What do these things have in common?

- A Cheesy Instagram 'quotes' page.

- Your favourite romance movie that they've played in the local cable channel for about two thousand times already where the leads break up almost twenty times (bonus-includes an airport scene).

- Your grandma's love advice.

Hint: Starts with C, ends with RINGE.

 ANSWER: Cringe.

What everyone tells you about love:

Love is blind. Love is being together with the one you love. Love is constantly thinking about that person. Love is going through happiness, sorrows and disappointments. Love is constantly overcoming new phases in your life together with a severity of bravery that you normally wouldn't expect alone.

What no one tells you about love:

Love is also sticking together and still being in love despite many effing cringy moments.

Moments so cringe, you'd feel your tooth grinding together.

And since Rudhra was, well Rudhra, and I was, me, we had so many constant cringe moments that we'd forget, if we could. But since, we were us, we used them as weapons to our advantage.

"Sams, I love you." Rudhra said, as he watched the Discovery channel. Ever since we were engaged, he just seemed to never get out of my house and caused trouble everyday.

But huhhh? What was with his spontaneous declaration of love? Was it random? Maybe the devil did have tact and manners?

"I love you too." I said, simply because I was curious as to what he was up to.

"Okay. But are you sure you're saying that to me?" He grinned, and his horrible devil smile took up the corners of his mouth.

Ohmy gawwd! This horrible baiter! I cringed at the memory.

Okay, to be honest. I'd done the first major screw up. It all began on a lazy Saturday morning at the checkout of the local supermarket, when all of sudden my mind decided I wasn't reading enough literature and my eyes began to wander to the ladies' magazines section.

Women's World: How to keep your partner in the palm of your hand- A women's day month special edition

Naturally I was instantly captivated. I bought it.

However, much to my dismay, it didn't contain pranks or tomfoolery tricks like I had hoped, but had normie stuff like:

1. Kiss your partner as much as you can

2. Say you love them as much as you can

3. Speak out your feelings as much as you can

4. Forgive and forget as much as you can

'Blah blah blah' as much as you can.

In short, I had spent two hundred rupees for five words 'as much as you can' (which were the exact same words my mom used when she asked for money, and I asked 'how much')

It blew my mind that someone would actually write this, and someone like me had actually bought this. Nevertheless, I decided to follow the advice because of the bucks spent. Besides, the glossy paper seemed pretty useful to wrap up snacks in case we went to the beach or something.

So, anyway, I decided to follow one of the 'advice', which was- send flirty, sexy and playful messages to your partner. And since the writers were kind enough to think about people like me, they included some sample ones as well.

I want to kiss you until you run out of oxygen.

Pass.

Your lips are sweeter than honey.

Eww. Pass

I want to push you against the wall and kiss your sweet lips until you run out of oxygen.

Wow. A combination of 1&2? Count me in!

So that was exactly what I typed, and I double checked and added the correct emojis etc etc. An perfect plan. One message and that boy was soon going to be in the palm of my hand! How glorious. He was going to fall at my feet! I was going to be Supreme leader Sams!

That was what I thought.

Instead I'd sent it to Rudhra's mom.

(0_0)

Cringe.

Which was only a little cringe when one considered the rest of the conversation:

Rudhra's mom: Did you send it to me by mistake, dear?

Me being the dumb me. The dumb, stupid me. Idiot me who never admitted a mistake, made it worse.

Me: No.

AHHH shut up, idiot me!

Rudhra's mom: Really?

Me: By that message, I meant that if you ever faint or collapse, I'll perform CPR on you aunty. I'll save your life haha. JK. hehe

Rudhra's mom: Nice try, LOL.

Cue melodramatic Indian soap opera sad music.

Nooo ohmaigawd.

I cringed at the memory again.

"Why? Rudhra, why? Why do have to remind me those awful things?"

"For my entertainment."

"Of course."

I had nothing on him, I was utterly defeated. "You look ugly" was all I could manage, which, let's face it, was a pretty lame comeback.

________

Later that week, we were at my sister's MIL's house, for she had invited Rudhra and I over to dinner.

"For goodness' sake, behave abnormally okay?" I said to him.

"Uh, don't you mean 'normally'?" My sister interjected.

"I know, but if I say that, he'd deliberately behave abnormally. So I just want him to behave normally."

"But what if he knows you said that deliberately and hence proceeds to behave abnormally in order to fool you because you said to behave normally?" She asked.

"Yeah, in that case, he'd know I asked him specifically, and keep wondering what the deal is about behaving abnormal, that he'd behave normal."I said.

