I'm not the person I used to be—not anymore. You know how it is, at this stage of life there's so much pressure, everything turns upside down, becomes completely inverted. I used to talk a lot before. Now, the moment I try to say more, my breath catches. That's one reason I don't speak. My relationship—it shakes me to my core, often. So I felt compelled to tell this story. I've noticed something: my experience mirrors ninety percent of what happens to so many others. That's why I feel the need to speak up. What was done to me, it was done. But if it means others can be careful, can learn—that's why I'm trying so hard to tell this. The story you're reading right now—I couldn't write it all in one sitting. It's Ramadan. There's so much worship to do. I wrote it little by little, over several days. I tried to get everything out, to tell it whole. If I'd written it in a day or two, so much would have slipped my mind. And the more I think about all this, the more my breathing tightens. If I'd said it all at once, I would have broken. I can't even use my inhaler all day, you see. That's why it took me days to finish the story. On top of that, there's studying for work. Ever since I decided to write this down, I've felt small. So small. I keep thinking how foolish you'll find me when you read this. And then another thought creeps in—that I'm a base person, low-minded. The shame, the self-disgust—I can't even describe it. Nothing feels good anymore. I wouldn't have written this at all. But I've been noticing for months now: the same thing happens to almost everyone. It's become a kind of epidemic, this moral decay spreading through all of us. That's why I wanted to tell the story—to warn people. To make them understand how terrifying human beings can become. My first love wasn't actually love at all. It took me so long to see that, to understand it. In fact, it wasn't until almost four years after the relationship ended—and it lasted three and a half years—that I finally understood. I'm older now. I was so spoiled, so sheltered. My parents never let even a flower thorn touch my skin. Even though I knew how to do every household task, they never let me do them after teaching me. I might cut my hand, damage it, hurt myself, catch a cold—all these fears. I was brought up in such indulgence! And since I had hardly any chance to mix with people outside, it was easy for me to be naïve, foolish. I was that kind of creature—simple, unthinking. But anyway, none of it was a real relationship. It was one-sided love, all from my side. You could call it foolish love. For as long as it lasted, I was the one holding on, pulling it forward. He bore no responsibility in it whatsoever.
# A Funny Thing
The funny thing is, at first I couldn’t stand him. Why, I don’t know. We were classmates. We studied together at college. When I saw him, he seemed like a rude sort of boy. There’s a reason for it. One day my friend and I were sitting on a bench during the off-period, chatting away. I didn’t know it was his bench. He wasn’t in class that day. Maybe he was wandering around outside. What he was doing, I have no idea. I studied at a girls’ school and had a home tutor at home, so I never had the chance to go out. As a result, I couldn’t mix with boys. I didn’t understand what a boy was, what a girlfriend meant, any of that. Oh yes, one more thing! My mother at home wouldn’t let me properly mix with my classmates. Even if I came home five minutes late from school, my mother’s blood pressure would drop and she’d be in quite a state. She kept a terribly close watch on me. So I didn’t mix with anyone either.
So, what I was saying—that boy, the one who later became my boyfriend in name only, he came back to class. He no sooner arrived than he gave me and my friend quite a scolding in front of everyone! I was terribly shy. The shame! The shame! I wanted to die of embarrassment. Still, I didn’t say anything to him, because I didn’t talk to any girls except that one friend of mine. I felt shy even talking to girls. Of course, now when I think about these things, I laugh at myself. I wonder, how stupid I was! Though I can’t say I’m particularly clever now either—you’ll understand once you hear my whole story.
Then one day I got the highest marks in our combined group streams in some subjects. Where many bright students had scored poorly, I did so well that everyone started looking at me askance. But he was the only boy who, when the teacher announced my result, turned his mouth crooked and said, “Wow!” When I heard that, I don’t even know how angry I got! I was furious. Simply because I didn’t talk to him, I said nothing to him then. From that moment, he became, in my eyes, the one rude boy in my college. A few days later, the college asked us to do some group work. By a strange coincidence, he ended up in my group. What a mess! This meant that if I didn’t talk to him, my group’s work wouldn’t get done, and I wouldn’t get marks. But I’d always wanted to do well in my results.
