Trigger warning- Mention of self harm and suicidal thoughts.
The characters are going through trauma which they will overcome as the story progresses but until the journey starts- they will continue to fight their pain.
*****
Twilight: The time when day meets night and cast an amber spell but for Abhimanyu Birla, every second of twenty-four hour is filled with somberness. The lonely crescent making it's presence known, as until then, it was shadowed by brightness of the sun.
It's funny how the moon stays with us every minute yet we only see its beauty at night.
The wind blows slowly and the wind chim hung on the window seal tinkled, breaking the obscurity Abhimanyu has lost himself in. He looked at the blood pooled on the white tiles of his bathroom- so red, it hurts.
It would leave a scar and need minimum of 5 stiches. He promised himself that he will not cut too deep, not the one that would leave a scar and would need stitches- so why did he? Why did he loose against helplessness again? Why does he need a blade and a cut to numb out the pain?
'You deserve pain... nothing but pain!'
'You are being a coward. An attention seeker, you basta*d! Running away from the pain that you deserve?'
And the voices of demons were back to haunt him. He rubbed his face in tiredness as heartbreak engulfs him. Tears swimming in his eyes but not flowing. They were caged like him.
He stood in front of the mirror, the wound on the left of his chest hard to miss but eyes so hollow, so pained, so broken that it writes poetry on its own.
"I love you, Abhi... I love you so much." She smiled at him as she kissed where his heart reside.
"Even if you ask me 100 times, my answer won't change. I will choose Abhinav as my husband 1000 thousand times over. 1000 times over anything and anyone," her voice was firm as she looked at him with disgust filled eyes. Her hatred for him shining bright in her doe shaped eyes.
Voices from the past echoed in the silent room and he could feel his body shivering as anxiety that has found a place in his heart kicked in. He gulped as more voices drummed against his ears.
Trying to distract himself, he took out gauze from the drawer and dabbed the blood. cleaning it with alcohol, he stitched the wound up. The pain was welcoming- it was not one from heartbreak after all.
*****
She hates it. Hates how easily the day transcends into night, without have any consideration of people whose only source of light was the sun. She hates the pink-blue hue of sky when twilight arrives. The bright colours in the sky mocking her, reminding her how black and white her life is.
Anger so consuming, so cursing that she found herself letting out a silent scream. Sliding down the wall, she crumbles and let out a cry. Her fingers digging deeper in her palms, drawing out blood and she revels in the pain.
Pain something she was still learning to live with. But how do you learn to live with something so antagonizing and yet so comforting at the same time? Something that makes you absolute weak yet so powerful? Something she seeks yet want to drive it away?
The white and black palette awaiting and she starts painting... To transcends into a world where she is the creator.
Aanya Maheshwari was spiraling deeper and deeper in darkness with no lamp post in sight.
Do you ever find it hard to breath? The pain in your chest intensifying, making you choke on your hurt that you gag out of sheer helplessness? Wound so raw, so deep that you could not help but curve up in a ball, asking god to give you death instead? That's the life she lives or dies every second.
The painting on the big canvas describing her state- all black with streaks of white like directions to somewhere far, where all the hurt will vanish.
She looked out of the window and it was night. How and when time passed, she had no idea.
Her phone pinged and even before she picked it up, she knew who it was. Her best friend- Shrishti Malhotra reminding her to eat.
Yeah, she lives a cubicle life now- she wakes up, stare at the ceiling, paint, only eat when someone mostly Shrishti makes her food and message her to come out and eat.
Being a clinical psychologist, she know she needs to go to therapy but it's hard. She have studied the subject, she know every bit of the methods... will she able to believe them? Will she able to hold on to his memories yet let go of him... happily? Is she ready? Will she ever be ready?
They say doctors makes the worst patients and Aanya Maheshwari was the biggest example of it.
*****
There's beauty in falling in love and then there's beauty in falling in love after trying to deny it's existence for the longest of time. He fell in love with her while falling in love with LOVE.
00:00- Midnight... The darkest hour has arrived, the sun farthest away from the horizon and as he looked outside the window, he could not see or hear a thing. A sad smile played on his lips as he sat on the window edge with his diary ready to soak in the love he pours for her.
