Yash-Arti FF: Meri adhoori kahaani - Part 4:pg8 - Page 2

Dying to read for the next update!

It was a young woman, with long dark hair, and liquid brown eyes, almost obscured by heavy exhausted eyelids, that were quaking with fear. There was a deep cut on her lip, a dark blue bruise on the left side of her forehead, a newer, reddish one just below her eye. He wanted, strangely, to embrace her then. But she looked so fragile that she might have crumbled down at his touch. And there was something immaculate about her, something pure and untainted that made him feel filthy, unworthy.

"Just for a few days. Just... please hide me," she breathed strenuously, as though every word she spoke was burdensome.

"From whom?" Yash asked.

But the question went astray; her irises had withdrawn themselves into an impenetrable world.

"You can stay for as long as you like," he offered. And he added, almost as an urgent afterthought, "Don't worry, you'll be okay."

It had been so long since he had spoken to somebody for a non-pragmatic purpose, that the words almost felt insincere in his mouth. As though plagiarised from another character. He did not know why he was acting as he was, so spontaneously offering that she stay at his apartment, without even a moment of trepidation, given how religiously he valued his privacy and aloofness. He could have just as easily offered to find her another place to stay - a safe, tidier place.

It was almost like he wanted her to stay with him. The concern he felt for this nameless other person, the abrupt interruption of his usually self-absorbed existence, made him feel just slightly more substantially alive. Concern, coupled with an irrational rage at whatever it was that could cause her so much pain and terror, and a sudden unprecedented bout of gallantry.

It was momentarily exhilarating. Previously unused synapses of his brain began to connect. His thoughts, suddenly, were racing. Was she hungry? What was there to eat? Where would she sleep? There was the folding couch. She could have the bed. What about bedding though? The extra bedding in the trunk surely smelt of damp and mothballs. Maybe he could run them up to the drycleaners. And get breakfast on the way. Warm croissants.

It was with some difficulty, then, that he shook his thoughts out of their flighty flights, reminding himself: just for a few days. She had surely made other arrangements, and would be gone soon, and he would be left with a life emptier than ever. Emotionally emptier - which was, surely, the worst kind of emptiness.

His wintry, unfeeling heart could still permit him to amuse himself with concocted flights of fancy, to obscure his frustrations. But it would take far too long for him to recover from a wounded heart, to allow himself to get so involved, and eventually, attached. He composed himself, silenced the excited people bouncing off strange ideas in his mind, before asking her if she would like breakfast. She nodded, her empty eyes tearing up slightly.

He did bring her croissants from the French bistro after all. They ate in silence, as though pretending that they were one of those people who had known each other for so long that they had nothing to say to each other that their silences could not communicate. After breakfast, she lay down to sleep, tossing and turning, murmuring incoherently, and he watched her and willed himself to look away.

There was a strange magnetism that drew him to her. Maybe it was the fact that even though she had sought refuge with him, he could not have seen her as a damsel in distress. There was an obstinate flicker of strength in her eyes - she was a fighter. In the midst of his dark dusty apartment, she seemed to radiate. He wished he knew how to paint to perfection. He would paint her as she lay there, with her slightly sweaty face framed by stray locks of hair, her half-open cherubic mouth, her translucent eyelids. He would leave out the pain in her knitted eyebrows, maybe even curve her chapped lips ever so slightly, wrenching away her tumultuous nightmares with a stroke of the brush.

Yash had decided that despite his initial unusual reaction to her presence, there was no danger of him forming a dangerously irrevocable emotional attachment to her. He had been a recluse for too long, had fortified too stubbornly his opinion of people as generally cold-eyed and untrustworthy, to be able to find himself thus unreasonably bound to a stranger.

What he was feeling was genuine and undoubtedly justifiable concern on a humanitarian level, coupled with the intellectual curiosity spurred by an experience he was unfamiliar with. It was similar to what he felt when he looked down from his balcony at the people walking in the streets below or lounging in the balconies facing his, mildly fascinated, trying to find the characters of his novel in them.

Soon enough, she too had become a character of his novel, Mia. By the time she woke up late that night, he had a rough synopsis, and two pages of writing that he did not have a burning desire to delete. And he had scraped congealed substances off all the dirty dishes, mopped up the entire apartment, and heated up a can of baked beans for dinner. There was no reason not to try to make her temporary stay as comfortable as possible. It was only polite.