I had to speak when I was forced to work together. And I realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. Working in a group at college—it was like any other conversation that happened there. One day she’d asked for my phone number. Back then, I still had the strength to tell people ‘no’. But later, I couldn’t anymore. They say when you fall in love, you become a fool. I understand now how terribly important it is to be able to say ‘no’ sometimes. There’s no one more troublesome than someone who doesn’t know how to say ‘no’. So I told her ‘no’, the way I should have. And except for my friend, no one else had my number. But she was desperate to get it—something I only understood later. One day she came running up to me suddenly and said there was a huge problem at home, her family had called her, but her mobile had no balance so she couldn’t call back. If only I’d let her use my phone for a moment!
She was breathing hard. It was a family matter, so I felt sorry for her. I handed her my phone. But I was such a fool that it didn’t even occur to me—with so many friends in class, why had she come to me? I was far too stupid to see through her trick. After getting the phone, she dialed a number, held it to her ear, then laughed and handed it back. I asked, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘Eureka, eureka, I found it!’ I still didn’t understand what on earth she’d found. I said, ‘Come on, what did you find?’ She stepped away from me and said, ‘I got your number.’ I shouted, ‘WHAT!!’ Then I made a pathetic attempt to chase her. But she was gone—far ahead of me. And you can’t really run with a kid like that.
So what else? I went home that day. When I got back, I found a message on my phone. Back then Facebook wasn’t all that popular yet. This was the time of SMS bundles on Banglalinkee—that was the trend for cheap calls. I was always buying SMS packs because I used to talk to my friends cheaply. So I read the message. She’d written a beautiful love poem and signed her name at the bottom. I didn’t know her number. But from her name, I knew it was her. I didn’t say anything though, because actually… I’d liked the poem. Let me mention this here—I’ve noticed that village kids are far more poetic, somehow. But city kids our age back then couldn’t even pour their own water to drink properly, so how would they be poets? Since I absolutely loved reading stories and poems, I really did like her poem. On top of that, we were at that age. There was nothing bad about it. But I realize now she’d actually just lifted it all from Facebook. Pure copy and paste! I didn’t even know Facebook existed back then, and she had her own account. When village kids get smart, they get really smart!
# The Girl Who Didn’t Reply
That day, she sent me fourteen messages—all of them about love. With SMS there’s no way to know if the other person has read it, not like on Facebook, so she couldn’t tell whether I’d even opened them. She kept writing: how was I, what was I doing, had I eaten. I didn’t reply to a single one. But secretly, I was enjoying every bit of it. When she asked why I wasn’t answering, I said nothing. The next day at college, she asked again why I wouldn’t respond. I put on a detached air and told her, “I don’t reply to everyone’s messages.” Then I left for the canteen to eat. But she wasn’t the type to give up. The messages just kept coming.
I loved to talk. At that age—the way it happens to all of us—a distance opens up between you and your parents. Everything your parents say seems wrong, and everything else in the world seems right. That’s the lie you tell yourself. I was quiet by nature, but if I found someone to listen, I’d talk and talk and talk. No food, no sleep, just words, words, words. My mother knew what I was like, so she’d warned me not to spend too much time on the phone. And let me say this here: I don’t know if there’s a single boy or girl in the world who hasn’t pestered their parents for a phone. My older brother had. But I’d gotten one without all that nagging—and at that age, before I was even eighteen. So anyway, it was the kind of age where whatever the elders forbade, you had to do it all the more. And I was stubborn that way—more than most. I’d think: all day long, nothing but studies, no permission to be with anyone, and now I can’t even use my phone. How am I supposed to live? I wouldn’t listen to anyone. I think now, looking back, that the seeds of my undoing were planted the very day I had that thought. And my parents didn’t scold me much or try to stop me from anything. That was my real disaster. If parents don’t discipline their children at the right time, both the parents and the child suffer later.
But anyway, her romantic words, all that poetry, started to stir something in me. And I started swaying. I began replying to her messages, bit by bit. Those poetic things, those poems—I liked them. Slowly, we started talking on the phone. We never spoke at college. It was her rule. The reason was that when she lived in the village, she’d liked a girl, and that had caused so much trouble. Then another girl had proposed to her in college, and that had caused trouble too. Though I didn’t know any of this then. I had only one job back then—go to college, attend roll call, skip class. I’d go to the canteen to eat, hang out in the library. And I had only one friend in college anyway. Because I didn’t like mixing with too many people. Whoever I’d befriend, I’d talk to them endlessly. That’s just how I was.
