My Breakup Story

 The flowers look at the sky, taking in the splendid brightness of the sunlight while the birds and bees buzz around busily, hunting the sweetest nectar from the prettiest flowers. I step out on my balcony, the breeze blows across my face and brings with it the mesmerizing scent of primroses growing in my garden. The smell of the soil, still damp from last night’s drizzle, floats up to my nose.  I close my eyes and let my body feel the pleasure of and warmth radiating in the atmosphere. Spring—my favorite season—has begun.

Plock! A big ball of wet mud hits me in the face and snaps me back to my senses. I hear shrieks and laughter and see a group of naughty children running and hiding behind the bushes in my garden.

“Get out of there you punks! I’ll whip you if you don’t leave my garden this instant!” I hollered at them from my balcony.

“I bet chyoo can’t never whip us harder than that Lilly girl,” one of the boys said, followed by roars of laughter from his friends.

I opened my mouth to hurl abuses at them but they were already running away. I promptly shut my mouth and went back inside. God only knows why that group of kids loved bullying me so. But that was nowhere as important as compared to the grave issue that had now begun troubling my mind: Lilly.

Lilly is the name of my girlfriend. Last week when she had come over, we got into an argument about her hair.

“Do you like my new haircut, baby?” she asked me.

“You look great with short hair. I love it,” I lied. She looked hideous with short hair. Not that she looked any better when her hair was longer, she just looked a little less hideous with long hair.

“Do you mean you didn’t like me with long hair?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“I loved the long hair as well.”

“Do you mean I made a mistake by deciding to get this haircut?”

Oh, no. Shit, what do I say!

What ensued was a long argument where Lilly fired bullets of accusations at me. How dare you call me ugly! Look at your face first. You look like a potato. You always neglect me! You don’t care about me at all! I’m the best girlfriend ever and you’re the worst BF ever! You should be grateful you have me, but I’ve never seen a person as arrogant and difficult to put up with as yourself!

The barrage of insults was followed by Lilly driving me out to my balcony with a ruler in her hand and hitting me mercilessly while the group of naughty kids in my neighborhood, who happened to be playing outside at this very moment, laughed so hard, they had tears in their eyes.

I have been thinking about breaking up with her for a long time now. I had made a promise to myself to do it on the first day of spring. Today is the day. I pick up my phone and quickly text Lilly the time and place where I wanted to meet her today. Once I hit send, my body shudders with fear. Am I finally going to do this?

 “You can do this”, I whisper to myself and check my watch. I am sitting at a table in ‘Garry’s diner’, waiting for Lily to show up. She is always late for every date that we’ve gone on.

 I have been dating Lily for the past one year. I was heads over heels for her in the beginning but now I feel that my infatuation for her is wearing off. Also, I am studying to become a dermatologist, and my parents want me to focus on my studies. Lily is a huge distraction and a burden. She wants us to have a perfect relationship with zero loopholes. She wants me to come up with creative names for her like- sweetpea, pumpkin, cutie Koala, honeyjam, candygirl, sugar-coated jellybean, etc. She wants us to celebrate our anniversary every week on Friday and the 13^th of every month, the day and date respectively when we went on our first date. To say nothing of her birthday, when I have to stay up till midnight to wish her. And despite the meager salary I earn by working as a cashier in the supermarket, I must give her a gift every time we celebrate anything. Whether it is our anniversary or her uncle’s brother-in-law’s mother’s dog’s birthday. Failure in getting her a gift means facing wrath more disastrous than even what was suffered by Adam and Eve when they took a bite of the fruit of the Forbidden Tree. Oh, and did I mention Lily forced me to go to the gym, build six-pack abs and also learn to say ‘I love you’ in a hundred different languages?  The past year with my girlfriend has been so exhausting that I can almost say that I’ve undergone rigorous training from Lily and perfected the art of being the best boyfriend. I could also quite easily climb the ladder to success by authoring a book which I would title—The Complete Guide to Pleasing your GF, all thanks to Lily. So breaking up with Lily is the only solution to my problems of depletion of grades, monthly salary, and mental peace.

Finally, after waiting for a million hours, a.k.a., two hours, Lilly walks in through the door of the café, spots the table I am sitting at and walks over. She comes to the table, smiles at me and I smile back. But she doesn’t sit. “Oh, sorry”, I mutter, getting up from my seat and pulling her chair back for her to sit. Oh crap, I’d decided I won’t do that! PDA of any form is one of her top priorities. “Hello my lil’ dumpling!” she says. “Hi Lily,” I reply, taking care not to smile too much. She stares at me through her narrowed eyes. “Why are you calling me Lily, my dear dumpling? This is your dumpling week and my doughnut week. Call me doughnut to prove your affection,” she says with an eyebrow raised. I swallow hard and do what she says.

