Chapter 2
Treatment began quietly.
Maya told the school she needed medical leave.
She told Arjun she needed space.
He was confused.
Then hurt.
Then defensive.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It means I can’t do this right now.”
“Do what?”
“Us.”
He stared at her across their bedroom.
Maya had already begun losing weight.
Her hair was still long then.
She wore it in a braid so he would not notice how much was coming out in the shower.
Arjun stepped closer.
“Maya, talk to me.”
She wanted to fall into him.
Instead, she stepped back.
“I don’t want to be married anymore.”
His face changed.
The sentence broke something in him immediately.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Because I may die.
Because I may never give you children.
Because your mother said I would ruin you.
Because I am terrified you will stay out of pity and resent me later.
Because I love you so much I am making the cruelest mistake of my life.
But she said none of that.
She said, “I’m not happy.”
Arjun left the room.
Not the house.
Not yet.
The room.
He came back two hours later, eyes red.
“Is there someone else?”
Maya almost laughed because the truth was so much worse.
“No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because I want out.”
That was the lie he believed.
Because it was the only lie she gave him.
Devika helped make the divorce happen quickly.
Too quickly.
She called it mercy.
She found the lawyer.
She told Maya that a clean break would “spare everyone prolonged pain.”
She told Arjun that Maya seemed “emotionally unreachable” and that sometimes women leave when they discover marriage is not romantic anymore.
Arjun was angry enough to listen.
Maya was sick enough to surrender.
The settlement was simple.
No house fight.
No spousal support battle.
No dramatic accusations.
Maya took half of what she was legally owed and used much of it for treatment, rent, transportation, and medical bills after insurance gaps began appearing.
Arjun moved out first.
He packed silently.
Maya stood in the hallway, one hand pressed against the wall because chemo had started two days earlier and her knees kept trembling.
He looked at her once before leaving.
“If you ever loved me, you could have told me the truth.”
She almost did.
Right then.
But he had already picked up the suitcase.
His eyes were full of pain.
And Maya, terrified he would stay only because she was ill, let him walk out.
The door closed.
She slid to the floor and vomited into a towel because she could not reach the bathroom in time.
That was the end of their marriage.
Not in court.
In that hallway.
Arjun spent the next two years building a version of Maya he could survive.
A colder Maya.
A selfish Maya.
A woman who had fallen out of love and refused to explain.
It helped.
At first.
Anger gave him structure.
He worked more.
Slept less.
Told friends the divorce was “mutual” because saying abandoned made him feel weak.
Devika told him he had been lucky.
“She would have drained your life,” she said once.
Arjun looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
His mother paused.
Then said, “Emotionally.”
He let the answer pass.
That was his second failure.
Not asking again.
Meanwhile, Maya lived in treatment rooms.
Infusion chairs.
Cold blankets.
Antiseptic smells.
She shaved her head after the second cycle because watching hair fall in clumps felt more violent than choosing the razor herself.
The nurse cried with her.
Maya did not.
Not then.
She folded her hair into a paper bag and threw it away before she could turn it into a memorial.
Some days she felt brave.
Most days she felt tired.
Her art students sent cards.
Miss you, Ms. M.
Come back soon.
I painted a dragon because you said dragons are just lizards with confidence.
Maya taped them to her apartment wall.
No photos of Arjun.
She put those in a box.
But she did not throw them away.
Love, like illness, leaves traces even when you try to clean the room.
The first remission came after eight months.
Then relapse.
Then stronger treatment.
Then more hospital stays.
By the time Arjun found her in the corridor, Maya had stopped thinking of herself as someone with a future.
She thought in appointments.
Lab results.
Side effects.
Days when soup stayed down.
Days when it did not.
She was sitting outside the infusion unit that afternoon because the room was too warm and she needed air.
Arjun was not supposed to be there.
He had come to the hospital to visit a coworker whose newborn was in the neonatal unit. The visitor bag contained a stuffed bear, a card, and a package of chocolate muffins he had bought in the lobby.
Ordinary kindness.
Wrong corridor.
May you like
Right time.
Or maybe the kind of accident life creates after people have made enough wrong choices.
