Hello everyone. First of all, Happy New Year!!! Hope you all have a good 2012 and it sees you fulfil all your dreams and keep all your resolutions.
Thanks to all who commented on the last part of my ff. Your words really encouraged me to keep writing and finally here is the 3rd part. Consider it a New Year's gift from me to you all. 😆 I wrote most of it y'day and haven't read it over yet, so please excuse any errors or mistakes. Hope you all will enjoy it and as always, feedback is much appreciated. 😳
Chapter 3
"I
broke your bottle."
Her words jolted through him like
electricity and his eyes flew open. There were barely a couple of inches between
them. They were so close he could feel her breath lightly fanning his chin, a
gentle, balmy breeze that felt unexpectedly nice against his cool skin. She
didn't seem to have noticed the proximity between them, however. If she had,
she didn't seem to mind. She was too busy staring up at him with what could
only be described as a baleful expression. Those emerald eyes were wide and
round and still shimmering with tears. Little pools of dismay darkened them,
matching the wrinkles on her brow and the grimace twisting the corners of her
mouth.
"You broke my bottle?" he repeated,
the words not quite sinking in yet. His mind seemed to be all foggy and
thoughts kept darting about like eels before he had a chance to grasp them. He
blinked at her and tried to focus on the nagging feeling at the back of his
head, the one that was telling him there was something he should be
remembering...
"I didn't mean to!" she cried, her
voice going all high-pitched and slightly hysterical. Her lips started to
tremble and her face flushed bright red. "I swear! I was h-holding it and when
I f-fell I put a h-hand out to st-steadying myself and it just sm-sm-sm-"
"Smashed?" he supplied for her.
"Yes!" she wailed, her voice
breaking on the 's'.
He should have been furious, or at
the very least severely put out. That was his last vodka bottle and it had been
expensive. He'd already drank all the cheap ones and he'd been saving this one
for a special occasion. Finishing the others had seemed to justify opening it,
at least at the time. He'd planned on making it last at least some of the
night, though. Losing half of it in the middle of the park thanks to some
clumsy girl had definitely not been part of his plan.
He should have been incensed, he should
have yelled at her and demanded to know what kind of idiot didn't remember they
had a bottle in their hand when they fell. But he didn't.
The truth was, he couldn't. At the
sight of fresh tears spilling down her face and the pitiful way her shoulders
had started to shake, he was overcome with sympathy for her. Those tears
bothered him in a way he would never have thought possible. He hated seeing her
trembling and sobbing and unable to speak. It made his heart clench tightly and
a sudden need to protect her sweep through him, and before he could even think
about it he was reaching out and pulling her upright and into the circle of his
arms.
"I'm s-s-sorry!" she was sobbing,
and her voice was so distraught it actually hurt to hear it.
"Sssh," Armaan responded, his hand
moving to the back of her head, fingers stroking through her hair. "It's okay.
It was only a bottle."
"I'm such a b-bad p-person!" she
stammered.
"Hey!" Armaan caught her shoulders
and pushed her back so that he could look in her face. Her eyes were all glassy
with the plethora of tears in them and she was sniffling uncontrollably, a line
of mucus trailing down to her lips. Any other time he would have recoiled in
disgust, but there was something so heart-wrenching about her dishevelled state
that rather than be horrified by it, he thought it made her look sweeter. It
gave her an air of vulnerability that he was inexplicably drawn to.
"Don't talk like that," he told her.
"You're not a bad person. It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.
And I'm not mad at you. I don't care about the stupid bottle. I'm more worried
about you."
Shilpa sniffed and tried to focus
past her tears on his face. His voice was earnest, tender, so much so that his
words sounded like a prayer. They seized her, making her forget the pain in her
heart, the darkness and coldness at her core, filling her up till she felt
stronger, till she felt whole. Her heart gave a stuttering thump, almost as if
it had stopped and was restarting.
"You're not hurt, are you?" he asked
her, his eyes scanning her face, like he was checking her for cuts and bruises.
"You didn't cut yourself? You didn't injure yourself when you fell?"
She shook her head, unable to speak
past the lump in her throat. No one had ever spoken to her like this. In all
her life she couldn't ever recall anyone looking at her with such concern or
being anxious for her well being. Not even that day, when she'd nearly lost her
life. They hadn't rushed to her side when they pulled her from the wreckage.
They hadn't even looked at her.
