FALLING BACK

The pattern of going back to our toxic exes can push us into an endless loop of pain – three people give us a r ingside view into their journeys

- ARMAN KHAN

In a narrow escarpment of a rugged valley along the central Deccan region, nearly a hundred kilometres away from Andhra Pradesh, Sunaina* met Kinshuk* in a rather awkward state: He was crouched over boulders. Both geologists by profession, it was perhaps the best and most predictable way they could’ve met.

“Just to see him examine minerals with the tip of his jaded pencil was cute enough for me,” she says. “It was almost like seeing an adorable creature in their natural habitat.”

The months that followed had all the makings of a fairy-tale love story straight out of a Mills & Boon paperback – dates that became special with every passing day, the way their little bedroom games would nourish them, and flowers, flowers.

“It took me a while to understand how deeply manipulative he was,” recounts Sunaina. “He would bury me under gifts and for him, that was the license to not tell me anything at all about his life.”

When Sunaina confronted Kinshuk, after a heated argument, he simply flung a burning pan at her in the kitchen, nearly causing a deep gash around her neck. Somehow, she’d expected this. The signs were always there – the mutedly aggressive behaviour in the restaurant when the order didn’t come on time, or how the Indian cricket team losing a match would quite literally destabilise him.