Tere Ishq Nachaya | updated page 7, 24/12 - Page 2

3. They were sat on the seater swing outside, surrounded by mountains and overlooking the idyllic town below. Maan's eyes kept drifting towards Geet, who seemed lost in a tassle on her shawl. The familiar furrow between her eyebrows gave her away.

"You have a lot of questions you want to ask me, but you don't know how."

She didn't look up. "Maybe I don't want the answers."

"You do."

Geet didn't reply.

"Do you still dance?"

This time he was met with an icy glare, one that pierced his heart.

"What do you think, Maan Khurana?"

They stared at each other for a while, and then he saw her eyes well up.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

"You did enough of that already. I'm not a fool that I'll cry over you anymore." She faced him again, and gritted her teeth. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"What?" he asked, confusion marred along his expressions.

She sniffled. "This act of having a tumour, pretending you're dying. I don't believe you, Maan. This is a ruse to get me back, to use a terminal illness so I'll forgive you and you don't have to live with the guilt anymore. You're a selfish man. You always were, and you always will be."

"If I wanted to pretend I was dying to get you back, I would have fabricated a lie the day after you left." His tone was calm, composed, his voice low and gravelly. For the first time since she'd arrived she realised not only how unwell he looked, but how unwell he sounded as well. Everything about her ex-husband had become so hollow.

"I'll show you the reports if you don't believe me."

Geet was confused, upset, angry, annoyed, heartbroken and distraught at the same time. How could she lose the man she had loved? Despite their tragic end to their marriage, she had always sought comfort knowing that somewhere in the world, he was alive and well and breathing and living. But to see him dejected, and battling with himself in the cruellest way - she couldn't bear it. It was more painful than she could have ever imagined.

She stood up and walked a few steps, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. He joined her, stood carefully behind her, examining her side profile.

"And you say you don't love me anymore."

She turned to face him, frustrated at how he was still so apt at being able to read through her without her speaking a word.

"If you didn't love me, you wouldn't cry at the thought of losing me forever. You wouldn't let that tender spark flicker through in your eyes when you look at me. You never would have come here in the first place."

"And do you still love me, Maan?"

The pain and accusation in her eyes was something he found hard to face, both then and now. The memories of the past left a bitter note in the air for both of them, but he knew she wasn't going back to down until she got an answer.

"I've waited five years for you. I write letters to you everyday, yet I can never bring myself to send them to you. I make your cup of coffee every morning. I take walks where we used to take walks together. If I'm alive, it is only because I'm surviving on the memories of your love. And you ask me if I still love you?"

She shook her head slowly, turning away from him to look ahead. "If you really did love me, you wouldn't have fallen in love with someone else."