He looked at her furtively as she smiled and laughed with her friends. He could only stand in the shadows and watch her now. There was too much water under the bridge between them, too many misunderstandings, too many fights, too many tears and just like that Manik Malhotra had lost the battle even before the war had begun.
He followed her as she turned around the corner, pulled her into the empty classroom and closed the door behind them.
"Nandu" he whispered softly, his voice almost breaking under the pressure of needing to talk to her.
"I need to talk to you" he said calmly, though calm was far from his state of mind right now.
She just glanced at him, a small pool of unshed tears had welled up in her eyes, and yet she still refused to talk to him. It had been days since she was back to SPACE, her return seen like a triumph of sorts for all except Fab5 and yet Manik had been glad. He had been so lonely, so lonely that he felt all alone in a crowded room, even among the Fab5.
The minutes and hours seemed longer without her there. He couldn't even understand what this feeling was but life without Nandini seemed to be impossible for him any longer. Time stood still, days grew longer and the nights longer still.
"Say something,Nandu" "Slap me , if you must but please say something" he whispered
She looked at him mutinously with fire in her eyes, her trademarks jhumkas seemed to sparkle with the same mutiny. His spirits almost lifted, just almost right there, his Nandu, his Spot seemed to almost interact with him right there and all the pain seemed to vanish in the light of the blaze of her fire.
The classroom door opened suddenly and Alya walked in radiating anger. "Manik, what are you doing with her", and sneeringly asked Nandini " Did you trick him and bring into this classroom, how much attention do you want" Nandini glanced at Alya with an almost pitiable contemptuous look in her eyes and walked past Manik to the door. He tried stopping her but she had already left the room leaving him behind as lonely as ever.
Alya looked at him and screamed " how could you Manik", He had no answers, how could he?, when he knew nothing , but just emptiness, an emptiness that he could do nothing about. Alya looked back at him once more and then just stormed out of the room, a force of rage as she moved out.
Manik sighed, he had made a royal mess of things as usual but he couldn't stay away, no matter how hard he tried, she haunted him day and night, in happiness and tears.
He slowly made his way to the door, out of the room, he need to talk to her and there it lay in a corner, one half of her pair of Jhumkas, it almost looked like they were smiling at him whispering "Good Luck".
He smiled wryly "I do need all the luck in the world" he thought as he pocketed the jhumka, almost caressing it as he put into his blazer's pocket.
Kumkum Bhagya
Anupamaa
