This update was meant to be longer- but if I was gonna include everything I wanted to I would probably be posting on Saturday :s So I thought I'd update as much as I could today, and the rest whenever I can get away from revision...
Oh, and I finally got round to replying to comments!! I've been replying to all comments since Chapter 21, and some after Chapter 22 too...I'll reply to all other comments as soon as I get the chance. Just wanted to thank you all for all your wonderful comments! Sorry if I haven't replied yet, but just wanted to say I read ALL of them so please do keep leaving feedback:)
Chapter Twenty Three
Khushi slipped discreetly out of the wardroom.
Heart pounding wildly, jittery up to impossible heights, she rushed down the corridors, found the lift occupied, and dashed down the stairs instead, bounding over the steps in her hurry.
The film reel of her memories wound in reverse, halting at a conversation that had taken place mere moments ago.
'Khushi, I've almost reached the hospital...I'll be there in fifteen minutes.'
Pause.
'I'll see you in the wardroom, ok?'
'Wait, what? No, no!'
'Why, what happened?'
'I-I mean, I mean you- I mean we- I mean-'
'Khushi.'
An intake of breath.
'What I'm saying is- I mean, if we talk about this in front of the family, they might get worried...and I don't think I can say what I wanted to openly in front of Anjaliji...or anyone else for that matter because I might be wrong and I don't others to overhear-'
'I get what you mean. You're right. So how about this...you come down and wait in the lobby, and when I get there we'll sit in the car and talk?'
Strained silence.
'Khushi, are you OK? If you don't like that idea just say so and-'
'No, no. I'm fine...I-I'll wait in the lobby.'
Now, pushing the huge glass doors open and crossing over the threshold of the hospital's front entry, Khushi felt vexation at herself grip her. It was about time, she chided herself, for her heart and her mind to extend the hand of friendship towards each other and end the impasse. This was becoming tiresome. It felt much like trying to tie together the ends of two ropes which were far too short to be linked. Every time she managed to tug the cord of her heart close enough, the cable of her mind would slip out of her grasp. Every time she managed to reel the cable of her mind out to its fullest extent, the cord of her heart would slacken. They refused to meet, refused to be joined, and Khushi stood struggling in the middle, straining to pull the two poles of her sanity back into one.
Standing on the landing in front of the hospital, at the head of the wide, short steps sweeping down to the tarmac of the parking lot, Khushi watched, disconsolately, the thick woollen quilt of grey blanketing the sky from sight begin to unload its baggage. A shimmery haze descended like silvery translucent drapes , as fine drizzle began to wash away the clinical pragmatism of the atmosphere usually overhanging the place. The buzz of activity, of briskly moving bodies and crisp, emotionless exchanges faded into the background as Khushi gazed at the granite of the bottom steps, dotted gently by the droplets of water freckling its surface, soon picking up the pace to colour it an even darker shade of grey, listened to the rustling whispers of the trees as they eagerly quenched their thirst, to the hushed music of the rain's joy at meeting earth. The cool breeze swept over, blowing through her hair, caressing her cheeks, causing her pallu flap gently behind her. She welcomed it. The tranquillity, the serenity, was something she had been lacking sorely, and now she sponged it all in.
Waiting. She hated it. The minutes stretched out irrepressibly, taunting her. She did not want to wait. Because waiting entailed time. And time entailed having to think. And thinking involved memories- memories which sparred with each other, conflicted with each other, contradicted each other, to the point that any perusal of them left her in a state of even greater confusion about what she thought she was thinking. Her mind stood aloof in a corner, stonily observing the tumult of emotions making fleeting visits to her heart, but not bothering to decipher their meaning. Her heart, haughty as ever, did not bother to tally its own feelings with the trains of thought it could see chugging along the tracks of her mind.
For instance, right now, this jittery feeling that ran up and down her arms...she could not place it. She did not know what it was, what to ascribe it to. All she knew was that her heart was singing a song of its own, pounding incessantly in her chest, dancing to a melody she could not hear. And this was not the first time she had felt this way- this restless energy, this inability to stay still. This same feeling had permeated through her at another time, so far away it seemed to belong to another lifetime.