“Hello Doughnut. How’ve you been?”

“Oh, dear Dumpling! I’m sick of you hurting my soft heart time and again with your lethal words and actions. You forgot to put ‘my’ before doughnut. This two-letter word might not be as important as my ruby-sapphire jewelry set, but it is still necessary for you to say it so I know you need me in your life. Got it? Oh, and I also wouldn’t mind if you add ‘dear’ for some extra love.” There is a smile on her lips but her eyes are dripping fury.

“Hey, MY DEAR doughnut,” I say almost instantly, in an intimidated fashion. WTF, I’m here to dump her, not be her dumpling!

“Much better. I’m impressed.”

A short description of the word ‘impressed’—the toughest word to get out of Lily’s mouth.   

“So, have u ordered anything?” she asks, picking up the menu when the tensed aura between us finally relaxes. “Um...no. I was waiting for you,” I tell her. I want to tell her how horrible it feels to sit and wait for someone, but I stay shut up. I don’t want to go home with bruises all over me and 100 broken bones.

“Waiter! Get me this chocolate lava cake.” Lily orders her all-time favorite.

“What about you, sir?” the waiter asks, writing down Lily’s order.

“Um…I think I want….”

“He will also have the same. Please bring it quick. I am famished” Lilly tells the waiter, giving me a you-dare-not-like-what-I-order look.

Once the waiter leaves, I tell myself in my mind, ‘Don’t be a scary chicken! Just tell her. Blurt it out! How much longer will you let her boss over you?’ And before I open my mouth, I pray to God inwardly, ‘oh god, please let today not be the day I meet you’.

“Lilly”, I muster my courage, “there’s something important you need to know”.

“Here’s your cakes, sir, and madam. Enjoy,” the waiter says, placing the cakes on the table. Stupid interrupting waiter!

Lilly immediately dives into her cake and takes a bite. “Hmm….scrumptious!” she exclaims.  She’s hardly chewed any of it when her face contorts into a look of disgust. She picks up a tissue and removes what was in her mouth. I do a double-take when I see what came in the tissue. The most unexpected, absurd and bizarre thing happens. I almost fall out of my chair. My head starts spinning. I feel like I just got tossed in front of oncoming traffic. My organs are bursting.  It feels as if someone had struck me with a huge gong or pulled the rug out from beneath my feet.

A gleaming diamond ring is what I see in the tissue!!

As for Lilly, her obnoxious expression changes into one of utmost delight, mirth, and merriment. “Yes! Yes! I say yes, Zach! Let’s get married!” She gets up from her chair and starts gyrating around me, while I sit with my shoulders slumped. My eyes hollow, staring into the vacuum around me devoid of terrestrial emotion, burn. Lilly tugs at my arms, telling me to dance with her. I stare at her, laughing and singing, and have an epiphany. A tiny moment of realization and revelation from a supernatural entity. A moment of divine intervention. The Almighty guides me to do what I do next. I jerk my arm away with sudden vehemence and summon the waiter. “What is this?” I snatch the ring from Lilly’s hands and hold it up in the waiter’s face. “What was this doing in the cake?” I bellow. The waiter feels his groin become hot and realizes he wet his pants. “B….but….sir you…you”, he stutters.

“Open that damned mouth and speak!” I scream.

“Hey you!” a man from the other end of the hall hollers. “I asked you to put a diamond ring in the lava cake I ordered. Where the devil is it?” the waiter looks at him and turns back to me with a petrified look. He wets himself again.

“What the hell is going on here? Zach, you didn’t put this ring in here? But I love it so much!” Lilly speaks for the first time since I had my heavenly vision. 

“No, I didn’t Lilly!” I tell her, astonished at the audacity with which I was speaking to her.

The man from the other end of the café walks over to our table. “Er….actually things have not gone very well with me. My girlfriend just broke up with me. And it seems to me that you like the ring, don’t you, er…Lilly?” He grabs the ring from my hand and offers it to her, looking uncertain. Lilly immediately takes it from him, looks at me with a pretentious remorseful expression and says, “Zach, I know that this separation from me will have a devastating impact on you. You will miss me awfully and try desperately to get back with me, but honey, don’t worry. Time is the best healer. You will eventually move on. Don’t weep too much for me, okay? This break up is going to be the most terrible thing that has ever happened to you, I know. I’m sure it will take a toll on your mental health. But I’ve found my Prince Charming. Do come to our wedding, though!” she said and walked out of the café hand in hand with the other man.