Um...so...this was written because I had this strong urge to write something symbolic. The urge was so strong I probably sacrificed the plot in the process. Sorry about that! :( :s
In some weird way, I liked writing this OneShot though, so I hope you'll like reading it, even if a tiny little bit.
Ah, and apologies for the crappy title, I really couldn't think of anything else.
Can be considered the sequel to Leave out all the Rest.
if you like, but it can be read on its own as well :)
ArHi OneShot |One Day|
***
"But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose."
-Anne Bronte
***
He has promised he will win her heart back in twelve days, but in spite of his pledges for patience and forbearance, it is as if Khushi is determined to make him lose his calm.
"You're going to hurt yourself."
His warning is terse, quivering with tension he is attempting to hold back behind gritted teeth.
She does not appear affected; she continues with her task, gingerly lifting another long stalk and carefully snipping off some of the longer stems, scrutinising the rose with pursed lips before she is satisfied and slips it into an awaiting vase.
She has left the thorns in their place.
An incensed growl almost rumbles out of his mouth, but he manages to swallow it just in time. His eyelids shutter and clench, he curls his fists into balls and for a minute simply focuses on settling his breathing back into a stable rhythm- he must not lose his temper, he must not lose his patience.
If he is to convince his wife to let go of her asinine twelve-day ultimatum, he has to be on his best behaviour.
"Khushi," he tries once more, concern and frustration shooting like lava up his throat and leaving a burning trail of irritability in its wake, "Look at those thorns- you'll cut yourself."
His gut lurches a little once more as he drops his stare to the two-dozen, bright red blossoms, nestled in a nest of purplish-green leaves and twisted stems. They are some of the most perfect blooms he has seen- the petals are of a decadent scarlet that instantly reminds him of how divine his wife looks in red, and their graceful curves and folds are like the elegant saree he has been secretly sketching for her.
But the thorns-
He flinches.
They are the biggest he has ever come across, and they look lethal. They are almost like spikes, a disconcerting blend of pink and green, poking out their pointed heads sporadically down the length of the stalks. Despite Khushi's prudence in handling them, barely using the tips of her forefingers and thumb to lift a rose before deftly cutting off the excess of leaves with a pair of scissors, Arnav grimly vows to give that insufferable idiot NK hell for bringing her roses without having the good sense of getting rid of the thorns first.
But Arnav is sober enough to recognise that it is not merely the thorns for which he resents NK. Perhaps resentment is not even the issue.
Perhaps he envies NK, for doing what he has been trying and failing to achieve for so long.
Bringing a smile to her face.
His heart twinges and the hollow ache that has made its place behind his ribs echoes, and Arnav is unsure how to remedy it. What his online-ordered bouquet could not achieve, or the saree he had bought her, the designer bag he'd acquired, NK's straggled bunch of flowers, picked upon request from some garden-greenhouse he had happened upon, had done so in ease- they had brought one of the most beautiful, heartfelt smiles he has seen adorn her lips for days, and if he had the power he would have frozen time in its place to keep it there.
Why wouldn't she smile for him? Why isn't anything he does enough for her?
He tries to pretend he does not know. He tries to tell act as though she is just being unreasonable, and he is justified in his outrage.
As he battles with his thoughts, it happens.
One of those dangerous-looking needles dig into Khushi's thumb.
He moves so fast, he surprises himself- even before her small, inaudible gasp of pain leaves those sealed lips, he is clasping her wrist firmly, the impertinent rose responsible for the tiny dot of blood against her milk-white skin falling to their feet unheeded.
"I told you!" he roars, unable to hold himself together any more- anguish and anxiety mingle, merge and magnify through his body until he can see and think of nothing but the tiny cut, and imagine the pain it must be causing her. His hand digs into his pocket in search of a handkerchief to daub the wound- his mind spins in erratic, chaotic circles to try and remember where the first-aid kit is, whether he should wash the wound, whether it would hurt her too much if he tried to disinfect it, "I told you to be careful of those thorns! Why didn't you wear my gardening gloves? And why the hell are you not cutting the thorns off?!"
He is not interested in the answer- he merely bellows the complaints and protests that have been building behind the facade of his tolerance, too distracted to focus on holding them back.
However, Khushi answers him.
"What's the point if they don't have thorns?"