I return to what she said. There was this thing, you see—she would mix with other girls, even with my friend, but at college she wouldn’t speak to me. Not a word at college. All our talking happened at home. So much talking! One day I asked her, ‘Why don’t you talk to me at college?’ She told me, ‘You’re special to me, different from all the other girls, that’s why I don’t.’ Meaning, she was telling me she liked me. Even through messages she would say things like that. But my head was too thick back then to catch her tricks. Then one day she opens up to me completely. She talks about herself, her family’s situation, her worries.
That day I learned they were very poor. They had land, good land, and it gave them crops and fruit and all that, but it wasn’t enough to get through the whole year. They had no regular income. Her father worked as a sharecropper on other people’s fields, and that work wasn’t steady either. When the harvest came, they managed somehow. But the rest of the month was a real struggle. A vegetable patch in the yard, some fish from the pond now and then, cotton from the garden—that was all. Yet they shouldn’t have been in this situation at all. Her father had sold land, taken on debt, spent it all to send her uncle and aunt to school. Now the uncle and aunt were doing very well, had good positions, but they didn’t help. And her father was still carrying that debt burden. And her sisters—they paid for her schooling. How? By tutoring, by eating less, by going without. She herself would often skip meals. Even when it hurt, she wouldn’t tell anyone.
I just listened, and I was in awe. I wasn’t that poor myself. But I wasn’t rich either. My father earned a decent salary, enough that we got by with our eyes closed. I’d never known want. Really, my family never let me understand what struggle was, because I was a girl. Let me say this—when my older brother was born, my parents weren’t happy. They wanted a girl. Then when I came, it was as if they’d caught the moon from the sky in their hands. So I’m the life and soul of both of them, whatever you might say. When I was little I thought they didn’t love me. But I never knew what I meant to them, or how much they cared, until I got hit with this. I never felt any lack of money in my family, never. But my father used to tell us he’d struggled hard in his studies to get where he was. My grandfather wasn’t alive. His older siblings didn’t look after him. Through hunger and hardship, he got here.
# Yes, My Father
Yes, my father is not a high-ranking officer. But in my life, he is no less than any high-ranking officer could ever be. He came from an obscure village and made himself into a man, stood on his own two feet. He never had anyone to lean on; he arranged his own livelihood, never earned a dishonest penny in all his working life, and built his house by saving blood-earned money bit by bit. To me, he is the finest ideal man in the world. Everyone’s own father is the best to them, at least to every daughter he is! But my father is just a little more the best to me! Had I faced the circumstances he faced, I would surely have been swept away by the current—there’s no question about that—but he was not. He has lived with his head held high, even now. My parents loved me deeply, still do. But back then, I didn’t have the understanding to comprehend that love. Because I was so pampered, I lacked perception. When people are given too much indulgence, they grow foolish. And if they stay cooped up inside all day, well, there’s no hope for them then—they turn out downright thick-headed, which is exactly what I was. The reason I speak so much of my father is that I found such striking similarities between him and my ex-fiancé Zahid. Like my father, he too was struggling through his studies. And like my father, he too was very caring. I thought, oh, this is absolutely the perfect match for me! Hearing the story of his own life from his own lips, my respect for him only grew. Not love, mind you! Just respect, growing steadily…
After that, I think he sent romantic poems for two or three days, then stopped. But our conversations kept growing. We began to know each other more and more. Oh yes, after my parents, if anyone cared for me as much, it was him. I thought of him in exactly that way, which was completely wrong of me. The thing he talked about most was my stomach problem—how I couldn’t eat anything. For twenty-one years of my life, the suffering I endured because of food is beyond words. If I ate anything other than light rice with vegetables and fish three times a day, I would throw up immediately. Whenever I was pressured by a friend to eat something or ate something of my own will, there was no mercy for me then! Up it all came, over and over! Those were such agonizing days!
