Chapter 8: Contraband of relationships
"Can we just sit here for few minutes?" Khushi asked Lavanya.
"Sure we can," Lavanya said. Before they could sit down they heard the gate creek. Khushi's eyes widened when she saw who it was. She looked at Lavanya nervously and shifted on her feet repeatedly. "I'll wait for you inside," Lavanya said and walked inside the house without waiting for any response. Khushi watched Lavanya disappear inside and only seconds later she turned around to see Arnav standing five feet away from her.
"Payal forgot these when we were eating. Please give to her," he said handing her half a dozen files. His face was expressionless and tone flat. Unlike others, he didn't comment on her appearance or show a modicum of surprise at her sudden arrival.
Not trusting her voice she simply nodded and took the files from him. He just nodded.
"Would you like to come in?" She asked finding her voice strangled. If he was going to act indifferent then so would she, she decided.
"I'd rather not. I have few calls to make before it gets late," he said and turned around.
He waited for a moment before he started walking as if he was waiting for her to respond. But when none came, he didn't wait. He had already waited enough. The squealing of the gate woke her up from the momentary coma she delved into. It was seven years since she had seen him in flesh and a memory had hit her fast and wrecking. She remembered how their bare legs entwined themselves in white bed sheets, and she had breathed gloriously filling fresh air into her lungs while surrounded by water. The boat house they spent an afternoon at was like seeing a postcard of a different person's tourist expo of her life. Bile rushed to her throat when the indifference in his eyes splashed on her mind.
She ran as quickly as her shaky legs would take and shouted his name in agony, pain, hurt, anger, longing and reverence. He quickly turned around as if he had waited all his life to hear her say his name like a prayer; as if he was her salvation.
"Yes?" He replied vaguely, unwilling to back down from the predicament of her betrayal.
"I..." The pragmatist in her refused to abandon though she willed and even begged it to let go of her. Suddenly his actions were justified and his indifference accepted. Emotions wrought on her bones ten seconds before were mocked as mere pretense of downward spiral of adolescence immaturity.
"I owe you answers," she said simply. "It may be late," she rallied, her nails scraping paint out of metal gate. "But you need to know."
"I don't care," he interjected before the last syllable left her mouth. His voice was raspy and felt his tongue was made of salt paper. He wet his lips which had gone dry stultifying the neutrality he was desperately clinging on to. "It's over and done with." There were no traces of remorse but for tiredness in old bones.
Yet, they were talking. As little and cliched as it may seem they stood on either side of the gate like two leads from an old movie about love and betrayal. Antagonism rallied between the two and died in either hand without reigning supremacy.
"I don't want us to be caught in this whirlwind of dubiousness and hold a perpetual anonymity and blatant disregard to our past." Khushi smiled ruefully and rested her chin on her forearm.
He looked at her then; really looked at her. Her profile had become sharper and the edges clearer. It was as vivid as one of her stupid Polaroid photos with a hazy and grainy background but the brighter more earthy colors were too strong, too bright and too...real.
He let out a wolfish breath in pretense to stay utterly calm when all he wanted to shake her till her bones broke and ask him why she did what she did. "In case you haven't noticed, there is no 'us'," he whispered sharply, his throat clamping with the last syllable.
Crimson flooded her cheeks when reflections of her actions were suddenly hung in air. Not that she hadn't anticipated or even expected a warm welcome from him but the banality of his remark only accelerated the rate with which she was falling into depths of an ending.
"There isn't anymore. But there once was." She absolutely abhorred the conversation she had partaken in: It was too anticlimactic, too unidentifiable and the steady incline of pinpricks of pain. Would it have been better to delve into a cataclysm of bondage and getting herself incarcerated in the process?
What she was asking him was complete catharsis and he wished he knew what would come out this. "Okay," he accepted, deflated about the thought of discussing everything he had conveniently boxed away. He rubbed his face to wipe out the tension the facial muscles felt by holding an indifferent mask for the entire duration. "We will talk." He said feebly and walked to his car without allowing her to respond.
He caught the soft "Thank you" floated towards him when he walked and commanded his head not to reciprocate to that.
Khushi wrapped her arm around her and watched till his car disappeared around the corner. She felt heavier than before and shoulders about to touch the ground.
The price of pursuing the truth had come with a heavy price of alteration of reality into a vague and weird dystopian future.
Next Chapter: Chapter 9, Kaleidoscope of memories
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
Mangal Lakshmi
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