Part 24: A friend in hand, is worth two men in life.
"Geet...are you bringing that Kheer?" A voice sounded impatient from the living room and her mind unwillingly floated back to the present, her hand feeling a living urge to raise them over to her lips.
She looked around to find Aashi gone and she began ladling the kheer into the bowls, placing them neatly in a large tray. Mindlessly she walked into the dining room,on her way to the part of the house where the most sound was coming as an uprising in progress, when she heard
him cough violently. Her mind snapped into realization and she reluctantly drifted her eyes in his direction with a soft murmering of expletives under her breath.
There was more coughing now and she saw him seated alone with Aashi in the window sitting by the dining table, his face limpid with a sickly greyness spreading over his shocked features.
"Let me get you some water..." She heard, Aashi say and hurry off to the kitchen when she walked towards him, without meeting his eyes. She could almost taste the acrid taste of cud and bile in his mouth. It was unbearable to look at him then, when he could have just the same wrong idea about her from being back to mingling with her ex's family, when it had only been that morning she'd entagled herself with him in a minute long kiss.
When she was close to the table directly infront of him, she bent down and picked up the empty bowl - perhaps Aashi's - and spoke in a pained whisper, "Its ok...I'm not mad...You don't have to explain anything"
But only much later, she would come to analyze that those very words could have conveyed everything she'd not intended. For when she readied herself to turn about to make her way to the living room, he sprung up from his seat with such stiffness in his limbs, he appeared nothing short of a jerking jack out of the box.
Jerk! She murmured and winced inwardly when she found Aashi having just come back into the room with a glass of water, mirroring the questioning look of unmistakeable and rather awkward silence lingering there - on each other's faces.
"Is...something the matter?" Aashi asked with that ring of suspicion in her tone, the kind that was spoken from a strong pursuit of instinct and rarely needed any affirmation.
"No..." She heard the room echo with both their sudden startled responses, which was certainly the least re-assuring to Aashi and she darted her gaze back and forth between Maan and her.
"O...k...a...y..." Aashi sang loud and fake, purposefully ignoring the obvious, which Geet knew was only because she intended to bring it up later when she would be alone with her.
"You remember my friend I was just talking about..." Her face lightened with a genuine amusement, "My sometimes-book-agent-but-always-a-best friend-and-hopefully..." Aashi drawled with spontaneous mischief, her eyes aimed at Geet who was beginning to swivel away on her toes, "soon to be sister-in-law...that's her. Geet!"
"Shit..." However soft their cussing was, the reinforcing sounds from each of their mouths untiringly made it to Aashi's ears and her forehead wrinkled.
And the wrinkling deepened as Geet turned to face her just when Aashi's finger lifted to first point at her and then towards him...Her stomach in knots and she expected nothing less of him in anticipation of the confrontation ahead.
"Don't tell me...you two are..." Aashi held her head, pretentiously dizzy and she braced herself against the wall.
However, it was really Geet who could use any kind of support, there was to be offered. It was a stalemate and she was beginning to give under pressure unable to think of a move ahead of Aashi's to ward off the approaching moment. Before she could face either Maan or Aashi, she abruptly walked away wanting to escape their exiling stares.
Only Aashi wouldn't let go and she was on her trail in seconds. "Geet wait..." Aashi almost yelled with a clear disregard for Maan's presence.
"No...I can't do this here, Aashi..." She said without facing her and pushed past the shoulders which were crowding the entry, for the center of the room was being cleared off for upcoming entertainment. Sweety aunty approached her and she thrust the tray in her hands quickly surprising her and hopped around to the back of the room, planning to get away through the kitchen door. She could have almost gotten away but Aashi found her when she was by the door and pulled her out, thrusting her against the hallway wall.
"You tell me right now, that he has nothing to do with you and Abhi bhaiya..." Suddenly there was disgust in her voice. Demanding didn't suit her, Geet wanted to tell but instead all she could manage was close her eyes down and sigh. Let the exhaling gesture take away the heaviness there.
"No..." She spoke with a hiss, "Not Maan...but please don't ask me anything more"
"Why not?"
"Because I don't have answers" And she could feel her voice crack from the bundle of emotions that was eddying at the base of her throat.
"Aashi..." It was Maan now, sounding just as bit conflicted in addressing her, "Perhaps we could all talk outside..."
A long minute passed and her eyes flickered open to see the deluge of wetness thickening Aashi's lashes. No...anything but tears, her insides cried.
Taking both of Aashi's hands into hers and grabbing all of her attention away from Maan, she said finally giving into the madness she was fighting to keep at bay, "I hope all of you...aunty and uncle too can stop with this denial...and I do really hope that someday when we get past all this, we can be friends again"
She looked away, taking in the horror in Aashi's eyes and for a moment, she wanted to hug her. But then that was too much of an indulgence, when she felt the wetness pool in her own eyes. Letting go off her hands, she brushed past Maan with a hand over her mouth, running blindly towards the door, without giving heed to what she could run into.
Or rather, should she be asking, who she was running into?
She didn't need to look up as
he steadied her by the elbows. And that familiar warmth and the sanctuary that she had often found in his arms was all she needed to break from the barrage of tears doubling over in its force from having been withheld for months.
She wanted to move, push him away if she could. But her body refused and she felt as frozen piece of sheet rock. Free of all will and under the mercy of it's extraneous elements that surrounded her. For starters,
him.
"What happened? Why are you crying?"
Oh! Dear god...
She heard his voice only to tightly scrunch her eyes, willing herself to undo all of what she was feeling then... wanting to shut him out as badly as she wanted air.
How long has it been? A month? She unknowingly clutched his arm as she felt a sensation of pain shoot up from her chest...from an image of someone tasering her heart when a repulsive voice in her head spwed the precise number of days much to her dislike.
In the mix of headiness, she didn't know how or when, but she soon found herself breathing. Being dragged onto the street by her wrist when a soothing breath of cool night air descended down her chest.
"Get in..." She vaguely made out Aashi, disbelievingly stubborn and rude in the faint light that lit up the cul-de-sac, shoving her though the passenger door.
Well, clearly the two men in her life were in no way a match to the one friend she found in Aashi.
Edited by 6thElement - 13 years ago
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
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