A/N: Hey there! :D :D Here is the next update! :D :D Sorry for the tad bit of inconvenience with the post. :(
Happy Reading! :D :D
3rd November, 1996:
"You are not my friend."
That's what I dared to tell him. That's how I chose to show my cowardice. That's how I decided to distance himself from me just because I was intimidated by how emotionally vulnerable he had made me. I may have let my guard down to him but this bare exposure of my heart frightened me. The night back from the fair made me realize that.
And this is how I decided to defend myself against this emotional turbulence. In spite of knowing how badly it would crush him if I distanced himself away from me, I decided to play along. Say those words impregnated with hatred and venom. But was there even any venom? Why did they sound so brutal to my ears that my own heart died of the poison before his own?
I stared at him long and hard, hoping that he'd say anything - shout at me, shake me roughly, or even cry. But he sat frozen, his face a mystery to me. For the first time in those five months since his ragging incident, I was at a loss to understand what was going on in his mind. Yet I saw it lurking in his eyes - the same fear, the same helplessness. We looked at each other for a straight whole minute, neither of our eyes leaving the other's gaze, both of us waiting to see the other break.
All I could describe the way he kept looking at me was 'tumultous'. The flow of emotions changed so swiftly in the depths of his eyes that after a few moments, I could no longer keep track of what he even felt any longer. And finally, he broke our silent game. He stared at me, devoid of any emotion as he spoke softly.
"Then for the sake of humanity, tell me what's wrong," he tells me. I had the strangest urge to laugh in that moment even though all my mind screamed at me was to distance myself away from him as much as I could. I no longer deserved to sit with him.
"You won't understand," I say coldly.
"Then make me," he says stubbornly, even though his voice had suddenly gone low.
"Just go, Ranveer. Please," I beg of him. He looks at me determinedly, shaking his head.
"Not until you tell me what's going on."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT TO HEAR?! ISN'T IT ENOUGH THAT YOU'VE CAUSED ME SO MUCH PAIN THAT YOU WANT TO CAUSE MORE?" I yell at him vehemently, watching him flinch under the harshness of my tone. Looking at a complete loss of words, he angrily responds back.
"I don't understand what you-"
"Don't understand?" I cut him abruptly with a question while he falls silent. "Don't you see it, Ranveer? You've made me so emotionally dependent upon you! There is not one moment in my life from this point forth where I cannot imagine any happiness without you! You've had an amazing time in these ten days, but have you even spared me a single thought? Do you know how alone and abandoned I felt without you? Do you have any idea of how stupid and selfish I feel and how helpless I am?! Huh, do you? You don't know what you mean to me, Ranveer! You have no idea how petrified I felt when I got lost in that fair!"
And as I brought my speech to a forceful end, I noticed that Ranveer had turned pale. He had a very complex expression upon his face, a few tears astray upon his cheeks. His one hand remained behind his back in an awkward angle, while the other one seemed to constantly be fidgeting with the lowest button of his sky-blue shirt.
His eyes somehow frightened me, though. I remembered seeing that look somewhere before, but couldn't place my finger upon it, until later when it hit me later that it was the same look he had in his eyes at the hospital when he first woke up. But now that I had started my sad story, I knew that I couldn't let go of it until I'd told him all about it.
Throughout the time when I narrated the incidents from the ten days of his absence (particularly an in-depth analysis on how I felt during those hours at the fair when I was lost and how I came to call Harshad Papa as well... Papa), Ranveer remained eerily silent. He did not even mutter and 'oh' or 'ah' and in a way, his cold silence frightened me more. Somehow, he kept his left arm twisted in the same way, the posture constantly distracting me a lot until it began to get annoying. Twenty minutes ago, he had tried to initiate all forms of conversation with me when I wasn't willing to speak, and now that I had finally spoken my mind out, he remained remarkably silent.
I'd hurt him with my words, burnt him with them as I brandished them like a weapon, but his silence started to worry me after a span of ten minutes. I asked him several times to say something, but he remained robotically still. Until finally, he spoke something. Or rather, gave out a cry of pain. I could see more tears leave his eyes as he finally crawled towards me and hugged me awkwardly.