"I loved you in silence and chaos and I seeked you through it all. I loved you when the days got tough but I fell in with you again when the days got easier. I loved you when you smiled and I died a little everytime you cried...
I loved you when I first heard you and I still love you when I can't hear you."
Pages inked with his love.
*****
"It's been 2 years since you left, 24 months since I last heard your voice. 730 days since you are gone to a world I can't come yet- why are you so cruel to me, Dhruv? How can you leave me and go?" She whispers in the dark night, asking question to the sky- a place he now resides in.
Aanya Maheshwari has been broken before but never in her 36 years of her she has been shattered, crushed and felt so alone.
Her fingers hovered his phone no. in her phone, typing and backspacing the text messages. It's been two years- for how long can she burden him with her pain?
"Just this time-" she whispers as she sent messages... hoping it to be the last time she disturbs her Dhruv.
"It feels like eons have passed since you left. Here you are in pictures, in my memories... smiling, giggling and loving- like you never left but the heartbreaking reality is, you did. You left and here I am, trying to not pull the trigger."
"You are in every breath I take but you slip like the sand in my fist. It hurts that I am all skins and bones but you are ashes in the pot, floating away like like water that I cannot touch twice."
"Please come back... I promise I won't stop you from buying books. Just come back to me please."
Tears splashed across the screen telling tales of her broken love story and her shattered self.
*****
His phone pinged with messages but he did not cared. He was lost in the world where she still resides and he is still hers.
"The life we did not get to live together- we will live here. In my memories, in my imagination, in my heartbreak- I will always be yours to call, your to love and yours to hurt.
My heart was only yours... for you to break it anyway.
Apne toote dil ke tukdon se bhi
Tujhse pyaar karunga
Tu meri rahe na rahe
Main sajda sirf tera rahunga "
Another swamp of messages floated on his screen and this time, he closed his diary in tiredness and frustration, to give the intruder a piece of mind for disturbing someone so late in the night.
*****
"I really wish this love was not so consuming... So much it suffocates and leaves me breathless but also enough to breathe that I want to say I love you to you again and again. Dhruv, I really really love you. Please come back to me... please."
"Your meethi mirchi is tired, love.... please take me with you."
Pain so consuming that it drowns her and now she can't breathe. Wounds so deep that even the scars hurt and cuts so fresh that it still bleeds.
She curves up in a ball on the cold floor, his photograph just a finger away, her phone clutched to her chest as she let out a silent scream- a cry of help and the sky roared in thunder and clouds breakdown in rain as god finally sent a hand her way.
She unlocked her phone to send another text, to tell him how much she hates him for leaving her alone but for the first time in 2 years, it shows- two blue ticks and another tear escapes the boundary of her eyes, as she realises, another memory of her Dhruv, a memoir of him was being taken away.
*****
He reads and re-reads the text, the pain of the person reaching out to him and engulfing him in the bubble as if, its a mirror of his own. Tears which were caged till now break free from the boundary of his eyes and flows.
He wiped the wet moisture by the back of his hand, mid-way realizing, he is crying.
He types and re-types... not knowing what to say to the intruder now but in the end, all he said was-
"You can continue to send messages to Dhruv... even though I am not him, I promise, I will not take him away from you."
*****
She reads and re-reads the text, not knowing what to make out of the person across the screen. Are they being genuine or its just another creepy person? Do they actually care or it's all for show and her heart will be broken again?
Before she could think and overthink, another text message pops up.
"I understand it may sound creepy for someone to just let you message them, even dangerous too but I promise, it's none."
"I just... understand the pain you are going through. It's a mirror of my own and I don't want to take away this one mode where you let yourself be. Where you talk about your pain. I am affluent with silence, so don't worry, I won't disturb you with advices of my own."
And for the first time, she felt a sense of belonging filling her senses. She knows it's dangerous to talk to unknown people in this era but for some unknown reason, she took a leap of faith this time.
"Thank you... for telling me that I could be heard even in silence."
She could not say much. She was too overwhelmed.
*****
Abhimanyu smiled as he read the text, a sense of achievement surrounding his being... after eight years, he felt, he was something more than just being a lost case.
Tum Se Tum Tak
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Seher Hone Ko Hai
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