The next day, she began to speak up a bit more, although her words were hesitant, vacant-eyed and perfunctory, and felt as though they could easily flail away to the mildest of winds. Her name, he learnt, was Aarti. She had offered to cook for him, and asked him about what he was writing. She had read his previous novel, and it seemed, liked it. That was the reason why she had turned to him for refuge - he seemed to be the only person she could trust. She had stopped the narrative there, her voice trailing away like a lullaby, allowing the rest to wait, swathed in mystery.

Yash was burning to inquire further. But he stopped himself. He himself could trust nobody with his innermost feelings. There seemed to be no reason to expect her to open up to him, particularly given the pain she had lived through already. It was only natural that she be on her guard.

Yet, in a part of his heart that he categorically refused to acknowledge, but that was nevertheless blatantly there, it stung that she did not wish to confide in him, that she was able to hide away such a poignantly personal part of her. It was ridiculous that this should affect him in the slightest. But it did. Whenever he reminded himself of the barely controversial fact that he was a complete stranger to her, there was something that physically caused his heart to constrict slightly.

Maybe he was subconsciously wishing this could be like the hallucinations that he created to divert himself. He always liked them to end well and smoothly, in perfectly predictable clichs, with him having swept the pretty girl off her feet, or having gloriously saved the day. He was so unaccustomed to prolonged contact with other people, that it was disorienting to find that he had such little control, that he could not simply wish for things to happen, for them to materialise.

But Aarti, could not be Mia. And it was probably just as well. She was a real real person, not a puppet.

...

A/N: Many, many thanks to everyone for the overwhelming feedback! Really, truly appreciate it!! 😳

-Anu

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Part 3: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/post/63873093�

I forgot to mention this before, so I might as well do so here. The banner for this FF is stunning! Absolutely stunning. The image of Aarti with downcast eyes is the one that I like the most, because there is a sort of mysterious, indescribable aura about her along with a solemnity that comes to mind whenever I picture Aarti in this story through Yash's eyes. She is beautiful, pure...yet her eyes hold secrets that only she can reveal if she wants to.

Ah, the beginning of a part full of beautiful descriptions (but that is true for every part!) and we get Yash's first impression of this nameless woman whose face is spotted with bruises but still seems intrinsically pure in spite of her surface wounds. She is fragile and vulnerable, but she is a strong woman with a spark in her eyes, as Yash describes later. A paradox of sorts? Maybe, maybe not...

Irrational rage and a bout of unprecedented gallantry. Oh, that made me smile. She is making him do things that he hadn't done in a very long time, and the beauty of it is that her mere presence is stirring him to life again; it's so neat how the short, fragmented sentences reflect the rapidity of his thoughts - the exhilaration and excitement is more than evident...All for a nameless woman who he felt a sudden urge to shelter and reassure.

I like the foreshadowing here: he's already anticipating a life more empty than the one he was leading just moments before she showed up at his doorstep, and to me that implied that he has been affected by her silent company so much even though it hasn't been very long at all. How is he going to cope when she leaves?

And more foreshadowing...Dare I say that the emotional attachment began the moment he reassured her that she was going to be okay? Maybe it's my wishful thinking.

I found this to be intriguing and kind of funny because it seemed to be an attempt at self-justification on Yash's part, almost dry and clinical in nature. This, in contrast with Aarti's powerful magnetism (that paragraph was lovely, lovely, lovely, by the way!) that draws Yash to her automatically, falls flat just a bit in terms of persuasive arguments.

Things to chuckle at here, too! An improvement compared to the first part of the FF, I must say! And he cleaned the apartment! Quite a bout of gallantry...of course, it's only polite!

The last three paragraphs: Love, love, love. Poignant words with sprinkles of humor.

Aarti's silence, the prospect that she is holding something back from him - it's troubling. Tormenting, even, I'd say, based on Yash's reactions to her. And the fact that he - even if he might not say it, he's certainly thinking it - wants to be something more than "a complete stranger to her," because his current status as a stranger physically hurts him when the thought merely crosses his mind, is a powerful indicator of the change that Aarti has brought about in Yash's life and in Yash himself. I felt like he wants so badly to unravel the mysteries that Aarti isn't telling him; maybe somewhere in there, he also wants to end "his story" well, with the pretty girl being swept off her feet and the hero saving the day.

Superb part, once again! Love the part title also. That's essentially what happened to Yash in a matter of moments...and possibly what literally happened to Aarti in a matter of moments, too.

Loved it.⭐️