||~Something About You~||#8 *COMPLETED* - Page 32

Khushi would have been gravely be mistaken, if she had thought that Arnav's addicted eyes ever left her, whenever they were in the same room, even in a wedding crowd. So, he saw her whole aura suddenly change from happy sprightliness to calm stillness. He saw her abruptly sitting down with an undignified thump beside the singing ladies & then she seemed to be listening to the song being played. Arnav turned towards Samiya on his side to ask her if she knew anything about the song being played; not knowing Khushi's eyes turned towards his direction to study his profile just then. By the time he had looked back, he found her staring ahead with unseeing eyes, & then to his utter shock, he saw her hand go up & discreetly brush away flecks of tears from her cheeks. Arnav's jaw tightened as a sense of foreboding suddenly filled him. He again turned towards Samiya, giving Khushi the opportunity to look at him again, as he asked Samiya about the song again. This time before he could turn towards Khushi again, Samiya stopped him & pulling her iPhone out from her purse, she said absentmindedly, "Wait! I'll satisfy your curiosity. Just let me consult Google Mamu!"

Within a minute, she found what she was looking for, & furrowing her brows thoughtfully, she read it out loud, "Heer is a song that takes into account the stories of Heer-Ranjha, where Ranjha left his beloved to get married to another suitor in the beginning, and Mirza-Sahebaan, where Mirza takes his beloved on a horse. And so, in the song, the girl wants to be called Sahebaan instead of Heer, even though Mirza and Sahebaan die at the end of story." Arnav looked at her with a deadpan expression, & when Samiya looked up, he prompted her, "In plain English, please?" Samiya shrugged & was about to ask him impatiently why he was so interested in a folk Panjabi song, when she saw him look away & following his gaze, she saw a pensive Khushi sitting down while hugging her knees & the women beside her were singing another song now, but it was also a folk Panjabi song. Samiya quickly put two & two together, & decided these two definitely needed some kind of a cupid. She cleared her throat noisily to attract Arnav's attention, & when he reluctantly turned his head towards her, without any preamble she charged on, "Look, Arnie. You- No, the song. You know, basically, Ranjah loved Heer a lot, but instead of recognizing that love in front of the whole world & honoring Heer's position in his life, he went & married another! & so Khu- I mean, the girl from the song obviously, wants to be Sahebaan instead of Heer, whose love was morally & socially dignified by Mirza when he took her away on his horse, which implied that they got hitched. Got it?"

Samiya saw the hard look that came over Arnav's face & before she could ask him what was wrong, he got up jerkily & bit out, "Got it." & then he was gone from there in long, forceful strides.

~~~~~~~~~

It was an excuse she commonly used, but when Khushi went & told her Amma, she wanted to go & get into her bed into the Guesthouse as she had a splitting headache, she felt she wasn't fully lying as she could feel a headache starting to grow. She brushed aside Garima's concerns, defused her offer of fetching Rohan from the stage to escort her upto the Guesthouse. & then finally after assuring Garima she had her phone with her & she'd be fine & she'd lock the Main door & her bedroom door behind her before she laid down, Khushi made her way out of the Main house. Once outside, she took gulps of deep breaths in, trying to clear her head up a little. She had just fallen into the small side walk leading straight to the nearby Guesthouse, when she felt her arm getting gripped in an iron clad grasp, & then she felt herself being pulled sideways towards the back of the Main house. Khushi didn't say anything, just letting him pull herself like a rag doll & kept trying to take in lungful of airs as she was feeling very short of breath.

Arnav had seen her talking to her Amma, knowing instantly she was making an excuse to escape, & after giving her a discreet enough head start, he had followed her out & now that he was dragging her in the Main house again, he had no idea where he was taking her. Then hearing the loud buzz of conversation & laughter coming out from the direction of the Hall, Arnav quickly made a decision. Once they got back inside the house through the kitchen, Arnav hurriedly led them out of the kitchen & turning left, he dragged her across a passageway & then he was leading her up the flight of stairs to the 1^st floor of the house. Once on the landing of the 1^st floor, which led the way to all the bedrooms on the floor, he stopped & furiously turned towards Khushi. Before Khushi could ask him what was his problem, though, he spat at her accusingly, "You were crying!"

