Before I Fall Again... On hiatus indefinitely. - Page 3

Chapter 20: Questions and Answers

[Music Selection: It's from the beginning to until about 2:00 minutes. You need to listen to it quite a bit to really synchronize what parts of the music go with what parts of the chapter... I will leave you each to experiment on your own :)]

Dinner was early that evening. Johnny was a huge hit in the house with his wit and charm and it allowed my attention to drift in and out as I waited until the meal was over and I could go back to my room. Although as it turned out, that was not as safe an option as it had been yesterday. I had just assumed that Abhi would be with Johnny until the wee hours of the morning like friends meeting up after sometime were wont to do. Thus, when I retired to the room for the night, I took my time in the shower, all the more to make up for the hasty one that I had taken that morning. I had locked the room, figuring that I would unlock it once I was ready for bed; I couldn't chance it that he would come in and catch me unaware and I really desperately just needed some privacy where people could not intrude on me. But maybe I felt just a bit too safe inside the locked cocoon of that second story room as I wrapped the towel around myself and returned from the bathroom after my shower.

I had forgotten to turn the AC off before I went to take a shower and felt the goosebumps spread over my arms as soon as I entered the bedroom. The lamp on the vanity was on, but I had left the overhead lights off. The main switches were at the other end of the room and I didn't bother with them as I walked to the AC to turn it off. The chair that I had pulled over that morning was still there and even though it was a bit dark, I climbed on it without issue. Finding the switch of the AC was somewhat more difficult and I had to feel around the different knobs and turn each one until I found the one that turned the cool air all the way down.

When I turned back around, he was standing at the foot of the chair and it startled me so much that I yelped and jumped back, losing my footing. It would have been a comical sight if he hadn't caught me as I fell off. As it was, he did, and it was neither comical nor magical as they made it out in the movies. Shame and embarrassment was all I felt as I could feel my towel starting to come undone. I was forced to put one arm around him to hold on while I tried to clutch my towel with my free hand before the knot gave out and the whole thing fell off.

I kept my gaze somewhere to the right of his neck as I waited for him to put me down. When a few moments went by and he did no such thing, I finally looked at him.

He tilted his head then, but I couldn't quite read his expression.

"Do you want to get down?" he asked and his tone was... teasing?

I was sure that I imagined it. He couldn't possibly tease me. Not with everything that was between us... rather, behind us...

I didn't dignify his question with an answer as I looked away and waited for him to put me down.

"It may surprise you to hear this, but I'm quite strong. And I can hold you like this for a lot longer than you think."

If he thought that he could blackmail me into begging him to put me down, he had another thing coming. I kept my gaze averted and focused on holding my towel together.

It startled me again when he started walking and out of sheer reflex, my arm around his neck tightened.

I was about to ask him what he was doing, but stopped myself. He was just walking. And that too into where there was light and I could see better.

"Avan unmaya thaan solraan. Vunna partha devathai mathiriyirukku... athu eppidi ellaralayum atha pakka mudiyuthu aana unnala mudiyala..." he said once he stopped and I looked up at him finally, his tone drawing attention even when his words made no sense to me.

My expression must have shown some vulnerability because he switched back to Hindi and his voice softened as he said, "You have to talk to me, Niki."

"Nirmala." I corrected automatically.

"Nirmala..." he said as if trying out the fit even though he had said it several times already. "It's going to take some getting used to, especially when you look like Niki."

"You don't look like Manu." Neither did he act like Manu, but I didn't add that as I looked away, trying to fight an agitation that was never too far below the surface.

My gaze landed on the right side and I realized that he had walked with me until we were standing in front of the mirror.

And now I could see that the flap of my towel had fallen open, revealing a good part of my right leg and in my haste to cover up, I almost let go off my hold on the towel, but thankfully remembered what was more important for modesty's sake at the last minute before I embarrassed myself even further.

I fidgeted slightly in an attempt to urge the towel back over my leg, but it only served to make it worse.

"Put me down!" I finally said, angry. He didn't seem in any hurry to put me down, although I imagined that his arms must be killing him by now.

"Oru sugamaana sumai dhaan. I don't mind." He said in a mix of English and Tamil. I ignored the Tamil and responded only to the English. "I do. Put me down please."

"Well, because you said please..." he smiled as if this was something terribly funny and my anger boiled over.

"Why did you marry me?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

His smile disappeared and he put me down finally, although he didn't let me leave his arms just yet.

"Why didn't you just marry Rima? Why did you do all this? Do you think this is a joke? That poor little Niki would just go along with anything anyone throws her way? Is that it?"

I pushed out of his arms and he let me go. I turned around to face the mirror and clutched my towel higher.

He didn't say anything for so long that I knew he wouldn't answer. But just when I was about to walk away, he did.

"I didn't marry Rima because she was not the girl who I was promised to to begin with, the picture notwithstanding. I don't think this is all a joke. Contrary to what you think, I have never taken marriage lightly. And I never thought that the Niki I knew would just go along with anything that anyone threw her way. I have never misunderstood her goodness to mean that she is a pushover."

I turned back to the mirror to look at his reflection there.

For one of those moments, I felt my heart ache for what could have been... maybe it will always be there, this wish for old dreams that were never realized... for that once upon a time when I had thought that he was the man that he had turned out not to be...

I held his gaze in the mirror as I answered him. "I am the one who misunderstood. I am the one who misunderstood everything."

I walked back into the bathroom and stayed there until I heard his footsteps grow distant. When the door finally opened and closed, I gave into the tears that had been threatening to be my undoing in front of him. But I indulged them only for a few moments before angrily swiping them away.

It hadn't escaped my attention that he had avoided my first question.

He hadn't told me why he married me.

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