‘We are closing this store and This is the only one that is left’ the elderly man said, adjusting his glasses with one hand, while whipping the dust off with the other. I was hesitant to buy that book. I love reading books, especially so when I travel. And I would be on a flight for the next 16 hours. Even that couldn’t convince me to buy this book. I again asked him if he was sure that this was the one that is left and pleaded him to check the stock. He let out a slight whiff out his nose and said ‘No, this is what we have, everything else is sold out and people are not buying this at even half the price’. Ouch that was painful to hear. I still didn’t wanna buy the book. Not that hated the book or the author. Quite the contrary, loved the author and was married to her. I’ve read the manuscript hundreds of time, when she was writing it.

I’d Helped proof read it and was proud of myself that I could point out some improvements in the book. Wife encouraged me and was amused at my findings like how you encourage and hype up kids doing some activity so that you can keep them occupied. I didn’t care and was living it up.

It was supposed to be her life story or should I say ‘our life story’. The book is an autobiography and transcribes the story of how she went from an extremely introverted girl with braces and pigtails to the current ultra successful boss lady, leading a startup worth a couple billions.

Of course I had a role to play, with us being very much in love since college. She did include a chapter about us and how love encouraged her to be bold and daring.

Well with my flight out of this shit hole airport departing soon and only this store being the only one open, I had to but this book else have to make conversation with fellow passengers. Yuck.

I bought it in a hurry and thought I’d read it one more time and rekindle our college romance. We are very much in love but it’s quite not the same. You see marriage has this effect on couples, the spark slowly dies and you start taking things for granted. Reminiscing the old romance would do some good to the marriage.

I waited till the flight was in the air and has reached a stable height, to open the book. I sort a breezed through the first few chapters with them being quite the same, except for some rephrasing of sentences.

I wondered at the speed in which I’m skimming through, reading half from memory, I’d be done in an hour and had to sit idly for the remainder.

But, the fifth chapter had some interesting changes. It had a few more characters in college that I don’t seem to recall. We had the same friends groups, but don’t seem to remember anyone by the name of Julian Saw. Maybe one of her acquaintances or some random passer by who used to wave at her. The character seemed to take more and more prominence in the latter chapters. ‘He taught me how to love myself’, ‘Being with him was like having a cold fire burning through my veins’. For some reason this chapter seemed to be more like a porno novel than something about inspirational leader.

When the reviews came out first, I was confused as a number of them were saying that ‘the only thing the author inspires you to do is to be incredulously and uncontrollably horny’. She said it was about our romantic angle that got criticism. I’d felt guilty for sometime, but hey it was her decision to include it.

Now I know what those reviewers really meant. I thought Saw was a figment of her imagination. But it got wilder, more and more characters got introduced and I recognised some of the names. Ian Haley. The Ian Haley, who was a prominent investor in her startup and her mentor. The way she’d written her having graphic sex with him made bike rise up my throat. He was more than Twice her age.

Oh boy, it didn’t stop there. There were others many many others. All having graphic sex with her during the years she was working hard in her startup. She’s started her company 5 years after we’d gotten married. That means all of this was her charting on me, atleast in her mind.

I was ducking pissed, wanted to confront her on these. But that’ll have to wait another 14 hours.

There was no mention of me or our college romance. The final chapter had a single mention of me. It ended on a “funny” note, saying that ‘my poor husband doesn’t know this and let’s keep it that way’.

I’d lost it and let out a loud whiff that’d woken up a few other passengers. The audacity to name me and shame me on her book. Took me for an idiot and playing me for all these years. I felt my world came crashing down.

I hurried through the baggage collection and went home with a rage in my face that should’ve gotten me arrested for looking like a homicidal maniac. There she was composed as ever in her couch, with a co-worker who she mentioned was the longest of them all and whom she’d keep as a pet forever.

She came into the kitchen to hug me. I calmed myself, picked up the knife from the kitchen. I Hugged her