He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair 
The one thing that she couldn't get over about him was the fact that he could read her so well, he understood all that she said when she didn't speak, he knew the language of her eyes, the language of her body, the unspoken language, the language which had no words, the language which didn't have a language. He knew it, understood it. Communicated in it. She had had admirers and she had had men in her life too. She knew she wasn't a success as far as relationships went, she would always find a reason why the man was wrong for her and why the relationship should end, yes she was the one who ended it everytime. She walked out, ditched men, dumped them. She was the woman in control. But she had loved them all. In her own way. They had accused her of being selfish but she didn't mind that.
Raghav's entry into her life had been much like the person he was. Unobtrusive, unremarkable and quiet. He worked at her office. The office she had been working at for 1 year. He had been there all along. Much before she joined. Much before any one she knew joined. She noticed him the time she had gone to the cafe to grab a cup of coffee the day after  Matilla had died. Matilla, her pet fish, the keeper of her secrets. She had been up all night. No she had not mourned the death of Matilla. She had mourned the dilution of her secrets.
Somehow the fish with its golden skin had inspired confidence in her like no one had ever before. She felt she could tell her everything and she had. That night when Matilla died she had sat by the window and stared at the night sky. It had been dark, mirroring  what she had felt inside.She wanted to sleep but sleep didn't come.
She was wide awake when the sky changed colors and the darkness melted into the reds and then into the blinding bright light of day.
The day in office had been busy but she was still a little unsettled. Her mind was still on her secrets that had died with Matilla. She had walked into the cafe, absent mindedly picked her cup and started back towards her cabin when she realised she had forgotten to pick her wallet from the counter. She turned back and there he had been standing, with his hand out stretched, her wallet in his hand. He looked at her as if he understood why she was absent minded, as if he understood how unsettling it was to have lost all her secrets the night before. As if he understood every dilemma, every confusion, every damn thought that had ever crossed her mind.
And that understanding had been his passport into her life.As he was not like any of the men she had ever dated or had a relationship with. She didn't know much about him, except the bare minimum, which department he worked for and which bike he drove. It was this bike of his for which she had forgone her car so many times. His rugged, rickety bike. So much like him. Puny, malnutritioned.
Thus had started their relationship. It was queer. She didn't think it was friendship. No friendship was not what she could use to describe it. They were not lovers. She had let him into her life and made him a part of it but she didn't know what to call it. Yes he had taken up Matilla's position as the keeper of her secrets but he also did things which Matilla never had. He had always been there when she needed him. He brought her coffee just when she felt the urge for caffeine, he was around to take her anyplace she wanted to go. He got her medicines. He was there, just always there and the thing that she loved about him apart from the fact that he could uncannily understand her was she could be her own selfish self with him. She felt unapologetic when it was always about her. She never asked him much about himself, he didn't volunteer and it suited her fine.
Office gossip did not bother her. Actually gossip never bothered her. She had been rebellious from the very beginning. She had lost her virginity at 13, just the day after her mom had given her an awkward lecture about the birds and the bees. And she had done it just to spite her. She could never take any lecturing of any kind. Lectures on morality, values had always made her do just the opposite. And she had done just that. With her maths tutor. The experience had been unsavory but that's not what she had done it for. She had done it prove that it was she who was in charge of her life and no one told her what to do. And this was the thing she liked about Raghav as well. He never ever told her what to do. Not even when she asked him. At times it irked her but mostly she loved it.
And now when he was gone she realised how many things about him she had really loved. The last time she had seen him was when she had said she wanted to have raju da's kachoris.He had as ususal not commented but she knew he would get them for her. But that evening he wasn't there when she was about to leave office. He didn't keep a mobile phone so she couldn't call him. She had never had the need to call him, he was always there. This was unusual for him but she was not the type to get hassled over people not showing up. She had assumed he was busy somewhere.
As the days passed without any communication from him  she started missing him  but mostly she missed being herself when he was with her. Unapologetically herself.
She had not liked the fact that it was he who had walked out on her taht was what she attributed his absence to, but more than than that what bothered her was she knew she wouln't find him again. Not him, not a replacement either.
She sometimes wondered why he had left her. She even went to the extent of expecting an explanation but then again that was highly uncharacteristic of her. He had technically not left her. He had just stopped coming to office. She had enquired with the HR and they didn't have a clue. She realised then how very little she had known about him. She started playing the last 8 months in her mind. And she started seeing herself like she never had before and she didn't always like herself there. She started discovering more about him in his absence than when he was there with her. She missed having him around terribly mostly because life was so convenient with him around. She realised that he never drank coffee. He had never eaten chicken, eggs or fish. So he must have been vegetarian. He always wore a jacket. She brooded over the fact that he had indeed changed her in a way no one ever had.Without the power of words. Without even trying. The more she dwelt on her time spent with him the more she kept learning about him and somewhere this had also made her more sensitive now to people around her. She could feel the insouciance in her slowly ebbing. She was changing. Not that she had ever been ashamed of the way she was but she was liking the change becoming her. And all this he had achieved without words. With the language that just he understood, the language of silence.
She had taken his address from the HR and had kept in her wallet, the same one he had held out that day 8 months back. She had it now for 2 weeks and finally she decided to pay him a visit. She had earlier decided against it, thinking it was he who should have told her where and for how long he would be gone but for the first time in her life she swept her ego aside and went to the place where he lived.
It was a nondescript locality and he lived on the third floor. The building reeked of decay and she didn't want to spend any more time here than was necessary. She had already begun regretting her decision to come here.
She knocked on the door of the flat which was supposedly his. She didn't receive any answer. She knocked once more and when there was no reply she turned to go when a lady from the neighboring flat peeped out of her door asking her who she was. She said she had come looking for Raghav. The lady asked her if she knew anyone who could come and take away his belongings from the house. The owner was waiting for someone from his family to show up before throwing his things out.His neighbors obviously knew nothing about where he had worked or what he did for a living, who his family were. She asked why the owner wanted to throw his things and the lady told her that Raghav had died in a bike accident a few weeks back. It was a bad accident, His head had been crushed under the tyres of a truck. She added that they didn't find any wallet  or identification papers on him,and funnily enough just a packet of kachoris.
She said she knew nobody from his family. She was not his friend but from a bank he had applied to for a loan. She left immediately from that place. It was getting unbearable to stand there. She headed home but on the way she bought another pet fish, one that looked just like Matilla.