He blinks.
He is baffled.
Baffled enough to loosen his grip, and then he is clawing at empty air, and the absence of her small, warm, dainty little wrist in the secure cuff of his hand reverberates through the hollow in his chest.
She uses the edge of her dupatta to dab the cut, and holds it up before her eyes- aside from a soft pink tinge, there is little to show that she has been hurt at all.
But he is not ready to give up yet.
"What do you mean, what's the point?" he demands, and his voice is breaking suddenly though he does not know why. His arms have seized up with the need to move- he prefers actions over words, but in the sudden strain that has descended on them, as though they are standing at opposite ends of a stretched rope that he pulls to no avail, he does not know what to do. "You could get hurt! You just did!"
She appears unaffected still- without any ado, she resumes her laborious chore, pinching a thorn-less edge of another rose to get rid of the excess foliage.
He cannot take it anymore.
"Khushi!"
His hands wrap over her upper arms, and he jerks her around and yanks her to him. The emptiness in him abates a little- she is like a cure to the shadow of desolation and loneliness that threatens to engulf and suffocate him, chasing away the darkness when she is close and in his hold and within his reach.
It is a reminder that she has not left him, despite her numerous attempts- a reminder that she still belongs in his life.
Sternly he looks into her eyes, which are wide with surprise and bemusement.
"Stop it," he tells her, but his command is marred somewhat by the tremor that runs through it, "Stop it already. Leave it to Hari Prakash, he'll do it and put the vase in our room."
It is meant to be an order, because he is used to giving orders and having them obeyed- but it sounds strangely like a plea, and stranger still, he does not mind.
Khushi shakes her head at once. She tries to extricate himself from his hold.
His fury, simmering just beneath the surface, explodes. His worry and his neediness coalesce and condense with its fumes and Arnav's fingers dig into the flesh in his grip, snagging her in place.
"Dammit, Khushi! I know you're mad at me, but that does not mean you have to hurt yourself just to argue with me! Why the bloody hell are you fighting me over something as insignificant as thorns in the first-"
"They're not insignificant."
His words are severed off by his disbelief, and then his rage is gurgling up and up and up again but perhaps it is not really rage anymore- perhaps it is greed and his desperation to put a stop to the distance she is splitting open between them, because the truth is, even though he has coerced her back home, she feels farther away than ever.
He opens his mouth, to say who knows what, but she gets there first.
"Thorns are...they're important. That's why I like roses...they're the only flowers I know that can...protect themselves."
He echoes her words and it is filled with all the apprehension he feels.
"Protect...themselves?"
Her hands have reached up, and tentatively, almost as gingerly as she handled the veritable thorn-bush NK brought home, she tries to pry loose the fingers wrapped about her arms.
"Yes," she does not look at him; instead her eyes rest on the fallen flower on the floor, the flower that has slit through her skin, and the hollow in his ribs begins to vibrate with debilitating pain, "Protect themselves...stand up for themselves. At least they don't just...let themselves get picked up...torn away...at least they can resist...even just a little bit."
She hooks her tinier fingers into his and tugs with more strength than he expects; surprised, his hold slackens at the same time as his eyes are drawn to where his hand had been.
A tidal wave of pain floods into the hollow in his heart.
The imprint of his fingers are grotesque in their testimony- they bloom blue-black against the cream of her flawless skin.
He releases her as though scalded, horror twisting through him and mangling him from within as he staggers involuntarily backwards.
"No..." he whispers, though he does not know what he is refusing; his words are hushed and sinister, "I did not mean to...Khushi I didn't mean to-"
She looks up at him, but he does not feel the relief he has been seeking in her eyes at all. There is pain and torment swirling in those depthless coffee-pools watching him, but there is a smile on her face-
That smile smarts more than anything else.
That is not the smile that had lit her face when NK had presented the roses with a chivalrous flourish. It is not the smile that had tucked against her lips when he had been compelled to hand over the bouquet he'd bought for her birthday to his sister instead.
It is a sad, forlorn smile and it breaks his heart into a million pieces, and then a million more, because he has put it there.
"You didn't mean to, I know," she whispers to him, and the turbulent pools of light in her eyes mist over, her smile trembling and flimsy as the petals of those roses- beautiful but tragic in their fragility, ephemeral in their magic, "I know you didn't but..." she sucks in a deep, shaking breath. The rest is said so quietly they might not have been words meant for him to hear, "...but it still hurts."