"I don't know, dude, for all I know.." My sister had begun but to our surprise Rudhra had taken a step ahead of us and greeted her MIL.

"This is a lovely house. The curtains match the windows very well" He said.

She blushed, and waved her hand as though it was nothing, and as though he had several other talents up her sleeve.

"Oh, I just try. My hobbies are interior decoration and cooking." She said.

Upon hearing the word 'cooking' Rudhra's face broke into a huge grin, but I could already see the devil smile behind it.

"Really? I can't wait! " He said.

"And I can't wait to serve you now! I love to cook for my son, but he's in the merchant navy and when ever he visits, his wife, would rather have him cook, than her." She said, while looking at my sister with a pointed glance.

Haha I really enjoyed this.

"Don't worry aunty, I am your son too." Rudhra said casually as though he'd been saying this his whole life.

Whaaat? Dude was as fake as one could get.

On the other hand, the aunty was touched.

"I know, dear." She said, looking at him fondly with starry eyes. "Sams is so lucky to have you. The two of you make such a wonderful couple."

"Not as wonderful as the two of you, aunty." He said, pointing to uncle who was in the corner of the house watching some parliamentary debate who looked he'd rather be anywhere alone than with youngsters(he'd dashed off as soon as we'd greeted hellos), and especially, youngsters like us who were loud and catty.

"Oh, stop."

"It's true."

"Isn't."

"Really." He said.

My sister leaned in closer to me. "Oh my god! He's trying the STEP!"

"STEP?"

"STEP, dude. Sweet Talk=Extra Portions. You know when you sweet talk a person to get extra portion of stuffs?"

"Is that legitimately a thing? Haha." I said.

"Do you really think grandma fed those extra pedas that she bought from Delhi, to the dog?" My sister asked me, looking straight in the face.

"You horrible, horrible sister!"

Meanwhile, aunty and Rudhra were in their own world, and I heard aunty say "I hope you like continental-mediterranean."

"I love it!" He exclaimed and grinned at me.

He had no idea what that was.

Stawwp.

"Come have a seat, dear." She told him. "Here, you can sit here too." She told me.

She laid down the plates and the three of us waited in anticipation. I didn't care that she didn't love me, as long as she had some pretty good food. If my sister's accounts about her cooking were to be true, this was bound to be a magnificient feast.

"I made some aubergines with sun dried tomatoes and ricotta cheese! I hope you like them!" She called out from the kitchen.

"I love them!" He said to her.

"Wuts aubergines?" He asked me in a low voice.

Before I could say anything, his question was answered by the universe itself when she placed three plates with ginormous aubergines in a sea of white sauce.

"Brinjals, eggplants." I told him . "Whatever you wanna call it."

His jaw fell from the shock, and it was literally the funniest thing ever.

"Bbrinja...als?" He stuttered.

Cos the only thing that Mr Rudhra, gym trainer and amateur DOTA player, full time devil, and pro-level idiot, couldn't ever eat, was them eggplants.

She served each one of us one brinjal each on our plates artistically, with a little olive to its side, and their stalk pointed towards the ceiling.

"Well?" She asked.

"Looks yummy." I said genuinely. Cos unlike some weird people, I could eat everything, and I was famished.

"Let me get you guys something to drink." She declared, and scurried off to the kitchen.

Rudra looked at me pleadingly. "No way, dude." I said, and began eating.

Rudhra turned to my sister. " You're not just her sister, but mine- " He began

"You reap what you sow, unkil." She said, turning her plate away from him.

He looked up and down like a confused alcoholic who suddenly wakes up from his drunkeness and has no concept of where he is what he's supposed to do.

And then he did it.

He picked up the spoon and began to pick up little bits of whatever was on his plate onto mine, but I picked up my plate high in the air and continued to eat.

He flexed his arm, rotated his wrist and picked up the knife and flung the brinjal up in the air.

And then time passed by in slo-mo.

The brinjal passed over the giant casserole dish and over the little flower vase. It flew over my plate and over me as we all looked horrified with widened eyes.

It landed perfectly in the middle of the room, with little damage to its structure, the stalk pointing upwards, and its fat oval body on the ground, a thing of rare beauty. It was as if the centre of the universe was not somewhere in the in centre of the universe anymore, but here under this majestic brinjal. The brinjal stood regally, refusing to bow to anyone, and it was as though the Cartesian lines were emanating from it, and space and time and laws of physics were its slaves. Life forms, scientific inventions and discoveries were all created throughout the history of time for this one moment.

