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You took my pain and filled my empty heart,
I stole your dreams, I broke your soul apart.
He knew that curly hair well...and those eyes, as they soulfully locked themselves with his own, a defiance in them which startled him. He continued to watch,unable to look away, as she walked up to him.
Finally stopping, she stood before him, arms crossed over her chest. Eyes hard but soft, stance staunch but vulnerable, she looked every bit a woman with a purpose. And it scared him.
They stood near the very tree from which he had once rained flowers on her, and she, overcome with shyness, had run away. As she threw a small smile over her shoulder at him, his heart had skipped a beat.
But now she was different. He searched her eyes for that shyness, softness that he had become so used to seeing in his dreams. But they were unyeilding.
A soft flame burnt in them - subtle, but dangerous. He stared in confusion while she observed him with detached distaste. Detached because she probably had loved him once...and distaste because she now hated him for what he had done to her.
"Dev", her sharp voice cut through his thoughts. Sharp voice, he mused. The girl who had once been too shy to speak was now talking to him with defiant coldness...she had changed so much. He had changed her.
"Look at me", she ordered, and he met her eyes cautiously. "I didn't come here to play hide and seek with your mind", she continued.
"Geet", he apprached wer warmly, flashing a charming smile. It was a defence mechanism that came naturally to him. He needed to ward off her anger first.
Underneath his calm demeanour, his heart drummed wildly in his chest, unsure. And she seemed to have noticed that.
"There's no need to pretend, Dev. I know everything", she delivered, carefully taking a step back.
Her voice was calm. Dangerously calm. He stared at her blankly, the meaning of her statement sinking in.
But Naintara hadn't told him anything about Geet's knowing...they had worked so hard to keep it a secret. He panicked.
A softer, much more sensible voice in his mind told him that she must've found out herself. She wasn't that dumb.
"Everything..." he repeated involuntarily, sounding like a parrot.
She closed her eyes tightly, praying for control. It took all the self-control she possessed not to throttle the man before him...the man who was the reason she was alone today...the man who had fathered her child.
She opened them again to see him staring at her with the same disbelieving expression in his eyes. A very tempting yet insane thought to smack him hard across the face crossed her mind, which she hurriedly pushed away.
"Yes, everything", she confirmed simply. Being civil to him was indeed a hard task.
Her yeyes were staring at him bitterly, and the hurt, betrayal, turmoil in them hit his chest like a tsunami. All he could do was look back at her, let himself drown in her hatred for him.
"Geet, I..." he managed to say hoarsely, and was surprised to learn that his voice had broken. What was happening to him? He hadn't thought once before leaving her at the airport. Then why, today, was he feeling so small?
"I don't want any explanations", she said, her hand raised to stop his speech. "You've done enough to hurt me. I don't want to hear any more lies."
Her words seemed to echo in his ears, and he merely watched the anger burning as flames in her eyes.
How he wished to take her in his arms, hold her tightly and take it all back. His mind alerted him of his wayward thoughts. He chided himself mentally for even thinking in such a way. He had a wife.
"Geet please listen to me", he tried to speak, but she cut him off, her eyes two burning orbs, darkly boring into him, reading his mind.
"I don't want to listen to you", she said, her gaze hardening. "I've a favour to ask o you, and for once, you will do as I say."
"But Geet I've something to-" he started, but she interrupted.
"I'm carrying your child, Dev", she stated softly, the fire in her eyes replaced with a glacial chill, one that knocked out his breath.
Her words left him stunned, as he stared at her wide-eyed, disbelieving. He was speechless at the revelation, and her mind reeled with the weight of her words.
A light breeze blew a few loose locks of her hair on her face, tickling her supple skin, falling on her eyes. Her eyes, which had loathing...and a feebly controlled desire to throttle him, as he could so clearly see. But still, they were beautiful.
Ripping his gaze away from her eyes, he turned to look at her tummy. It was still flat, but it had a part of him inside it...a life.
It was then that the reality of the situation hit him in full force, and the gravity of it all constricted his lungs till it was hard for him to breathe.
He was about to be a father. And miraculously, the very woman whom he had cheated and betrayed to no end had decided to keep his child. His amazement at her actions knew no bounds.
She had braved the wrath of society, the warring swords of her family, the snide remarks of the whole world...just to keep her child alive...their child.
He didn't know if he should celebrate or feel guilty about it. As bitter happiness filled his heart, he found his voice, finally recovering from his stunned silence.
