Unreachable

The past three years of our marriage have been like a long road trip in Bangladesh. You start off in the jammed city not knowing why and what is happening then you start coasting on a highway enjoying the speed and suddenly the bumps show up making you question everything all over again. Except road trips have destinations. As I arranged the tiny table on our balcony for a candlelit dinner, I wondered where ours was leading.
Rashna and I met several years ago, after my best friend Wahab died. We properly talked after his funeral when she was crying on the swing in his balcony. I was the only one apart from her who was close to my best friend. My presence in the balcony turned the waterworks up one notch further. One thing lead to another and what started as a comforting session turned into meeting up again with the excuse to talk about Wahab and not talking about Wahab when we did. Repeatedly. Either he's up there feeling stabbed in the back or he's testing the limits of his immortal liver now that it can't kill him anymore. Probably the latter.
She used to feel guilty about dating me once upon a time. But dead people fade away leaving only the positives behind. We were together for seven months before our parents decided that we're meant to be. It's rare but it happens, trust me. I am 31 and she's 29; I run a chain of successful restaurants and she's in a high-tier job that boils down to selling cigarettes. The two of us have our priorities straight. We know where work, family and friends lie and we never bother each other regarding those.
It's strange how the tiniest of her smiles brought so much happiness. Our kisses would brush off the stress and just make us one. Her thin, frail frame fit snugly into my arms as if the heavens crafted us. The smell of our skins touching at night would leave me in a daze for hours afterwards.
As I fix the position of the wine glass just right, I ask myself again why I am making sure all aspects are perfect to the nth degree. She wouldn't really notice. No one would. I guess it must be the OCD. After all, it is her birthday and everything has to be flawless.
“Oh my god, you did not just do this!” exclaimed Rashna.
“Well, I realised that a candlelit dinner was the only thing that was left for us,” I replied.
“I always wanted this! How did you know I wanted this?” squealed Rashna as she kissed my cheek.
“In all honesty, it actually was the only thing we didn't do yet. Next year, I'm just buying you flowers,” I actually replied in all honesty. She laughed.
The dinner was as dinners go except for the way it looked. We lived in one of the new residential neighbourhoods in Dhaka and we had a quaint little two-storey house. It was a late-Autumn night and the air was beginning to host its first chills. I turned out the electricity of our entire house and having the loadshedding schedule helped make things better. We were bathed in darkness apart from the candlelight revealing our faces and blending her black cocktail dress into the background. This felt like the movies, just how I wanted it to be like.
We laughed about the days we dated. We spoke a little about Wahab. We recalled the tough times. We recalled our love. We looked into each other's eyes and exchanged I love yous and we felt our souls touch each other. I did love this woman through and through and there was no doubt about her love for me.
“You know I'd do anything for you, love,” I looked into her eyes and said.
“I know, babe.” She took her eyes off me and sipped her drink.