"What- is this? Do you not like brinjals, son?" She said, coming from behind us, before we could even collect our thoughts. "Did you throw it away?"

"That...brinj..." Rudhra stuttered. "I..."

"I hate them, aunty." I spoke up. " Somehow my hand slipped and this brinjal ended up like this. I am really really sorry." I said, though I wasn't sorry at all. I just didn't want Rudhra to go through anything awkward. Besides, she adored him.

I adored him too.

He looked at me with a dash of red on his ears.

"No, no, no. She's lying to save me. I am the one who hates them." Rudhra said. This idiot!

"It's me. He's dumb." I told her.

"She's the dumb one. I am the one who accidentally threw this brinjal."

"Only a dumb person would throw a brinjal onto the ground so it's definitely me." I said.

"What's with the horrible reasoning, it's clearly the other way around!"

The lady cleared her throat with a dignity. I mean, if it were me, I'd just sound like the bleating of a goat. Anyway, she cleared her throat.

"Should we examine the CCTV camera, children? To find out who did it?" She asked us.

We looked at her, horrified.

"It was a joke, dears." She giggled. "The both of you are pretty funny right now, making funny shocked faces."

"Sorry. We aren't a comedy couple." Rudhra said. "We're double devils."

My sister snorted. All this drama and she was right there, simply eating, fading into the back ground.

"Anyway, we're sorry. We won't say which one of us did it, but we're sorry." I said, while Rudhra nodded his head in affirmation.

The aunty looked pleased actually. "You know what, kids? That's how a good couple should be. I am so proud that the two of you found each other, and recognise each other's strengths. I hope the two of you are forever united, no matter what the obstacle is."

How beautiful. We nodded faithfully.

"And you know what? The eggplants were just the first course. There's briyani and dessert actually."

My sister, Rudhra and I almost yelled with suprise. " There's briyani?"

"Yep. Now, can the two of you please help me clean it? I have things to do in the kitchen, haha."

Whaaat.

Rudhra and I stared at each other for a few moments.

The one who said it first won.

The one who said it first won.

3

4

1

"She did it!"

"He did it!"

Lady was completely fed up with our antics.

___________

"That auntie was so disappointed in us towards the end." Rudhra said, as we were back to our house. Mine actually, since he never had the tact to leave.

"Not us. You. You are a disappointment."

"You're a bigger disappointment. What were you thinking, sticking up for me like that? "

"I love you. "

Rudhra's face contorted into a comical mixture of embarrassment and surprise as usual. As long as I had my weapon Rudhra Surprise- Attack Mode IV, there was nothing to be afraid of.

"This is cheating." He whispered.

"Deal with it, beta."

He pushed me gently towards the wall, and looked me in the eyes.

"Say something nice to me." I said,  remembering some lines from the  godforsaken magazine I'd bought.

" You look nice."

"Not that. In fact, say something that's not nice."

"Is this a paradox question? Hehe." He asked me..

"Something dirty."I said.

His visible shock made him go still for a full twenty seconds. He better come up with something good.

"You ss..."

I could see that that was above what he was capable of. His brain had shut down.

I placed a hand on him comfortingly that he could let go if he wanted, however he waved it off like he was sure he could do it. Because once challenged, he'd never back down.

"You ss..."

"Mmm-hmm?" I enquired, in what I hoped was a seductive voice

"You stupid..."

This guy.

I died. Then and there.

I'd never laughed so much in my life.

Cringemaxx. Hilariousmax.

"This shall never be spoken of, ever again." He declared.

"Only if you stop talking about that CPR message ."

"Deal?"

"Deal."

And then we hugged and made up and had fun, starring in to the sky through out windows, marvelling at how wonderful the moon was in the night sky.

Life would always be life, and the myriad things that one goes through is always overwhelming. However it would always get better. Because when you have someone to go through every day cringe, it's not so bad at all.

"You know what? The moon is not pure white, it's a bit dirty."

"And it doesn't have oxygen so one requires CPR."

You see, cringe moments are not so bad at all, especially when we could use it to our advantage.

___

___

Author's note:

I apologise for this long chapter. I feel that my writing has become a bit rusty.

I feel like I need to explain to you guys about my long break from wattpad.

I mean, I could write whole paragraphs of why I couldn't write, but I think it all comes down to one word: anxiety.

I dedicate this chapter to everyone who's believed in me. But especially to my dearest friend, cheerleader, and overall  awesome dostu pinkprettydoll. Girl, words can't describe how much you motivate me!

DM me your thoughts about this chapter or anything in general.

May the force be with you.

Tanks & luv & peas