight unbearable to him, he finally comforted her. He told her it was okay, that it wasn't neither of their fault. He blamed human nature and the fickle minded human desire, he spoke about himself, convicted himself in the court of morality and thus, managed to console her.
But, they were different. She was completely honest, she wanted to restart their lives once again, go back to being the lovers they once were. He too wanted the same, but he could feel the gnawing of human desire within him persuading him to continue living the new life it had got a taste of.