Somewhere deep within her something
shifted, like a knot coming undone. And suddenly, looking into this stranger's
blue eyes, she felt as if a part of herself that had been adrift for a very
long time had finally anchored.
"Are you sure?" This time his voice
was a whisper. His hands were cupping her face now and they held her firmly,
his skin warm despite the freezing night air. Shilpa didn't know why, but it
made her feel safe. "Because I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if you were
hurt."
There was something about the way
she was looking at him that made Armaan's skin shiver, and not with cold. Those
deep emerald eyes were filled with a soft light that made him think of the
sun's dying rays touching the ocean. He didn't understand the expression in
them, but it made his heart beat faster and his breath catch slightly. Gazing
into them, he found himself wishing he could unlock all their secrets. She
fascinated him, he mused. She was fragile and fiery all at once and more
beautiful than anyone he knew, even Riddhima.
Riddhima.
The name was like a blast of icy air
through his lungs. With a slight start, he dropped his hands from Shilpa's face
and shifted back, away from her. Unconsciously he'd been leaning in to her and
that realisation flooded him with horror. What was he thinking? How could he be
sitting here with this strange girl, thinking how beautiful she is, when the
woman he loved had just married someone else? He should have been mourning his
lost love, not getting lost in a pair of large, green eyes.
"I'm sorry," Shilpa said softly.
"About before. About...the way I spoke to you on the sidewalk. You saved my
life. Thank you."
"Don't mention it." Armaan didn't
look at her when he spoke. He kept his gaze firmly on the icicles hanging from
the bush across the path, trying to distract himself from the flutter of
pleasure her words had caused inside him. "And it's okay, you know ' the
yelling. Sometimes you just gotta let it out."
"You sound like you know all about
it," Shilpa commented, regarding him thoughtfully.
Finally he turned and met her gaze.
"I do," he said simply.
And that's when she saw it ' the
dark spots in his eyes that indicated inner turmoil. She swept her eyes over
his face, really looking at him now, and when she did she spotted a thousand
tell tale signs: the lines on his forehead from excessive anxiety, the dark
circles underlining his eyes, the tight set of his lips as he pressed them
together, trying to keep it all inside.
It was exactly how her face looked
every time she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.
"You spend all that time trying to
suppress it, but sometimes you just don't have the strength." The corners of
his mouth twitched wryly as he said this and Shilpa felt an answering tug at
her own lips.
"Is that why you drink?" she asked.
Armaan glanced down at the broken
pieces of the vodka bottle lying on the snow. They gleamed in the light,
looking for all the world like shards of ice instead of glass. Kind of like my
heart, he mused, thinking of the many nights he'd sat nursing a drink of some
sort, trying to warm the ice at his core with the liquor. Trying to chase away
the agony that plagued his every waking and sober moment; the agony of losing
her.
"I suppose," he answered at length.
"It allows me to pretend that reality-"
"Is nothing more than a nightmare."
Surprised, Armaan looked round at
Shilpa. She gave him a knowing smile, but her green eyes were dark and
troubled.
"I do the same, only without the
alcohol," she told him.
"Is that what you were doing out
there tonight?" he asked. "Pretending?"
"Actually, I was enjoying the snow.
It's so calm and peaceful."
She breathed in the icy night air
deeply, tilting her head back and closing her eyes as the coldness made her
innards tingle. "It revives me."
When her lips curved like that,
softly, dreamily, it gave her entire face a far-away look that made her seem
like a creature out of a fairytale. Her skin glowed, those emerald eyes
deepening in shade, reminding him of a mystical lake. God, but she's stunning,
he thought. And then he caught himself and looked away sharply, face flushing
with annoyance.
They sat in silence for a while,
each of them lost to their own thoughts. But gradually Armaan became aware of
the fact she was shivering. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her wrap her
arms further about herself and he was instantly overcome with a pang of guilt.
"Here." He shrugged out of his
sweater and held it out to her. "It'll help keep you warm."
She hesitated for a moment, so he gestured
more commandingly. "Take it. I won't freeze. I've had more to drink than you."
His lips twitched into a half-smile
and Shilpa's doubt crumbled. Rather gratefully, she took the hoody and pulled
it on, trying not to sigh with pleasure at the instant warmth she received from
the woollen fabric. She also tried to ignore the fact that his scent was now
wafting up to her, a combination of his cologne, vodka and something like
cloves.
"Thanks. I guess I owe you big time.