"I...I don't know what to say", he spoke in a strained whisper, as the clouds above them rumbled. It seemed as if even the skies disapproved of his deeds.
"Of course you don't", she countered crisply. "You don't know what to say, you don't know what to do. You never know what is right." Her words were daggers in his heart.
Inside, a mad desire to run into his arms and cry her heart out bubbled dangerously beneath the surface. She pushed it away. She had to be strong. She couldn't be weak. Not this time...her child needed her.
He bowed his head, guilt eating away at his insides. What had he done?
Her eyes softened at his shame. And her resolve hardened further.
"You never know what to do when you need to take some action. You've nothing but a coward...an escapist. You run from trouble and let others suffer", she shot at him.
"Geet, I know what I did was wrong, and I'm sorry for it, but-"
"You can wallow in your self pity later, Dev", she said hardly, her voice raised ever so slightly. "You used me to serve your purpose, and now I'm going to use you."
His eyes met hers once more, clashing. Guilt against defiance, shame against resolve, soft realisation against hard despise. He knew he was no longer in a positoin to speak. Even if he had been, he feared he had lost his voice.
"I want your name as my child's father on its birth certificate", she told him.
He gaped at her, his wonder at her ever increasing. He had hurt her, used her, left her stranded and helpless, and here she was, telling him that she would give their child his identity.
He was undeserving of this generosity, his conscience informed him.
But in his guilty ecstacy, his mind had stopped working. Every moment they had spent together rushed back to him.
He had hardly ever acted romantic...his immense liking for her had never been a pretence. It was all genuine. He had actually started falling for her...Geet, who was a polar opposite of his wife Naintara, who had also taken a liking to him.
He didn't know what it was about her that drew him to her like a moth to a flame. She was young, shy, quiet and sweet. She was like a breath of fresh air that filled his every sense. Her childlike concern for him, her innocence, it all attracted him immensely.
If he wasn't wrong, he was in love with her.
"The baby will have my name", the words escaped his lips in his unknowing.
A satisfied amile graced her face that mesmerised him. Suddenly, a huge rumble of thunder sounded after a flash of lightning, and a downpour followed.
He didn't know why she still stood there, in the rain, observing him with an unreadable expression. But to him, she was a vision to cherish in his mind forever. He wanted to etch this moment in his memory.
Wet in the rain, her beauty dazzled him. It felt like a dream. He drank in every detail of her appearence, knowing well that he would never get a chance to live this moment again.
Right then, all sense, all logic escaped him. He didn't think about the fact that he has a wife to go home to...that he had betrayed Geet to such an extent where he had perhaps even lost the right to even beg her forgiveness. All he knew was that he loved this woman before him.
He tool a small step towards her as if in a daze, and she stepped back and turned away from him and made to go.
His hand grabbed her wrist from behind and she stopped with an inaudible gasp.
His actions an speech now controlled entirely by his heart, his mind numb, he whispered, "I think I love you Geet", just loudly enough for her to hear.
He knew he didn't deserve a second chance, but he was desperate for one. He needed her to know his true feelings.
Hearing his words, her breath caught in her throat. She thanked God for he rain, it camouflaged her tears, the tears which she just couldn't hold back anymore.
The tears...which streamed down her cheeks, mingling with the rain, betraying her carefully concealed vulnerability beneath the hard exterior she had presented to him. They expressed all the hurt, betrayal, and detachment she was feeling.
She had once loved this man...or so she thought. He had betrayed her, used her, deserted her in a helpless state, leaving her to fight with the world all alone.
He had broken...no, shattered her trust at a time when she had craved for his love.
And today, afer so many days, when her unrequited, bitter love had been burnt don, ripped apart to nothing less than intense hatred, he...he said that he loved her.
In the irony of the whole situation, her heart contorted in pain. She couldn't take it anymore.
Pulling her hand away from hi, she back still facing him, she spoke in an unwavering voice, "But I don't. I hate you."
The lack of the slightest tremor in her voice surprised her. It proved the depth of her hurt to them both.
"Can't you give me another chance?" he asked, pained.
"No. You don't deserve it. I've had enough of you", her voice was cold. "And don't forget Naintara", she gave him a parting shot and walked away, as he crashed back into reality at her final words.
He watched her leave, fighting the urge to fall to his knees and scream his lungs out in agony at the war raging inside him.
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