I had barely gained any solace when my eyes finally fell upon the back of his shirt that had patches of bloodstains, his so-far-hidden left arm the source of it. I quickly broke away from the hug and pulled his hand to the front, only to see several shards of glass pierced into his skin. The entire portion of his lower arm remained bloody, his blood instantly getting onto my hands. The shards, I instantly noticed, were from one of the vases that I'd thrown upon the ground.
"Oh God, no... You're bleeding!" I shriek, frightened at the sudden sight of healthy blood upon my hands.
"Oh, shit..." was all that Ranveer managed to mutter weakly, staring at his bleeding arm blankly.
And even before I could so much as call out for anyone, Ranveer's head had already made soft contact with the floor, another painful gasp leaving his lips along with a choked cry. His injured arm hung limply around him, his restraint over the pain breaking harshly. His eyes constantly shuttled between staring at me painfully and rolling back into his head, finally shutting them close with a groan after an indefinite amount of time.
I could only keep staring at his strained features with a mixture of repulsion and sadism. It served him right to feel the pain that I had been feeling, but why did he have to bear the pain of something that was entirely my fault? If I was a weakling, he shouldn't suffer. I wouldn't let him. From somewhere remote, I heard someone call out to me. From somewhere even more remote, I felt myself fall upon something sharp, my cheek growing warm. But I didn't have it in me to wince. Shutting my eyes was the best option, and even before I knew it, I was transported to another world.
The next time my eyes open, I find myself asleep on my bed. The pillows felt too comfortable to let go of them and what I had been dreaming about slipped away just as quickly. I snuggled into the blanket upon me, looking to my side. And there Ranveer was - sitting in front of me upon the rocking chair, curled up into a ball as he continued to stare at me silently. I noticed that he had a plaster upon his left arm, covering the lower length of it. He looked at me with a sardonic smile upon his features.
"Hey there, sleepyhead."
I stare at him, the events from the morning play in my mind. Gasping as a lump rises up to my throat unconsciously, I prop myself up quickly, staring at him in disbelief. And yet he sat there calmly like he didn't have the slightest fear in the world. I felt a crazy urge to cry, but somehow tears wouldn't leave my eyes. I try pinching myself, but that doesn't help. I look at Ranveer, more afraid than ever as I finally managed to find my voice.
"How are you? Are you alright? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you, I-"
"Shh, it's alright," he tells me as he quickly jumps out from the chair like a stealthy cat. He continues, now coming and sitting beside me gingerly. "You don't have to tell me anything."
Somehow, I was still panic-stricken. The gravity of what I had actually shared with him earlier in the day hit me with a sharp blow, realizing how ungrateful I had sounded for everything he had done for me.
"No, I didn't mean to tell you that you aren't my best friend, I just-"
"Ishaani, look at me," he speaks softly and I cannot help but stare into his eyes helplessly. He gently brushes his fingers upon my own hand before whispering. "Your secret is safe with me."
"Secret? What secret?" I ask, confused, even though it dawns upon me soon enough. He understood what had happened to me in the morning.
"When you decided to break down my armour, I vowed to stay with you no matter what. I'm not going to break that promise, not even if you drove me away like this," he says strongly, and I'm threatened by the urge to cry once more. The tears, however, still don't leave my eyes.
"But I-" was all I could say. Even before I can continue, Ranveer cuts me again.
"I don't know whether you know this, but I'm in this for the long haul too, you know."
My eyes widen in shock as I remember the statement only too clearly. It was the same thing that I'd told him back when the doctor first let me meet him at the hospital. I can only stare at him stupidly before I finally ask, half-cross, half-embarrassed.
"You were awake?"
"No," he says quietly. I knew that he hated talking about that entire incident. He continued. "But this was the only phrase I caught on to apart from the gibberish the doctors spoke in my unconsciousness. I held on to it."
I nodded at him vigorously, staring at my fingers.
"I hate being so vulnerable," I admit ashamedly and he sighs.
"You have to pay the price for everything," he tells me sagely. Goodness knows that he's right, but it didn't change the truth for both of us. We both needed each other in the same way and we both hated the vulnerability. The only difference was that he had come to terms with his own ones, I hadn't. He continued. "If you don't want loneliness, you have to welcome vulnerability."
