So recent spoilers about Tanu being pregnant and Pragya telling Abhi she doesn't love him so he can take responsibility without being worried for her inspired this one. Have some angst.
He's running. He's running faster than he's ever ran before.
Abhi runs through the doors of his house, up the stairs, and nearly slams into the closed door.
How could he have been so blind?
He pushes the door open with so much force it bangs against the wall next to it. He scans the room, but there's no trace of her.
Her. Pragya. He loves her. He laughs a little, giddy with excitement. He knows what he has to do now. To be honest, he'd have to send Purab a huge gift basket sometime in the near future.
He runs onto the balcony, and sighs in happiness seeing her there, grasping the railing with a tight grip.
He is about to shout to her- not at her, to her -when he sees it. The shaking shoulders. The clenched fist at her side, the way the back of her neck and tips of her ears are crimson.
She's crying, he realizes with a start. His confession flies out of his mind, his priority being to comfort her. And hesitantly, he puts his hand on her upper arm.
She stiffens, and for a second, he thinks she'll turn into his chest and explain between sobs what could have possibly gone wrong this time. And he'll hold her, making no move to push her off. It'll be like it always is when one of them is upset. Except it'll different. This time he'll openly accept her and hold her as long as she needed...and then some.
What he doesn't expect is for her to pull away, suddenly really solid. As hurt as he is at the sudden action, he can't help but admire her and be proud to call himself her husband. She looks firm, unbreakable, as she stands now.
But as he looks into her eyes, he can see they both know it's far from the truth.
Her red, teary, tired eyes.
He furrows his brows, feeling uneasy at the sight.
"Eh, F- Pragya?" He makes no movements, worried he might scare her away. "Kya-?"
"I don't love you." She says it so suddenly, like pulling off a band-aid. But the pain is so much more worse. It's like being wrapped completely in duct tape and pulling off all the tape at once.
"W-what?" He was never a big believer in God, but he's praying like his, no, her life depends on it. Her life has always meant more to him.
"Are you deaf?" her words bite him. They're too cold, too harsh. He wonders if it's really her, his Pragya, standing in front of him. "I said I don't love you."
"But..." He has to take a deep breath. Of all things, this had been the least expected. "In the jungle...you said..."
"I thought you were going to die," as the words leave her lips, his mind flashes back to a time where every intake of air was painful, so she became his breath. "I was scared, and it was just the two of us. We were so far from everyone else, and I lost touch with reality. The idea just got in my head, and I was just being silly. I was wrong, I'm sorry."
His rage was suddenly the only thing he could see. She didn't love him? This had just been silly to her, like a joke? He had been having a crisis over the past month, and this was a joke to her. He couldn't believe it. He didn't.
"You're lying," he grinds his teeth, and she flinches. "You were in love with me even before the kidnapping. You wrote me that letter and you kept trying to talk to me, right?"
"That letter was something else," she refused to look at him. "I needed to talk to you about that other thing. It doesn't matter now what it is, though, so don't bother. My...feelings...only happened in the jungle."
"Fine!" he relented. "Maybe it was just that. But actions speak so much louder than words! You were going to take a bullet for me!"
"And you came to save me!" She was shouting now, too. "I was only returning the favor!"
"Well how many times will you return the favor?" He was so frustrated. He had finally figured it out...and she had taken it back. Could she even do that? "You keep saving me over and over again! You fell down into the ravine for me, you revived me, and that's not counting everything you did before the kidnapping! So don't say you don't love me!"
"I was obliged to do that," Pragya's voice is suddenly small, faraway. "I felt obliged to do that because you are my husband in name, and I have a duty to our families through this union. Not because I love you. I care for you, yes, but as much as I would care for someone like Suresh."
That's a stab he was never expecting.
"I don't love you," she repeats. "So don't worry about choosing anyone. You'll still be with Tanu. And I'll be okay with it, as always."
She's medicine and poison, he realizes, as he stares at her retreating back.
Abhi goes to follow her into their room, but she's already gone. And he falls. He crumbles to a heap on the floor, resting his head against the bed. Before he knows it, his face is wet with tears. The room echoes his loud, broken sobs.
He had just realized he was in love with her. But she doesn't love him. She never loved him. She thinks he should just go to Tanu. But he can't. Not when he has someone like Pragya. But he can't have Pragya either. Their story has no happy ending in sight. The future he had dared to hope was a possibility is now just a shattered dream. It hurts too much, and he wants to forget.
It's too much of an effort to get up and get a beer bottle, but he manages to do it before collapsing on the side of the couch.
He sits there for hours, waiting for her to come back. Waiting for her to say she was joking because she got tired of no reply, and she only wanted to see what he would say. Waiting for her to come back and force him into bed, and then nurse his hangover in the morning. She doesn't come.
I'll forget you, he tries to convince himself after the third hour, taking another swig out of the fourth bottle. I've already forgotten you. I never loved you, so it was easy to forget you. I thought I loved you because I thought you loved me. I just thought about the 'what if'. But I don't love you. In fact, I hate you more than anything right now. So it's okay.
Then why am I still crying?
And if you don't love me...why were you crying, too?
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
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