Dark Winter

All good things come to an end. Empath had heard the saying, but whether or not it was true, she couldn't tell at that time. At Least not in the while the whiteness at the end of the tunnel kept her running towards it. She imagined some sort of blissful meadow at the end of it, but in reality, December 2015 was the beginning of one of the darkest eras of her life.

D had his professional degree final exams in November 2015. He had alerted Empath that he would soon be putting all his social media on hold for detoxification and divert all his focus and energy to his finals. So by late September, they ended their last phone conversation bading a short goodbye for a month and a half to each other. Empath thought nothing about it for 18 hours, until she got a sinking feeling by the next day. With D out of the picture, she was back to square one. A relationship that made her feel old, kids that drained her, a hubster who was emotionally unavailable. She had gotten so used to D's compliments, jokes and flirts that its absence seemed to gnaw her from inside. She began having teary episodes in the night, unable to understand how a friend could have so much of an impact on her seemingly sought together life, and that too sitting thousands of miles away from her. She was angry at herself for becoming so emotionally invested in a friendship at the age of 27, like who does that? She was a grown ass woman and needed to get her sobby self together. D was probably having fun with his younger lot and this older cousin had worn out his interest. It was true by then, their conversations centred more around how both were identical in their sexual apetites, unavailability of a soulmate, irony of being far apart. Their conversations were a pendulum between deep and meaningful to spontaneous and flirtatious on any given day. But the declining self esteem within Empath kept forcing her to imagine the worst. That D had outgrown his interest in her and was not going to return her calls after his exams." It was probably good riddance he must think," she thought and cursed her heart who yearned to hear his playful voice.

Empath was fruitlessly training her mind to act as if nothing happened. The actress within her sprung to her defence, pretending that nothing had happened, nothing was a big deal, it was all tolerable. The human coping mechanism is strange and different for different individuals. Her's nearly always made her believe that it's ok, nothing was too bad, it would be alright. There were notably only very very few instances in her life when she had had a mental breakdown type of a thing, or panicked. She had read that one of the astonishing traits of her astrological sign was that they were a natural in calamity. While the world would give up under any such circumstances, Empath believed her superpower and her strong astrology gave her some type of never ending hope and belief to hold on, just a while longer, to pretend for a bit that nothing was wrong or out of line. This had been the very reason she had yet not given up on her marriage and the same was the cause she was not going to show any sign of sorrow or dismay, especially not to hubster, if D would vanish as quickly as fate had made him reappear from her childhood.

Oh but he did reappear. As Empath got done with her 27th bday, the next day after sunset her phone rang. The familiar letters shaping the name she so longed to hear back from. Her heart skipped a beat and as she ran to the quiet of her room from the bustling and noisy house, she realised tears streamed down her face. Whether they were tears of gratitude, or shame, or both or none, was something she would learn only a little while later.

'' I thought you wouldn't ever call back!'' she exclaimed right after picking up. They were beyond all the hellos and greetings of a typical conversation. D laughed loudly and teased her, '' So were you like dying without me?!'' '' D, stop it, yes I nearly died I missed you so bad!'' He chuckled, ''Now now, what will your hubster say if he learns about that? His pious loving wife was waiting for my call. '' Empath reddened '' Oh you moron! Fine, you can stop talking to me. And hubster knows we have reconnected since months, as if anything bothers him. How were your papers?'' The conversation went on for about an hour.

When Empath hung up, she was ecstatic, like an addict is after taking his long awaited dose. She wanted so long to be wanted, to be complimented, she realised the tears were of happiness. She had been overjoyed when D had proved her worst fears wrong and called back. He enjoyed her company, he enjoyed teasing her. Sighing, she went back to continue her housework, the ull chores that nobody cared or saw, but needed tending to. The cleaning and cooking, assembling and arranging, serving and collecting. She didn't mind being the caretaker of the house, it was her house and hubster's family was her family. But it all had stopped bringing her any joy or satisfaction. The feeling of being acknowledged at home became alien. She felt she was no longer needed urgently by anyone except Baby M and that too only for all the milk her body produced. Life at its best had been a palette of grey and brown hues for over a year. Hubster and her communicated less, thanks to her ever ready sarcasm to reply if he made sharp remarks of any minor inconvenience caused. He slept next to her every night but they had never been more far apart emotionally. There were nights when she would put the young daughter to sleep and join him when he would be deep asleep. She would peel off her clothes and snuggle in the duvet next to him because the harsh December nights were rather cold. She would wait patiently hoping with every little movement he made that he might wake up and run his warm hands over her body and realise she had physical needs, ones that only he could fulfil, she wanted only him to fulfil. But his demeanour only served her with more questions. Why would he not be aroused by her? How was he coping with his physical needs? Was he still involved with someone but her? What was she giving him that empath had failed to? The turmoil in her mind was constant but only in minutes, the hours she talked to D. He had brought colour to her seemingly lifeless palette. The type of shades she didn't even know existed. Bold, fiery, saucy, flirtatious, when had she been spoken to last in this manner? Too difficult to recall for her, she enjoyed his conversations and longed for more. Her workplace was just going to announce the winter break. Then she would have 10 last days of December to spend catching up on her sleep and talking to D late at night. She wouldn't have to worry about waking up in the morning to rush to her classes. Last ten days of December. Little did she know that they were also the last days of her short found happiness, that it's always lonely and eerie in the quiet nights of dark winters.