Khushi immediately looked away as if she had got caught & opened her mouth to deny his claim, but he was too quick for her, as he held her chin up between his thumb & index finger & said cuttingly, "Your eyes are red & puffy & I don't buy your headache story. I have seen you crying!" Khushi pulled her chin back from his grip & looked down, not sure what she could say, & then she heard him say something which shocked her thoroughly, "That song made you cry, right? Or more precisely, I did!" Khushi looked at him horrifyingly, wondering how on earth he could have possibly know this, & she heard him say in a tight voice, "I hurt you! You- You feel that I degrade you like that girl in the song??" When Khushi didn't say anything but just look at him confusedly, Arnav almost yelled, "You know why I can't marry! You know why I don't believe in it anymore! I have seen the fundamental, the foundation-of-my-being marriage being ruined beyond recognition & both my parents destroyed because of it! I have seen the ugly side of it too closely to ever put myself in its bound! Ever, Khushi! Can't you even understand this much.. when sometimes I feel you can even read my silence?!"

Khushi's nerves had already been strung to the point of tear when Arnav had dragged her up & now seeing Arnav move like a caged animal in front of her, she just wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted all this push-&-pull, highly tensile angst to just end. She had just realized that having someone to love & being loved by him was the biggest miracle, & not some certified-by-the-society alliance & rituals, & he felt she was being upset over the lack of his commitment?! She could feel that he was feeling pressured, & she had never wanted this! Because ever since they had started this strange kind of exploring of theirs, Arnav had never, even once, pressured her to take that one step that had been his primary goal, because he had known she had been set against it. & now he felt she was doing that to him by emotional torment. Khushi took another deep breath as she felt a wave of emotion hit her, urging her to do what she had been longing to do since she had sat their after the song ended. But looking at Arnav, she felt, this was probably not the best moment for that as he was in a too hot-headed state to understand her words.

Khushi was about to turn away from him, when she heard him speak in a tight whisper, "Just go! Don't ever come near me! I hurt you today & I have hurt you before.. & that was never my intention! But I seem to do it anyway! I can't offer you what you deserve.. so you deserve better than me! Go find someone who can cherish you & honor you as he should! Go away from me, Khushi!" & Khushi felt like a physical blow was about to topple her over from the 1^st floor to the ground below. He was driving her away from himself, when she had just decided that.. he meant life for her? Khushi knew in that instant that she would not be able to go on if he were to alienate himself from her. But still her pride won't let her say it out loud to him or beg him to not separate her from him, so she said furiously, "I don't want someone to cherish me! I don't want someone to honor me! I don't want to find someone else! & I-" Khushi whimpered as her breath got caught on a sudden sob, but gulping against the painful lump in her throat, she said in a tight voice, "& I don't wanna go away from you!" & then she broke down. She started sobbing brokenly.

& her knees would have given away, had Arnav not come, & with his arms automatically going around her, he hauled her up against his body. & then his right hand came up to cup her jaw purposefully, forcing her to look up, & then he started pressing hot, moist kisses all over her wet face & Khushi just sobbed harder. The more compulsively she sobbed, the more compulsively & frequently Arnav pressed kisses to wherever he could get access to on her wet face & he kept saying, "Don't cry." almost as a chant in between his kisses. & in the end, it was Khushi who conceded defeat.

It was not easy sobbing freely, when someone captured your lips in the middle of each whimper & when someone dried all of your tears before they even fell to your cheeks. After several seconds of his thumbs wiping her cheeks away gently, Khushi chanced a look up at him, & feeling her eyes on him, he looked up at her eyes from his concentrated stare at the teardrops clinging to her lashes. Then as his thumbs caressed her cheeks he said to Khushi, "See, this is what I do to you! I made you cry in the midst of 200 wedding guests..!! & I don't want to! I don't want any of this!.. When you cry, Red.. I go to a very dark place where I don't even have control over my actions!" As Arnav said this he briefly remembered the Karan episode in the bar. But suddenly he was brought back to the present with an electric shock.

