The Secret Wish List by Preeti Shenoy

Author:Preeti Shenoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

The conversation with Tanu has reminded me, with startling intensity, of the person I used to be—a person with hopes, ambitions and a desire to live life to the brim. I was just like Tanu—bubbly, enthusiastic and positive.

I think about Ankit. I think about that kiss. I have replayed everything that happened on that day at least a million times in my mind through all these years. I loved him with all the purity and innocence of a sixteen-year-old heart. I was certain at that time that he loved me too. I wonder how he looks now. I wonder what I will feel if I were to ever meet him again.

It is ironic how the years change you and yet you remain the same. Even if you are married, become a parent, deep down you are still the person you were before you became all of that.

Later, as I cook the afternoon meal, Ankit dances around in my head. He refuses to go away when I serve my mother- in-law her meal and make inane conversation with her. He is still with me when I greet Abhay, back from school, and remains there when I help him with homework. And, later that night, when my husband, after his usual round of television viewing, comes to bed and squeezes my breasts and has sex with me, he is still there.

I lie awake a long time that night, the darkness of my bedroom punctuated by Sandeep’s rhythmic post-coital snoring.

I realise with a jolt that Ankit had never really left. He has been in my head all along.

And now that the possibility of reconnecting with him has been presented to me on a platter, it makes me intensely restless. It is as though someone has poured a can of gasoline to the already blazing fire and turmoil within my heart.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, warning bells are clanging, but their sounds are very feeble, almost muffled.

The voice of my heart is too loud.

When you cannot get someone out of your head for eighteen years, it has to be true love.

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