# So anyway, there it was.
She’d ask me to try this remedy or that, so my stomach problems would go away. I had this habit—whatever anyone suggested for my digestive troubles, I’d eat it. Because I only ate rice three times a day and nothing else, I was terribly thin. She’d talk to me endlessly about my stomach issues. About how thin I was. When anyone called me skinny, I’d feel such shame. It seemed like some kind of crime I’d committed! As if I’d begged it from Allah himself, this affliction! People have this nature—they ignore their own household but poke their noses into others’. Though I think it’s the small-minded ones, the petty people, who do this. It was almost impossible to find someone who didn’t make jokes and jibes about my thinness. The humiliation I felt then—I can barely think of it now! But there was no way for me to gain weight. Back then I didn’t even know I had hyperthyroidism. People like me could swallow the whole world and still never put on a pound in this lifetime. I’d lie awake fretting about these things—and if a day had twenty-four hours, I’d be upset for twenty-five.
She understood me deeply. Seeing that, my affection for her only grew. When a person is trapped in their own limitations, feeling small and confined, and someone approaches them with kindness and understanding—they embrace that person easily. I even took medicines to gain weight, but still couldn’t. Meanwhile, these petty people would tell my parents all sorts of things. Why was I like this, why couldn’t I gain weight, and on and on. My parents would hear it and grow sad. I may not have understood their love back then, but I loved them—loved them impossibly—and I still do. Anyway, she kept reassuring me about all this, and slowly our conversations grew longer and longer. I became more and more dependent on her. Then my best friend—the one I thought was my best friend, though now I see she wasn’t even worthy of being a friend at all—we had some trivial falling out and the friendship ended. Since I had no sister, that friend was everything to me. When she left, I fell apart completely. I was utterly alone.
I can’t bear it when someone leaves me. Now I understand—I take people in as easily as I do, but they don’t take me in the same way. Whether that’s my fault or theirs, I don’t know. But I always blame myself for everything. I’m not the kind of small person who blames others. Though I’m not magnanimous either. My mother used to say, when someone slaps you, assume you must have done something that made you unable to step far enough back to avoid the blow. It was your mistake that cost you the distance. Anyway, through all of it I was feeling terribly dejected. And she gave me support in various ways. Day by day my dependence on her only deepened. I’m the sort who becomes dependent on someone very quickly about anything at all. A terrible habit, really. Though after getting knocked around enough, I’m not like that anymore. You’ll understand as the story goes on. But in the midst of all this, one day I suddenly noticed that Jahid was sad.
I asked her, “What’s bothering you?” And she laid out her troubles like a scene from a Bengali film—a whole melodrama of hardship. The gist of it was financial troubles. It hit me hard hearing that. Here was someone grinding through her studies against all odds, and what was I doing? I got everything without asking. The truth is, I did want to study. But back then, I couldn’t go anywhere except to college. Couldn’t mix with people. And with all my physical problems, I couldn’t even concentrate on my books if I’d wanted to. I was sick twenty-nine days out of every month. The pain coursing through my body all day—I never told anyone about that, never let anyone see it. Still don’t. I was the quiet type, kept everything locked away. But there was one person I tried to open up to, let them in on all my private feelings—and that’s where I got burned.
Because my father had struggled through his own studies, I felt Jahidi’s pain more acutely. And I couldn’t bear seeing anyone suffer. So one day she asked me for some financial help. I gave it. In the meantime, through calls and messages, we started getting to know each other. I liked it—really liked it—because at home, apart from college, I had no one to talk to. That was another one of my misunderstandings, I realize now. My parents wanted to talk to me. But my head was in the clouds, so I neglected them instead, convinced they weren’t interested in me. The truth is, at that age, whatever else is going on, you’re drawn to the opposite sex—nature’s way. Mine was doing the same.
Around that time, I got a health checkup. That’s when they found out I had a thyroid problem. The doctor prescribed me several other medications too. I knew this pharmacist—a trusted uncle who ran the local shop. When he glanced at my prescription, he mixed it up with someone else’s and gave me a drug that lowers blood pressure. We trusted him so completely that whatever he wrote on the bottle, whatever dose he gave, we just followed it—we didn’t even look at the actual prescription.