He felt Khushi lips moving around his Adam's apple as she pressed moist, open mouthed kisses over the column of his neck. Arnav gulped against the sensations that shot through his whole body at her sensuous kisses, but remembering with great effort who they were & where they were, he held Khushi's forearms & tried to move her away from his body & when she looked up at him, he said in a raspy whisper, "We're both.. not ourselves right now! Let's go down.. I'll escort you to the Guesthouse.." Khushi saw how all the while he spoke, his eyes lingered on her lips, reddened & swollen due to her sobbing session. & when Khushi heard the softest whisper, she couldn't believe it had come out of her unbelievably perched throat, & neither could she believe the boldness behind the words, "Make love to me." Arnav stood very still, not even moving a muscle as he looked down at her with emotionless eyes & then he berated her with a kind of contained fury, "Kya huwa hain tumhe? (What has happened to you?)"

& looking at his burning, glittering caramel eyes, Khushi felt as if she had been intoxicated by them to reveal every embarrassing truth about herself to him, as with growing disbelief, she heard her own voice say, "Humein kuchh nahi huwa! I just had a dream that night!" Arnav scanned her features again for a couple of seconds, then his hand came up & brushed her hair aside from her temple as he asked gently, "A dream?" Khushi instantly nodded coyly, & said simply, "A dream.. of you & me.. & I just want to see how much of it actually comes true." & for the first time in her life, she saw Arnav's jaw actually fall open in slow motion, & then trying to wet his dry lips with his even drier tongue in vain, she heard him rasp ruefully, "Just kill me now!" Khushi suddenly smiled as she felt empowered in her womanliness like she had never felt before, & leaning over, she circled her arms around his neck & said directly against his lips, "Maybe some other time!" & the she took his lips in a much needed exchange of saliva.

Arnav kissed her with such primal hunger, that Khushi felt her head was reeling within moments. She couldn't put her finger onto it, but ever since he had started to drag her up here from outside the house, he had seemed more intense than even his usual level. There was some kind of a shift in his energy. There was some palpable raw emotion coming off of him in waves. Up until this moment, when Khushi herself had relaxed & had come out of her mood of self-searching, she hadn't noticed it. But if she had been brooding that night, he seemed to be in an ominous frame of mind too. As she felt Arnav kissing her longingly, lingeringly, almost desperately, she raised her right hand from around his neck & brought it around to gently caress his cheek & ear, trying to relax him a little. & as Arnav felt her soothing caresses, he sighed against her lips, & then after a final peck on her parted lips, he drew back from her, & asked panting, "Why are you doing this, Red?"

& as Khushi saw the apprehension in his eyes, she knew that their unpredictable future troubled him as much as it did her, he just didn't know how to go around addressing it. She caressed his cheek lovingly as her left hand too raised & she caressed his frown away & she said firmly, never leaving his gaze, "Why shouldn't I do this? You are here.. & you are mine, aren't you?" & Arnav turned his cheek inside her palm, & pressed a kiss to it before nodding once, his eyes looking almost red now. Khushi shrugged simply after his admission & said truthfully, "What more should I wait for?" Arnav cupped her jaw in both his hands securely, & asked in a tormented voice, "What if I hurt you again, Red?" She held his hand, pressing them to her face more firmly, & said with a conviction she had never felt before, "If you don't want to, you won't! Just choose not to do them.. things you think would hurt me!... I don't need anything else.. Just don't lie.. don't cheat.." & love me! Khushi added mentally.

Arnav looked at her upturned face, & those innocent hazel eyes, the faith she had on him mirrored in them, & the complete abandonment with which she had surrendered herself to him, & he knew, it wasn't possible for him.. to lie or to cheat on her. It was no longer a choice for him. It was inevitability. He just couldn't. & so, when he spoke next, he was just letting her know a fact, "I won't!" & when instead of smiling, Khushi's eyes just turned wetter, he knew there was no turning back now, for either one of them. He bent suddenly, & before Khushi knew it, she was scooped up in his arms. & as he carried her down the hallway towards his room, he looked down at her, & she felt the world beyond him didn't even exist for her. She wasn't afraid, she wasn't unsure. It was him, her Arnav. & if he was there with him, she'd be fine anywhere in the world. & so as they entered Arnav's room, it was Khushi who reached over Arnav's shoulder, & getting hold of the two door panes, she shut them off & sealed the bolt off as Arnav looked on at her face with eyes turned into blazing pools of desire.