FF: Ankahee | Thread 1| Chapters 1-33 - Page 89

Chapter 31

"Rish..."Madhu's words froze in mid-air as she stepped in the patio and her eyes fell on RK, standing in the corner. With Maya. Embracing Maya. Kissing her.

Rishabh was kissing Maya.

The world stopped spinning. Time froze. Madhu's eyes turned to stone. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. No words. No sobs. Not even tears.

A moment later - even though it had seemed much longer than just a moment - the sound of Madhu's phone breaking as it slipped from her hand got RK's attention. RK pulled back and turned. He saw Madhu standing at the entrance the patio. His eyes went back to the girl who was still in his embrace and he instinctively pushed her away. By the time his eyes turned to Madhu again, she had turned back and left.

RK was drunk. No, he was absolutely smashed. He had drunk 4 large drinks in the last 20 minutes alone. And yet, something in the sound that broke his trance shocked him back into consciousness. Had he actually seen Madhu just a few seconds ago or was he hallucinating? Was it really Maya standing next to him?

RK stared towards the door again. This had happened. Madhu was here, right? The only evidence that she had been there was a bouquet and a broken phone fallen on the ground, where she had been just a second ago, but that was enough. Madhu was here. But where was she now? Had she...had she...seen...?

RK was beyond stunned. For a couple of minutes he didn't move; he couldn't fathom what was going on and what should he do. Then he felt Maya's hand on his arm, and instantly he jerked away, stepping away from her. Oh shit! RK ran inside the house looking for Madhu, leaving Maya behind.

"Madhu!" he yelled as he reached the living room and saw a number of concerned faces.

Rohan spoke up. "What's going on, RK? Where did Madhu go?"

Rishabh struggled for words.

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Madhu shivered as she sat in the stairs. She was still in her building, but several floors above her house, sitting in a dark corner of the staircase. It was well past midnight, and she didn't know where she would go, or how. Her instincts were telling her only one thing right now. There was just one word in her mind. Run!

And so she had run. She had turned from her spot in the patio and left the house as fast as she could. All she had wanted to do was to go away, from everyone and everything. She couldn't say anything, answer any questions, and face any of her friends in her house. Most of all, she could not face RK. She heard Trishna call out her name as she rushed out, but she didn't respond and didn't even look back. She just ran out, not wanting to be found. As she entered the elevator she couldn't think where she would go at this time and she was afraid someone will come behind her and find her, so she hit the button to go up. It was all the thinking her mind was capable of, at that moment.

Madhu still had her purse on her arm from when she had first arrived, and it was weighing her down, so she kept it aside. It felt really heavy in her arm, just like it felt inside her. She was shivering, but she wasn't crying. She was just waiting for the loud echos of RUN to die down a wee bit in her mind so she could know what to do again.

A few minutes passed. Her heartbeat started reducing. Then, she heard noises several floors before her. She recognized those sounds and those people, looking for her. She climbed up the stairs till she reached the terrace. More than anything else right now, she wanted to be alone.

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Rishabh did not answer Rohan's question, but the look on his face told him something was wrong.

"Come, let's bring her back first. She wouldn't be far." Rohan said and almost dragged RK by hand to go out, whose feet seemed to have frozen.

They came back ten minutes later, unable to locate anyone on the deserted roads outside at this hour. There was no trace of Madhu. RK ran in to find his phone which was somewhere in the bedroom and tried calling Madhu. He tried her US number and her old India number multiple times but he didn't get through. Then he remembered a broken phone. He went out to the patio and saw Madhu's phone on the floor. Next to it was a bouquet, which apparently RK had stepped over when he had run out. He picked it up and caressed the wrinkled flowers. Tears dropped out of his eyes on their own. "For the love of my life" the birthday greeting card pasted on the bouquet read. "Madhu, where are you?" RK spoke inside his mind, the first of several times that night as he closed his eyes.

Maya was standing in front of him when he opened his eyes again after a few seconds. She had been in the patio the whole time, and RK saw her eyes were red. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but RK stopped her by a gesture of his hand.

"RK" Ria called out from behind. Rishabh turned and went back inside.

"What's going on RK? Where is Madhu? What happened there?" Ria asked.

