Let them eat cake!

Wedding gift from Rn 

    A "companionable" person is someone who (etymologically at least) is willing to share bread with you. "Companionable" is the adjective form of "companion", which ultimately derives from a combination of the Latin prefix "com-" meaning "with" or "together" and the noun "panis" meaning "bread, loaf or food". 

                                                                                              - Merriam Webster Dictionary  

    The first day, Rn and I became room-mates, she came back from lunch with a big pink box from Canele. She took out the cake and a fork. She passed me the fork and insisted I take a bite. "It's cake! Cake is meant to be shared". We became friends.

   Fourteen months later, when Rn first realised that we were not even going to be on the same floor in the new office building. She actually started tearing. I didn't know what to say at first. Surprised, then touched.

  Rn is someone who broke through my defences, because she's both vulnerable and feisty at the same time. She's warm, pure-hearted and passionate. She's rash, imprudent and quite a spoilt brat. But, she has always been there, next to me, day in and out, in our little room with the big view.

  Slowly, our periods will no longer be synchronised. We won't know where we are at a particular time in the building. We will only know that the other is not here.

  She doggedly asks after my mum, even when I keep mum. She always reminds me of the innumerable administrative things we have to do; and I'm the one who often catches her before she falls.

  The last day, when we are room-mates, is also the first time we went out alone. Far away, from the vicinity of our offices. Only group outings before; and then I got so busy with all my family stuff that it became almost impossible to coordinate. But this was planned a month ago; to celebrate her birthday. But, Rn is still Rn, more thoughtful and sensitive than most people will realise - worried that I won't have the time; etc etc etc. I told her, no, no, I am giving her this afternoon.

   We had brunch (she mocked me for eating so fast again) and I followed her shopping. I haven't shopped with a girlfriend in a long time; it was nice. It seemed like every five minutes, she would ask if I would like to get so and so for my mum, or father or family. At the end of it, when she drove me to the hospital, I fell asleep on the car ride.

  I don't know if she will ever see this. I am the more reticent one by far in the relationship. But, if companions share bread, then we are a special breed indeed. Only the best cakes, my dear Rn, only the best cakes.