Chapter 33
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[MEMBERSONLY]
[NOCOPY]
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Part 7: Day 7
Section 2
Arnav swallowed hard. What could he say to that?
He looked at her beautiful face. Her wary eyes warred with her smiling lips. Her nosepin glittered in the dim night light.
Arnav parted his lips to answer her, hoping that an answer would come to his lips. Words always came to him with great difficulty, and apt words almost never favoured him. How to answer her...?
Khushi leaned back against her pillows. Arnav looked at her face. She seemed... he seemed almost scared of his answer.
He looked at the fear on her face, at the pulse hammering away at the base of her creamy throat, at her heaving chest, at her breathlessness... at her eagerness to hear the answer... and her fear of what his answer would be...
"When I saw you..." the words fell from his lips without his volition. "...I was struck by your beauty..."
Khushi stared at him.
"Your eyes... your trembling lips... the feel of you in my arms..."
Images of their meeting in Sheesh Mahal filled the air between them.
"I was angry... with myself... for finding you attractive. And I thought you were there to sabotage my event. That is why... And it was Sheesh Mahal, the scene of the terrible tragedies of my childhood. When you talked of my Di's wedding getting cancelled, I lost control..."
Arnav caught hold of her hand and dropped a kiss on it. He held her hand to his heart.
"I thought of you... all the time... I had never, never done anything of that kind before. Nothing had the power to distract me from work..."
Khushi nodded slowly, trying to see herself through his mind.
"Then, the dargah. It seemed as though the more I tried to push you out of my mind, the more you were landing in front of me. I was... glad to see you. So I was angry with myself. And you. For making me feel glad. That is why I..." Arnav buried his lips in her palm. Her hand trembled in his gentle grasp.
"I couldn't get you out of my head. I couldn't punish myself. That is why I punished you. By airing the clip... I didn't know, I didn't think what it would lead to... I just wanted to push you away. Make sure that you never came within a mile of me..."
Khushi looked at him.
"I got back to Delhi, to work, to my family. I thought I was safe. And then you ran in to me! I couldn't believe my eyes..." Arnav confessed.
"I tried to push you away again. And then you turned up at the office. The more I tried to send you away, by drafting that contract, by making your life impossible, the more firmly you were ensconced in my head. And my heart. Although I didn't know that then..."
Khushi looked at him, waiting.
"The photoshoot... I was captivated by you. The more I was captivated, the more I tried to punish you and myself by pushing you away."
"And then came the night in the rain in the carpark... I didn't know what was happening to me. I was going crazy... The night at the guest house... you had fainted. I had hurt you. As I stood with you lying in my arms, I... I could let myself look at you... as much as I wanted... free... It was as if the world held just the two of us, a man and a woman, two free people, free of their pasts, free of expectations, free of the world..."
Arnav cupped Khushi's cheek.
"I didn't want to take you to Buaji's house. I didn't want to leave you there. I wanted to carry you away to a world of our own, where we could start all over again..." The words came fast and furious now, his anguish and his panic making him voluble.
"But I couldn't. I was Arnav Singh Raizada. And you were Khushi Kumari Gupta. I had no claim on you. You had a family waiting for you. Khushi, I took you in, laid you on your bed with the stars hanging all over from it... I didn't want to leave you there, but I had to. As I was leaving..." he stopped.
Khushi looked at him, curious.
"You pulled me back." Arnav said simply.
Khushi's eyes opened wide.
"You had your fingers curled around the lapel of my jacket, as though you too had felt everything that I had, that night. Khushi... you will never know how hard it was for me to leave you there."
Arnav kissed her forehead.
"I stood outside by the window, and watched Buaji cleaning your wound. She was so loving... I realised that you had people who cared for you, loved you... I left, taking with me the wound that your broken glass bangle had given me as I hurt you."
Arnav cupped her face in his palms.
"You gave me the resignation and left. I was angry. Because everything that you had shouted at me was true. And because I didn't want you to go. I wanted you in my office for the remaining two weeks. I had been looking forward to seeing you there..."
Khushi swallowed.
"Your thoughts plagued me night and day, giving me no rest. And then, on Teej, you ran in to me and coloured me with sindoor. I... I couldn't take my eyes off you. It was as though every wish in my heart had come true. You were standing in front of me. I... I hoped you would not get a rickshaw after the pooja, that I might drop you back home... but..."
Khushi's mouth felt drier than the Thar desert.
"That evening, at the temple, I carried you to the bench, gave you water to revive you. I didn't know that you were keeping the vrat. You were angry with me, but I couldn't take my eyes off you. It was as though someone dear had returned after a very long time, even though we had met that morning. I wanted time to stop still. I wanted you to faint again so that I could carry to some place safe, keep you with me, lock the world out... Lavanya forced me to give her the sweet and I saw your distress, your shock. I was ...strangely enough'happy that you were upset..."
Khushi looked at him, her lips in an Awww.
"It meant that I was not the only one here, in this web of need, this longing that was gnawing at my insides..."
Khushi frowned at him. Arnav kissed her frown away.
"Common sense fought with my longing for you. I didn't believe that love existed. I had contempt for the institution of marriage. Love, if it even existed, was just a weakness for a pretty face, a weakness that would wax and wane, and with time, cease to exist. I had to push you out of my mind. I couldn't eat, sleep, work in peace. Your face as you cried in the store room, as you pulled the dupatta off me... I couldn't take it any more. I had to kill this madness."
Khushi looked at the anguish on his face.
"That is why I invited Lavanya to stay. Such an idea had never crossed my mind before. It was the act of a desperate man who wanted to shield himself from you, stop himself from walking in to your house and carrying you off..."
Arnav kissed her fingers, and again held her hand to his heart.
"Imagine my fury... and my delight when you turned up at my house on Di's anniversary party. And my helplessness when you were brought to train Lavanya... Khushi, every word I said to you in anger, every insult I uttered... was at myself, not at you. It was my weakness for you that made me angry. Because I couldn't understand why I was so... so immersed in your thoughts, in your words, in your smile... why I couldn't swim out of the whirlpool of your beauty, your goodness, your childishness, your laughter... Khushi, each time I hurt you, I hurt myself more. Because seeing the hurt on your face, the tears in your eyes killed me. Killed me, Khushi. I couldn't bear it. But I didn't know why I couldn't bear it."
Khushi tried very hard to keep tears from filling her eyes. His heart raced under her palm.
"My heart raced each time I saw you. I knew when you were entering a room even before I saw you. I knew where you were all the time, even when I was not looking at you. I almost stopped going to the office, just to see you, just to be with you, just to be in the same house as you..."
A tear made its slow way down her cheek. Arnav wiped it away with the pad of his fingers.
"Diwali night was the pits, Khushi. The worst night of my life... and the best. I lost control of myself. Arnav overpowered Arnav Singh Raizada, Khushi. And I almost kissed you..."
Khushi looked away. Arnav cupped her face and made her look at him.
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