So I took those pills, and my blood pressure kept dropping. Around the same time, a trivial thing caused a rift between me and my “best friend”—just like that, the friendship was over. I fell apart. Then one day, the medication suddenly had a bad reaction and I lost consciousness. They rushed me to a doctor. Slowly, I learned what had happened to me. After that, I was bedridden for a whole month. I couldn’t even get out of bed on my own. Mother did everything for me. My year-end exams were looming. I thought, Oh no! Everyone’s studying except me. I won’t just fail—I’ll get the worst marks in the entire college. I had this habit of overthinking everything. I’d worry so much my head would pound. But later, nothing of the sort would happen. It was just the beast in my mind that devoured me.
# Untitled
Anyway, I thought again—Jahidi was such a good student. (That’s how I thought of him. Anyone who scored even half a mark more than me, I’d consider them good, and I’d respect them immensely. I’d feel blessed if I could spend time with them.) How was I supposed to face him after that? All this thinking—these endless doubts—gave me terrible headaches, and I’d be upset all the time. And then Jahidi would motivate me so much. I’d just be amazed. How old was the boy? He was about my age, had so many problems of his own, yet there he was motivating me. And what was I doing? I felt so small. My admiration and respect for him kept growing, day after day, until it became like a mountain.
He suddenly challenged me—if I scored more marks than him, he’d treat me. And if he scored more than me, I’d treat him. The idea of me scoring more was completely impossible. Because there were only 25 days left until the exams, and I hadn’t even looked at my books. He, on the other hand, was brilliant. Whatever he said or did, he studied properly. I told him it was impossible. But he said, “You have to do it to build your willpower.” I liked taking challenges; I was stubborn like that. So I accepted it. Not because of the threat of treating him, but to keep my face in front of everyone. How hard I worked then to get decent marks! Because I didn’t know exactly what score he’d get. A score that anyone else could get without breaking a sweat—I’d have to struggle immensely just to reach that same number. Because even though I talked loudly, I couldn’t study loudly. If I studied loudly, my throat would break, my tonsils would swell. And when my tonsils swelled, I’d get a fever. And if I didn’t study loudly, I couldn’t retain what I was reading. So to remember what I studied, I needed a lot more time.
Finishing so much material in so little time was incredibly hard for me. But I tried anyway, took the exam. Results came out. I got an A grade and passed with a pretty decent GPA. The biggest thing was, I scored more marks than Jahidi. That day, my joy was something to see. I won. But I broke the terms of the bet and treated him myself. Because he had financial problems. And I can never put pressure on anyone. After the exams, one day Jahidi suddenly proposed to me. I was shocked. I still thought of him as a good student then. I thought, such a good student is proposing to me! Even then, I took a month to think about it. I asked him, “Why do you like me?” He told me it was because I have beautiful handwriting, a beautiful voice, I speak beautifully, there’s no dialect in my speech. I managed such a result despite all these obstacles—it means there’s something in me that I can’t express.
Of course, I myself don’t even know if these things were real or imagined. But the way he told them was so beautiful that I loved listening to him. That age—it was the age when a boy’s sweet words could crumble you to dust! Still, there was reason to hesitate. He said his family wouldn’t accept a relationship between people of the same age bracket. Before this, every same-age marriage or love match in his family had ended badly. In his words, but I’m so good that he believed I would fix everything one day. I’d shatter everyone’s misconceptions. Meanwhile, I wanted someone who wasn’t wealthy. We’d have a tiny household. No luxuries. He emotionally blackmailed me so much that I thought it over for a long time and finally agreed. And so our love story began.
I knew that love changes people. For a few months, things were good. And in between, whenever he needed financial help of any kind, I provided it. Because I wanted him to succeed, to grow big. By financial help, I mean things like—his landlady hadn’t come to the mess, so I’d buy him food; whatever he needed for his practicals, I’d give it to him; sometimes I’d pay his phone bill; I’d buy him clothes; I’d buy him books…and so many other things besides. He wanted me to learn to cook. Being father and mother’s pampered daughter, I’d never cooked. But I learned it for him, and fed him what I made. We had some traditional sweets from our village, and I even made those for him. We didn’t really talk at college. Everything happened over the phone. I only gave him food and other things after class ended. I took great care that the food wouldn’t spoil. Anyway, we gave our HSC exams like this. There was one thing that kept coming up between us, and that was—ever since he’d fallen in love, he kept saying I was far too thin. He’d also say I didn’t mix with people. How could I make him understand that no matter what I ate, I would never gain weight? And besides, back then I didn’t feel like mixing with people. Not everyone matures at the same time—he couldn’t grasp that.