In this moment he knows she is not talking about the cut on her fingertip, or the bruises against her arms. He knows her tears do not well from any pain that is physical.
He knows that she is hurting because of him.
Because in his rush to get to her, to bring her back with him- in his haste to secure her in what he had deluded himself into thinking the safety of his presence, he has ripped her roots off, bent her thorns...blackmailed her with casting her family out on to the streets, tormented her with taunts and threats, and taken away her will.
And roses, as beautiful as they are, are fragile things. They are elegant and regal, but just like Khushi, they begin to wilt without their thorns, without their roots, and in the glass cages where their loveliness is showcased, their vibrancy begins to fade.
Khushi, his rose, quivers before him, and he can almost see her control and her headstrongness and the feistiness that defines her withering and drifting to fall, shed like dried, lifeless petals, until nothing might remain except-
He scoops her into his arms before the thought can be completed- he does not let it complete. It is too frightening, too damning, and his black heart, hardened and toughened over the years to be more indomitable than any metal or stone, would fracture if he steps anywhere close to it.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles in her ear, his breath damp and hot and bitter with regret and distress; they stir her hair, fall against her ear, even as she falls limp and leans against him, even as he feels moisture seep through the fabric of his clothes and touch his raw wounds, "I'm sorry...but what can I do? What else am I supposed to do? I can't...let you go..."
Khushi is trembling but then again he suspects so is he- and as he cocoons her into his arms and endeavours to block out the rest of the world, the world where he has wronged her and where everything stands in their way, he surrenders his delusions and accepts what he has been running away from.
That with each act of defiance with which he thwarted Khushi's attempts to honour their contract- with each underhanded trick he pulled, focused solely on the aim of getting her back under his roof and disregarding the bigger, more daunting issues prowling the fringes of their unstable world, the fact that Shyam was on the loose somewhere even though he had nearly killed them, that his sister was still pining after that villain and somewhere held Khushi to blame, that he had used the dirty threat of breaking apart Payal and Akash's marriage if she tried to leave him before their contract terminated, that their whole marriage hung upon printed words on a piece of paper with an expiry date...
That with each of these acts where Khushi's feelings were shunted to the back and he selfishly prioritised the desire to tie her to him, he had been digging the chasm between them deeper, and now she stands on the other side, and he is so far away he does not know how to reach her.
The hollow is yawning up to swallow him whole, and he holds on to Khushi like she is a lifeline.
When she speaks, he can feel the edges of her lips moving against his chest, encased in the material of his sweater.
"I don't want to...go...either..."
In the cold, misty emptiness inside his chest, a tongue of warmth and fire sputters, tussled by chaotic winter winds.
"But Arnavji...how can I stay? After everything...how can I stay?"
She is still crying, her small shudders no longer hidden beneath the duvet she pulls up and over her head, her back to him in the nights, her tears no longer saved for those moments of isolation when he is not near her, and he cannot pretend he does not know about them, cannot pretend that they will disappear given time, cannot fool himself anymore with an adage he would have scoffed at before, that time heals all wounds...
He cannot answer her questions either, because he does not know what to say.
But as Khushi breaks down in his arms and clutches at his shoulders, and relinquishes her cracked and broken armour, leaning into him and trusting that he will hold her up as she pours out the grief he has forced her to endure, forced her to hide...
As he buries his head into the crook of her neck and lets mirroring beads of moisture sink into her tresses, he swears that he will find those answers, and one day, he will be able to give them to her with the certainty that she cannot turn him down.
I'd really appreciate your thoughts! I hope the symbology was not obscure and unnecessary and weird! Really sorry if it was!
Ah, if I may add- the inspiration for this story came when I was arranging a bunch of roses earlier and for some reason I kept leaving the thorns. One random thought led to another and this happened. In my mind, Khushi might have been reflecting along the same lines as what she tells Arnav, and that is why she doesn't cut the thorns off. She might also just be being difficult, like a form of silent resistance. It is really up to the reader's interpretation.
Thank You for reading!
I reserve all rights over this work of fiction and request readers do not reproduce/copy/modify it elsewhere and/or claim credit.
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
CID
43