Page 203 - The World's Best Boyfriend

Aranya. We both have things to do and places to go to. We can’t be stopping
each other. There will be a time I will be a dead weight to you, a professor you

were probably infatuated with, someone you thought you loved, someone who
could fill up something in your life at that point in time. Or it could be the other

way around. I have seen how attachments can lead you astray and I don’t want
that to happen with you. Or with me. It happened to me once and look how it
ended for me. You need to make your own mistakes and I will not be one of the
mistakes you make, Aranya. You shouldn’t go down the path I have gone. If

you’re with me, you will give the relationship everything that you’ve got and
leave your ambition behind, something that I did too and I don’t want you to do

that. There will be a time you will realize that love’s tiring and worthless.
Relationships need to be worked at. They are hard work and there are a lot of
compromises to be made. And I don’t want you to do it and I don’t want to do it
either. When it comes to relationships, pragmatism trumps love. You are too

young to understand that.’
‘You could have asked once what I wanted?! You never asked. You never

asked!’ Aranya hyperventilated. She stood up and walked around the room
holding her head mumbling to herself. ‘You will be a dead weight some day? I
will leave you? What’s all this? Why? How would I leave you? What? You’re

my professor? Am I in this room? You wanted to be with me? What? This is a
nightmare. This is a very bad joke. This is a very bad joke. Why are you saying
all this? Why are you saying this? Don’t say this. Just shut up! Why!’ She was

crying into her palms now. Her shoulders heaved with every snort.
‘I’m not joking. And I didn’t need to ask you. I know how much you look up
to me. I have been in your place. I have looked up to my professors, even loved

them. But that’s all they were. And you know what people say about me, right?
Of course you know about Smriti and the other PhD students? What’s to say I
wouldn’t do that again, huh? I can’t promise that to you. What will happen if I

stray? Love’s too risky, too complicated, Aranya, and maybe it’s not love at all.’
‘We could give it a shot? Make rules and stick by them? Be pragmatic as you
said? Couldn’t we? And you said love and relationships are a compromise,

didn’t you? You could choose to not have any more Smritis and I could choose
to still pursue my ambitions and so could you and we could be together! Unless
you’re joking. If you are, then I didn’t say what I just did.’

Raghuvir took a long pause as if thinking about it. They had laid out their
cards on the table. ‘That night when you were drunk, you talked about Dhruv.’