The day of Jiji's wedding. When she had gone to drop of some relatives at the Raizada house, and had found herself, not bothering to interrogate herself too closely on why, stalling. Seizing at every chance to delay. Found her eyes straying over every inch of the living room, slipping over faces she did not notice where there, barely listening to Nanheji and Nani as her eyes sought out, of their own accord- him. Just as now, those same eyes repeatedly scanned the lines of blues, blacks, whites and silvers methodically tucked away along the parking lot in the hope that suddenly a giant pearl-white four-wheeler would appear from nowhere.
Whereas then she had been unable to understand what that had meant then, although something in her probably had a fairly good inkling, it was different now. Although she could recognise that same nervousness, spiked with what could be called anticipation, this time her mind, albeit not refusing, just did not bother processing what it all meant. The result being that Khushi paced up and down, up and down, in front of the glass double doors, watching each entering vehicle with such keenness it was almost as though she expected it to transform into the one she wanted to see.
Meanwhile her mind was playing a game of its own. It was replaying forgotten scenes, without sparing a glance at its former accomplice. It was taking her back to her only other memory of rain in Delhi- freezing, soaked to the skin, huddled in the dark, disappointment settling through her bit by bit by bit as the clock ticked closer to midnight and tears brimmed from her heart through her throat to her eyes as she wretchedly stood in another parking lot, guiding incoming cars with their passengers snug and warm and sheltered by umbrellas which flourished open even before they could set their foot out, to be ushered straight into more snugness, warmth, shelter. She remembered the loathing that had swivelled within her, raging, like a sandstorm in the middle of a desert. How she had despised him then! She had already vowed to meet everything he threw at her as staunchly as she could, to turn each of his offences into a dent in his own defences. But that night, he had violated into a space she would not tolerate violation in- because of him she had nearly missed out on her Jiji's birthday. Her Jiji, her constant companion throughout her childhood, the person whose happiness she had blamed herself for ruining, the person whose happiness she had ruined herself to preserve.
Instead of the dread that she would normally have felt whenever such thoughts resurfaced, instead of watching the empty, aged, derelict corridor fading into the dark looming in front of her again, Khushi saw- nothing. The disconnection between thoughts and feelings left her in a curious void, in which she was surrounded in nothing but confusion.
Abruptly, without explanation, the locomotive that was speeding down the railways of her mind switched tracks. The film reel snapped somewhere in the middle and began to play, falteringly at first and then suddenly more assertively, another memory. From before the wedding.
She trying to suggest a variance to a cocktail party. He ignoring her blatantly. He walking off with his phone, with pointed arrogance that had not failed to flare the hurt anger within her. She trying to speak to him over the phone, persuade him. He glibly informing her he was not expecting her to share in her own sister's happiness. Not bothering to listen to her.
He barking at her to get out. He leaving her alone in the middle of a dark street at night. He leaving her alone on another street just before she heard about her father's heart attack.
Without warning, the train switched tracks again. Khushi felt faintly nauseous at the speed. So engrossed was she in what she was being shown, she did not realise that she had stopped moving, staring unseeingly into space. She did not realise that somehow her feet had carried her down the steps, so that one more step forward and she would be walking in the rain.
She did not realise that her heart was throbbing to an irregular rhythm. Echoing, ever so faintly, the erratic trundle of the locomotive in her mind.
She wondered why she was not feeling angry. It was odd. She was not feeling the rage, the hate, the unfairness...none of that. She was simply observing her own emotions as though through a screen. As though watching someone else going through them. She asked herself why. As though in answer, the locomotive took a final, forceful twist in another direction.
I believe you- I'm coming because...
Because?
Because you said you want to talk to me. And I don't like seeing you worried.
He was coming because of her. Because she wanted to talk to him. One phone call and he was rushing to her side. Because she said she was worried.
A tiny little voice, the voice that used to rant and rage and shriek at her whenever she got too close to hoping, chirruped that he was coming only because his sister was involved. Strangely enough, the rest of her mind ignored that voice.
It was a one-eighty degree reversal. The man who had never bothered to listen to her before was now...
The sudden rumble of thunder broke into her reverie, and her eyes snapped back from the fog they were staring into back to reality.