This is the third time you've helped me tonight."
"Maybe I'm your guardian angel." The
moment he said it he cringed inwardly at how corny it sounded. What the hell
was wrong with him tonight, he demanded? Where had that come from and why had
he said it in the first place?
In an effort to distract himself, he
glanced up at the sky. The clouds had rolled off while they sat in the snow,
revealing a deep and dark indigo sky. Millions of tiny stars dotted the inky
blanket, winking down on them like distant crystals.
"At least it stopped snowing."
Shilpa followed the direction of his
gaze and her smile widened as she took in the stars. Ever since she'd been a
little girl she had been fascinated by the night sky. In the long summers she
would sit outside until it got dark, watching the heavens as, one by one, the
faint lights appeared above her. Hours passed by, gazing at them, wrapped in
her mother's arms. Those were the happiest days of her life.
"It's beautiful," she sighed. The
note of wistfulness in her voice made Armaan glance over at her. Her head was
tipped back, her lips parted ever so slightly in an expression of wonder. And
her eyes shone brighter than all the stars put together.
"When I was little, I'd sit outside
counting the stars and Mama would come out to find me. She always told me that
the stars were magical. 'Beti,' she'd say, 'Whenever you feel alone, whenever
you feel lost and don't know how to find your way, just look to the stars. If
you make a wish on a star, it is certain to come true.'"
Armaan studied her face, wondering
if the glint in her eyes was the light or the hint of tears. There could be no
mistaking the bittersweet note in her voice, but her smile was tender.
"Do you believe it?" he asked,
glancing back up at the stars.
"I used to. Now I'm not so sure."
He understood what she meant
perfectly.
"And what will your mother say when
you go home to her covered in snow and blue with the cold?" It was meant to be
a joke, but he sensed, rather than saw, her stiffen and when he looked round at
her her expression was frozen.
"She won't say anything," she
whispered. "My mother is dead."
Horror shot through Armaan, quickly
followed by burning shame. But before he could say anything, Shilpa had
stumbled to her feet.
"I should go," she said, wrestling
her arms out of the sweater. "I've been gone too long."
"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't-" Armaan
started to say, also rising to his feet.
"No, it's okay. How could you know?
You couldn't. You couldn't." She pulled the hoody over her head and handed it
out to him. "Thank you, but I must leave."
"Keep it," he told her. "You need it
more than me."
She hesitated for a second, but the
sudden blast of freezing air that hit her shoulders convinced her to go along
with his request. Hurriedly, she pulled it back on and then she turned to
leave.
"Wait!" Armaan caught her wrist. "My
car's out there somewhere." He gestured back to the road with a sweep of his
arm. "Let me drive you."
"No, I'll be all right."
"Or walk. I could walk you. I don't
mind."
"No, really." She pulled out of his
grasp. "I'd rather be on my own."
She turned and hurried down the
path, struggling to hold back the tears that had welled up behind her eyes.
That familiar, searing pain was back in her heart and with each step it felt as
if someone were thrusting a knife into her chest. Images flashed in front of
her mind ' her mother's beautiful, smiling face as she bent over her to pick
her up, her father's warm eyes as he looked up from his newspaper, the mangled
remains of the car, her mother's hand out flung, arm smattered with scarlet
spots, her father's wide, staring eyes, looking right at her...
"Hey! Wait!" Armaan chased after her
through the snow, but she didn't seem to hear him. She'd picked up her pace to
practically a run and though he was jogging he couldn't gain on her because he
kept losing his footing on patches of hidden ice. A part of him acknowledged
that he should just let her go, that he should leave her alone like she'd said
she wanted to be. But a much larger part of him urged him to go after her, to
make amends for his unintentional blunder, to comfort her.
The park gates loomed and she burst
through them, swiping away the tears that had spilled. Eyes all misted up, mind
in a tumult, she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. All she wanted
was to escape ' the pain, the memories, the emptiness inside her. Without
thinking she started to run.
Armaan saw her bolt into the road
and his heart thudded against his rib cage. "No!" he cried and broke into a
full run.
But it was too late. There was too
much distance between them and the cars were going too fast and before he had
even reached the park gates a black SUV came charging through the line of
traffic. Armaan's heart stopped and for one horrible moment time seemed to
stand still as the SUV ploughed into the girl and her body went up into the
air, bending into an impossible shape. And then came down again with a
sickening thud.
Edited by DulceAmor - 12 years ago
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