Yet those very things were what he liked about me before we fell in love. If the qualities he loved in me before love simply vanished after love, then it was never love at all—I wasn’t old enough to understand that. And I shouldn’t have been expected to. I was spoiled, I was young, and I was blind with love. There was another issue between us: he wanted me to work. But my physical condition was so bad that even in my dreams, I couldn’t imagine ever being able to work, let alone in reality. When he’d bring this up, I’d feel so ashamed and angry. We’d fight about it. Then he’d settle it himself. I understand the reason now. The truth is, he needed me far too much back then. Beyond that, the thing was—we dreamed so much about our future. At that age, it felt wonderful to dream like that. My eyes were full of rosy, glittering dreams. Oh! What a peaceful life that would be!
# On Love and Ruin
Since I fell in love, my studies abandoned me like a tree climber scrambling up a palm trunk. Meanwhile, she kept at her books without missing a beat. My college grades began their slow descent. I wasn’t ever a brilliant student, but I’d never been this bad either. The home tutor, my parents—everyone started scolding. They all came to the same conclusion: my poor grades had a single culprit. Mobile phone. Because I spent entire days glued to that screen. So they lectured me endlessly. And with each lecture, I treated them worse. Our house had the most perfect door—my room door. In blind rage, I kicked it shut so many times that I turned that perfect door into something broken and damaged. I also emotionally blackmailed my parents by refusing to eat, refusing to come out. They couldn’t bear it. So they said nothing more. Now I realize—they were afraid of me, and their fear is what destroyed me.
Let me be clear: during those few years of love, I treated my parents so badly that if they hadn’t forgiven me, I would have certainly died. Or if I’d somehow lived, I would have just withered away. I can’t even think back to it now without shame—how much cruelty I heaped on them, and for what? For a boy like Jahid! But parents are just like that, aren’t they? They forgive even their children’s murders. Back then, I was certain everything I did was right, and everything my parents said was wrong. So even now, I feel a sharp pain when I think of those days, even though I can barely raise my voice to them anymore. The truth is, you need a certain age to understand anything. Some people reach it early, others late. I was spoiled by too much affection and turned into a brat, so I understood only much later. My parents should have beaten me then—with their own hands, their own sandals—and maybe my life would have turned out better.
# From After the HSC Exam
After the HSC exams, I had to do coaching for university admission. My family wouldn’t let me take coaching anywhere except Cumilla. But on their side, they were going to send her to Dhaka for coaching. I didn’t want her to go to Dhaka. We had quite a lot of trouble over this. Anyway, later—supposedly because of her financial problems—she didn’t go to Dhaka after all. Instead, she got enrolled in the same coaching center as me, in Cumilla, at the same time. In coaching, the two of us would sit next to each other. Back then, I felt like the happiest person in the world.
I only studied what was taught in coaching, and even that, just barely. Anything beyond that—anything I should have studied on my own—I didn’t touch. I was drowning in love. I studied only that much from coaching just to keep face in front of her. But she was cunning. She’d say she didn’t study, but she did, quietly. After enrolling in coaching, I bought almost everything for her—her textbooks, notebooks, food, everything. But I never pressured my father for any of it. I got a small allowance from home. And while I was in college, I received a scholarship, and even after leaving college, I got a decent amount from it. I spent from that. Today I understand: how many boys and girls go to these admission test coaching centers and fall in love, destroying their futures with their own hands—if guardians just kept an eye on things, many wouldn’t end up wandering the streets their whole lives. It’s rare to find someone who fell in love at that age and still managed to build their life at the same time.