A large, shining white four-wheeler hummed away in front of her, still, waiting.
Khushi's heart felt like a car being jumpstarted. It bound upwards and caught in her windpipe as resident butterflies wove tight-knit loops inside behind her navel. Unthinking, she put one foot forward, out into the rain, moving towards the awaiting vehicle...and the person inside.
It took her a split second to realise that she had left the shelter of the hospital facade.
And that for some strange reason she was not wet.
Taken aback, she glanced to the side just in time to see a pair of melting caramel eyes, gleaming with their own magnetic pull, blaze out brightly against the backdrop of grey. His expression relaxed, serene.
As though he was content here.
Standing by her.
Holding an umbrella over her, shielding her from the pelting cold droplets of rain, which had built up a momentum and ferocity in those moments that she had been moving backwards through her life.
'Chale?' he asked her softly, taking a step forward, towards the car. His arm remained outstretched, the coal-black umbrella held above her as she stood immobile, staring at him as he waited for her to move along with him. With half a foot separating them, Khushi realised with a start that the rain was soaking his other side, with only his left sheltered by the umbrella he was striving to keep steady above her.
'You're getting wet,' she heard herself whisper. Against the steady patter of the rain, she was hardly audible.
Arnav smiled. Taking a step back towards her, so that both of them stood facing each other under the umbrella's shade, he whispered back, 'Ghosts aren't bothered by rain...didn't you know?'
His eyes twinkled at her.
A single spark of current blazed from her mind. Her heart felt it, fleetingly, before it disappeared again.
But although the spark had vanished...its mark remained.
***
He could drown into those large, brown-black eyes, flashing every bit of innocence that he knew she embodied. Her pearl-skin glowing against the silver rain, against the hues of grey and brown. Patches of bright pink adding just the right hue of colour to those soft, soft cheeks to make his breath catch. She stood still, surprised.
Arnav gently laced his fingers with hers, squeezing her small hand ever so gently. He wanted, had the irresistible urge, to slip his arm around her shoulder, pull her warmth into his, feel her softness against him. But he did not want to intimidate her- she needed to feel comfortable, needed to know that she could confide in him.
The melody that nature seemed to have written in honour of Arnav and Khushi hummed to the beat of the rain, and the drums in his chest mellowed to fall into the rhythm. He pulled her along with him, and the slight pressure jolted Khushi into movement. The two of them, huddled under the umbrella, progressed slowly through the steady downpour. Arnav was suddenly grateful. For all his influence, he could not have been able to stage something as potent as nature had brought about effortlessly. Electric tension crackled between them, while the slanting slivers of water cut them off from the rest of the world. Only the two of them existed in that moment, the two of them in the niche of their own little world, for each other.
Arnav made sure that not even a drop of water touched Khushi as he held open her door for her, not even noticing the raindrops that drenched the back of his trouser legs in the process. He did not notice the cold that stung him as the wind washed over the damp patches. All his attention was focused on one thing and one thing only; reversing a mistake he had made a long time ago.
I promise...I promise I will shelter you, protect you for the rest of our lives, in rain and in sun, in heat and cold...forever.
Closing her door, he trotted round to the other side, feeling fervently grateful for the chance. The change to atone for abandoning her to the elements, to the cold that could not parallel the cold of his heart. He felt like a cad, the geyser of self-deprecation, of guilt and regret, erupting within him once more for the beast he had become, a prey to his own ego. Ruthlessly, he berated himself, lashed himself mentally.
But hope was flapping its wings enthusiastically- it revelled in the opportunity he had been given to set right that mistake, to erase it and make it better. He hoped against hope that she would not overlook the volumes that his gestures spoke; hoped that she would see that she had thawed his frozen heart, that now, the sole purpose of that heart was to cherish her presence, her existence, forever. That there was no guile, no ulterior motive, no ego involved. Only him and her, and his need to protect her from anything life could throw at her. The promise that he would always stand between her and pain. The promise that he would heal every wound he had given her, heal to such an extent that no trace, no shadow of pain would be left behind.
Assuring her that he would be by her side whenever she needed him. And even when she didn't.
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Edited by -doe-eyes- - 13 years ago
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