I look at him, surprised. As though I was clearly seeing him for the first time. He shrugs him shoulder and gives me the cue to speak.
"How can you be like this?" I finally ask, not sure what else to ask him about.
"Be how?" he asks back, bewildered.
"Forgiving, benevolent... big-hearted," I add heavily, remembering the way he embraced me after the way I had behaved with him earlier in the day. He looks at me shrewdly, a soft chuckle leaving his lips.
"It's not so merry, you know. But when I decided to trust you with my heart, I did want to see how far does it took the two of us," he says strongly. I look into his eyes that sparkled magically with the light spilling into the room from the glowing sun, trying to seek my strength from them.
"You're stupid to make emotions your strength," I finally tell him.
"No," he corrects me. "I'm wise enough to make my weakness my power. And you can too, if you take the leap of faith," he adds smartly. I smile at him ruefully.
"Is it that easy?" I ask him naively and he smiles at me simply.
"It never is," he admits truthfully. We both smile at each other, and for the first time he lets me hug him voluntarily. I know that he needs the assurance just as much as I do, but he would never admit it. He's too busy protecting me like always. After we separated, I smile at him happily for a few moments before remembering something important.
"How did I end up here?"
"Falguni Maa," he says simply as he shrugs his shoulder. "I told her that we were playing when you were feeling faint. I caught you and was trying to get you to the bed when the vase fell on my hand and caused the bleeding."
"That's impossible," I say in an assertive tone as the memory of Ranveer's unconscious face flitted across her eyes momentarily. "You were unconscious even before me."
"No, I was awake, kind of," he says blankly. "You fainted upon my hand, which pushed the shards in more. The pain snapped me back into my senses. I tried to wake you up, but you had already fainted. So I was getting you upon the bed when Falguni Maa entered the room. So she did buy it. And you did scar your cheek too."
I put up my hand across my left cheek to realize that a band-aid sat over there. It felt funny.
"What time is it?" I ask, feeling too lazy to look at the clock.
"Four in the afternoon," replies Ranveer nonchalantly. I ask him nosily again.
"Who did up your hand?"
"A doctor," he replies, clearly bemused at the natural conversation I was having with him now. "Falguni Maa called in a doctor to check up on both of us. The doctor said that I did lose some blood, but I'd be alright in a few days. Said I was lucky to not rupture any of the major veins."
"Thank goodness," I say, heaving a sigh of relief. Ranveer continued.
"Falguni Maa says that you haven't been keeping well since the last five days." I nod my head and response.
"What did the doctor say?" I ask, suddenly a little fidgety. I hated doctors, and diagnostics even more so.
"That you had a panic attack."
"That I did," I remark sarcastically. Ranveer laughed whole-heartedly upon this.
"She's furious," says Ranveer once he sobers down and I could only imagine the look upon Maa's face. "She's asked me to stay by your side but she told me to inform her when you wake up. You are busted, in short," he ends on a cheerful note while I scowl at him. And without warning, he gets down from the bed and begins to make his way to the door.
Before he can walk any further however, I catch hold of his wrist. He turns back, momentarily stunned.
"I'm sorry," I say, my eyes pleading and begging against his own for forgiveness. I can feel that thick lump rise into my throat again, and gone is the cheerfulness from few moments ago. I still cannot cry though. Ranveer looks at me transparently, allowing me to see the pain I had caused him before he shut the door of his eyes upon me. He replies silently.
"Never do what you did today ever again."
"I promise," I tell him sincerely as I let go of his hand. He was nearly by the doorpost when he turned around, looking at me honestly.
"Just so you know, the day you willingly ask me to walk away, I will. No complaints, no demands."
"I won't let that day come," I say a little too loudly and he smiles. He was about to leave again when I blurted out abruptly.
"You shouldn't have saved me like that." Ranveer turned around and stared at me contentedly for a whole minute before speaking softly and leaving the room.
"For you, a thousand times over."
The lump in my throat remained. My heart shattered into a million pieces at the loyalty Ranveer had shown me in that one moment alone. I had lost the ability to express my love and gratitude for him that entire day, and I remained numb through all of it.
And just like that, I've lost my ability to cry tonight.Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D :D
Next chapter:
Interlude 3
Rihana, yearning to break free from the predetermined fate of being a tawaif's ...
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