She got a scholarship too, though she never even bought me a candy. I never resented that. I was always happy to give, never to take. Then Ramadan came. I paid for her iftar. Then Eid came. I bought her a dress for Eid. Because that Eid, she didn’t get one from home. Though she did—my uncles give me money every year for Eid clothes, and they gave it that year too. I used that money. After Eid she went home. And came back after Eid. After Eid, coaching wasn’t quite the same. Though I can’t even remember when I actually studied properly. Anyway, everything was going well. And then came Eid-ul-Adha. This time she moved out of the mess entirely and went back home. Because she didn’t have the means to stay in the mess. And I didn’t have the capacity to keep her there and manage her studies.
She came back changed from that place. She’d call without warning, never text. She’d drain the phone’s battery with calls, and when I finally answered, she’d say, *What’s this—spending all day on romance? You have to study too. Study hard, eat well, take care of yourself.* How that made me feel—there were no words for it. My eyes would burn, tears gathering at the edges. But I never cried while she was on the line. Only after I hung up. Then I’d cry heavily. The reason was simple: I had become entirely dependent on talking to her. What it felt like not to have that—I couldn’t explain it to anyone. Once you grow used to talking with someone, stepping away from that becomes nearly impossible. And with my heart in pieces, I started treating my parents badly too. Not that I wanted to—it just happened. I felt awful about it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t control my mind from any angle. There were days I’d tell her, *I don’t want anything else. Just one minute. One minute out of your 1440 minutes in a day means everything to me. Give me that, and I’ll be fine. I’ll be able to study.*
Yet she didn’t have a single second for me. It amazed me—the person whose day couldn’t start without my voice, who needed me to send exactly three hundred messages a day to feel right, who’d chase after me like a madman—he suddenly had no minute for me? All this studying—what was it for? Exactly one month before all this happened, she’d opened a Facebook account for me herself. I’d had a button phone back then. I understood nothing about Facebook. And that phone couldn’t really do much anyway. All I’d learned was how to check if someone was online. I didn’t even know how to send a message. Whenever I saw her online, I’d call her. She wouldn’t pick up. It hurt terribly. But even after that, I had no complaints against her. I’d lost the ability to understand what she wanted. I’d gone blind. Yet this very same me—I used to stand up to anyone on the street who bothered me or anyone else. No one dared point a finger at me. How had I become this? I’d stand in front of the mirror and think, *Who am I now?* You know what? Even the most willful girl in the world becomes perfectly obedient to one person. She accepts everything he says. He was that person for me. In all of this, whatever I’d studied, I forgot it all. Why wouldn’t I? Studying is about practice. And I was taking on so much mental pressure without even wanting to. So I forgot everything—my studies, eating, my own life…
Slowly, the date of our admission crept closer. I had bought forms from so many places. I’d even arranged tickets and accommodation for travels to those cities—booked hotels where we had no relatives. Father would go with me. He spared no expense. But fate had other plans: I wasn’t meant to get into university.
Just when I’d steeled myself and begun studying in earnest, an infection flared up in my uterus. High-dose medications followed, and the doctor confined me to complete bed rest. I couldn’t sit for any more entrance exams. But she did. Several universities. And still, she wouldn’t speak to me.
Lying in that bed—God, the agony of it. The physical pain was one thing; the mental torment was another. Together, they reduced me to nothing. When I called, she’d answer sometimes. But she never, ever called me first. She wasn’t getting into any university either. I told myself to be patient—she’s stressed, let it be. But my own heart wouldn’t listen.
Lying in bed constantly—it makes even a healthy person sick. That’s what was happening to me. After she came back from taking her exam at Rajshahi University, I called her one day. She said, “Why are you always calling? I don’t get it! Don’t you have anything to do? Am I supposed to be a bum like you? Aren’t you ashamed?” That did it. My patience shattered like glass. I’d been hearing nothing but the sound of a broken radio, day after day. And now I was suffocating from it all. I said, “What are you saying? You’re always like this. Why? Tell me. What’s the problem?” She said, “Are you blind? Can’t you see I’m giving exams?” I said, “Are you the only one taking exams in the world? Why are you like this?” Then she started: “You’re driving me crazy. I don’t like any of this.” I felt then like the whole world revolved around me. I said naturally, “After all these years, you think *I’m* the one driving *you* crazy?” She said, “Yes. Look, just be normal for once. I need to tell you something serious.”
*(To be continued)*