~ CHAPTER FORTY-THREE ~
The unbearable anxiety that had consumed Manik's entire being throughout the day had now doused to a blissful feeling of being spaced out. He was so lost and hardly blinked as he sat around on one of the chairs in the corridor. The day was nerve wrecking indeed and he so badly required a luxurious shower and a good night's sleep.
An irritating commotion from the corridor brought his blurred out vision back to focus. A boy and a girl, possibly around 7 years of age were engaged in a scuffle. They slapped and clawed at each other whilst their mothers tried to pull them off. The little girl who had managed to land a couple of scratches on the boy's face settled down onto one of the chairs opposite Manik and began crying. The boy wasn't that bad either. He settled down beside Manik with a couple of hair strands from the girl's head. He crossed his arms and looked away with a disgruntled pout whilst Manik felt lost between their fight. Is this how it looks like to others when I fight with someone, thought Manik. Dhruv... Nandini... I've hurt a lot of people. It's not like I wanted to... but...
Just then, an incoming call on his cell phone snapped him out of his thoughts. It was a call from Soha. Soha... Manik twiddled with the phone as he debated on whether to answer the call or not. Honestly, he didn't want to. He really wasn't in the mood to take her crap or whatever. But again... the situation was like eating gooseberries. Too bitter to swallow. Too sweet to spit it out. Answer the call and hear epic shit. Don't answer it and eat shit.
Flustered, he rubbed his eyes wearily before answering the call. "Hey..." he sighed.
"Manik," there was a deep sense of urgency in her voice. "We need to talk. I have to see you now. Where are you?"
"I'm..." he weighed his options before speaking out. "...Busy. Can we talk later?"
"Manik," she shot back sternly. "It's 7:00 PM. Now don't give me that crap of being in office and all that because I know that you aren't."
Manik buried his weary face into his hand with a deep sigh. "Actually..." he began drearily, "what is this about?"
"It's about us Manik," she replied. "Us."
"What about us?" he asked in a bored tone and pulled himself up.
"Manik. We've already spoken about this before." With each word, she started to get more and more emotional. "We aren't how we used to be. All those times we've spent together... that seems like a really long time ago. Now whenever I need you, you're busy. You're at work. You're here. You're there. It's the same old story."
"So?"
"Don't you understand?" Manik's attitude had her shocked and shaken. "We are... falling apart. It's like... you're so disconnected from me lately. You're always..."
Manik's head reeled in distress. He had taken more than his fair share of pounding today that he was in no mood to take anymore. "Soha..." he sighed. "You know what? Just... I'm tired... let's talk later. Please understand." Unable to take it anymore, he ended the call. Immediately.
He took a deep breath whilst wringing his face. "God," he groaned and leaned back onto the chair. I wonder who the hell I saw first in the morning. This is such a miserable day.
The little boy and girl were now seated across Manik. The boy made a desperate attempt to patch up with his friend, but it seemed like she wasn't ready to give in that easily. Even the generous act of sacrificing his favourite chocolate for her didn't seem to work.
"I hate you!" squealed the little girl through a river of tears.
"I'm sorry!" said the boy sheepishly.
"You pulled my hair!"
"I'm sorry, please?" repeated the helpless boy.
"And that hurt! Do you know that?" The girl's squeaky sobs echoed in the corridor.
"I won't do it again. I promise!" Even the boy seemed to be on the verge of tears.
The girl's mother stepped in to deal with the issue. "Come on Neha," the mother held her daughter in an assuring embrace. "You're a good girl, right? So good girls don't cry or fight. Now come on. Take that chocolate from Karan and give him a nice, big hug."
The mother's magical words seemed to work wonders. No sooner had she said this that the girl accepted the boy's apology and his little gift.
Manik smiled at the scene before him. That was probably the first funny yet adorable thing he had seen all day. Why funny? Because they're kids? It probably won't look that funny if...
An incoming call on his cell phone distracted him from his thoughts. Cabir.
"Cabir," Manik answered.
"Meet me outside the gate," said Cabir grimly before cutting the line.
Outside the gate? For what? I thought that he'd return with Nandini's roommate? Hope everything's okay. The way he spoke... something's not right.
Manik picked himself up and hurried out of the hospital. In a couple of minutes, he was outside the gate but couldn't find Cabir. The hospital was located away from the major traffic of the city so it was just a few number of vehicles that passed by every now and then. Not to mention, the streets were pretty murky with just one or two lamps here and there.
Manik began to dial up Cabir but stopped as he saw the flashing headlights of a car parked in the vicinity. Sure enough, it was Cabir. He had his vehicle stationed a bit away from the hospital gates.
"Cabir," Manik found his colleague leaning onto his car with one of his serious expressions. Five years of collaboration taught Manik that this wasn't a good one. It was that I have all the info yet my radar's on expression. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly. "Is everything alright?"
"You tell me what's wrong Manik," replied Cabir with a frown.
"What-what do you mean what's wrong?" Manik's chest started to clench uncomfortably now. Something definitely was not right!
"What happened between you and Nandini?" he asked out of the blue.
"What?" He looked genuinely innocent as he said this. "What do you mean? Nothing happened."
Cabir never replied. Instead, he clenched his lips, pulled out his cell phone and handed it over to Manik who gave him a puzzled look before taking it.
It was Mukherjee's mail wide open on Cabir's smart phone screen. With each word, Manik's head pounded with the threatening need to black out. His hands grew increasingly sweaty that the phone almost slipped off. His eyes struggled to stay open as he slowly raised them to meet Cabir's penetrating squint.
"Now tell me Manik," Cabir was still leaning onto his car with his hand over the roof. "What's wrong?"
"Cabir..." Manik was breathless. He should have known! When you want to play with Cabir, it had better be sports, not games.
After a brief moment of patient waiting, Cabir straightened up and placed his hands on his hips. "I'll tell you what happened," he said. "You harassed Nandini. She complained. They suspended you. And you went back to square one. Right or wrong?"
"Cabir..." Manik knew that he had no go. He had to confess. But how? "I didn't really mean to... it just happened..."
Cabir's eyes grew wider with disbelief and fury as he realized that what he thought could have happened was true after all.
"I only wanted to scare her," said Manik in a barely audible voice. "That's it. I swear. I never thought that she would..." But before he could say another word, he was cut off with a massive punch to his stomach which sent him crashing down to his knees.
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Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
CID
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