RK looked around, and the same question was on everyone's face. He spotted Madhu's luggage lying in the living room. She had come all the way for his birthday. And now, God knows where she was.

What she had seen...what had she seen? Even he didn't understand why he had been embracing Maya and kissing her? Where had that passion come from? And how could he explain something he didn't understand to his friends?

"She...she...misunderstood. I don't know. We need to find her."

Trishna looked at RK, then looked at a crying Maya who had just stepped inside behind RK.

"I am going home, she said. She might come there. There's no place else..." Trishna didn't finish. She didn't want to finish that thought, but everyone knew. There was nowhere Madhu could go.

Mukund and Trishna walked out, but RK walked out with them at the same time too. Trishna looked at him with a strange fury in her eyes. "I am...I am going to drive around to see if she is somewhere around...Would you...umm...would you call me?"

"Only when she wants me to." Trishna curtly spoke and entered the elevator.

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As the hours passed, the darkness of the night embraced Madhu and slowly an image returned to her mind.

Rishabh, her Rishabh, he was kissing Maya.

His eyes were shut, but his lips were intertwined with Maya's and he was holding her in a tight embrace. Not just a hug. And his face...what did his face say? Madhu didn't remember that. She hadn't stayed long enough to notice. She couldn't. She had run.

Why had she run, the question suddenly started Madhu? Why didn't she stay? Why didn't she ask Rishu what was going on?

What really was going on?

She didn't know, did she? It was just one image, one moment that she had witnessed. It could have been...anything, couldn't it? Yet, something within her knew much clearly than her rational conscious mind did that she couldn't have stayed. It was Rishu and she did trust him with every inch of her existence.

But it was also Maya.

If it were anyone else, Madhu's heart recognized, she would have stayed. She would have asked. She would have assumed it was a misunderstanding and she would have heard and believed any explanation she got. But it was Maya, and she couldn't stay. She couldn't see it. She couldn't hear any explanation because it was Maya. She was too scared what the explanation was going to be.

Madhu continued to sit there, the one image transfixed in her mind that was too numb to think too many thoughts. She was scared to go back. She was scared to be in front of Rishabh, even though she did not understand the fear.

Then it came to her. It wasn't fear. It was shame. She was ashamed to look in Rishabh's eyes and possibly find a truth that she couldn't bear. She was ashamed that she had been there, at that patio, at the moment, and had seen something she shouldn't have. She was ashamed of her love for Rishabh, of her desires and needs for him that had brought him in her life in the first place. She had wanted him, she had asked him, she had fooled him into staying and she had kept him there with a tight hold even when he had tried to leave. She had justified it as love, but she was ashamed now of the pettiness of her selfishness.

She remembered the day they met. She remembered the day she told him she loved him. Somehow, he had said he loved her back then, but it had probably been him getting swayed in the moment. That love was fragile anyway. It had disappeared with time - almost - but she had been too stubborn. She didn't let RK leave. Instead she coaxed him in by asking for a physical relationship. She trapped him, one way or the other, until he felt compelled seeing her hysterical and in danger of losing her life that he had to marry her to protect her. She had been lucky to be loved by RK - it was a joy like no other in the world - and yet she questioned if it was fair. She wanted him, she desired him, she loved him, and so, until today, she had thought it was all okay. But today, she wasn't sure any more. Today, she was ashamed of everything that she had done, of her selfish stubbornness and she was ashamed to hear it from RK if she ever faced him.

Maya. RK and Maya. Maya and RK. Maya and Rishu. Rishu and Maya.

What was between them? They were close, very close, Madhu knew. They had always been close, the bestest of friends. They trusted each other. They were confidantes. Rishabh in fact trusted Maya more than he trusted Madhu, didn't he? Maya loved RK, or at least used to. She probably still did. Anyone would, Rishabh was so lovable. And RK? Did he love Maya? Maybe. Maybe he didn't realize it earlier, when he married Madhu, but maybe he did now? Or maybe he would, given time, if she weren't there? Maybe he would have, long ago, if she wasn't there.

Dawn came, and for the first time in the two years Madhu had known RK, she finally acknowledged the truth her heart had secretly known all the while:

This had always been Rishabh and Maya's story. Madhu was the one who had come in between.