3. Crimson tides
It was exquisite to watch him smile, laugh
and see the easy way his eyes melted into pool of chocolate brown. She allowed
him the normalcy, a gift her mind warranted her against, for several moments because
her presence would cloud everything beautiful and handsome about him and leave
him an open mannequin of scars and bloody tissues. But it was only a passing
moment, a glimpse of what could have been which whooshed out of the dining
table the moment his eyes landed on her. As anticipated his face hid behind
well practiced mask of indifference and nonchalance as she made way towards the
dining table. She could feel penetrating gazes of everyone in the family and
she studiously avoided it as she placed jar of juice on the table. Her sister
steadily refused to meet her eyes and suddenly her appetite was gone. Tears
tried to betray her again and no matter how much she tried to be stronger, beโฆcallous
about her predicament, her heart broke over and over again like cheap china
clay.
She mumbled something about not being
hungry and hastened away from the table. There was no reason for her trying to
be something she wasn't; she wasn't a real daughter-in-law of the house. She wasn't
really a wife. Her relationship with her sister was broken glass. Her parents
were flabbergasted at her sudden decision ignoring bored look on Arnav. Anjali
was trying to lessen the awkwardness and failing spectacularly.
Arnav Raizada had managed to give her
everything and had managed to get her to succumb to her innermost fear by building
a cage of unexplained decisions thinly veiled in threats. He had forced her to
think about her perpetual loneliness of being an orphan.
She was amidst her old family and newly
forged one after her marriage to him. Yet, she had never felt so alone in her
life.
"Why didn't you stay for breakfast?" He
asked irritably. She looked up from her lap and looked at him.
"I am not hungry." She trained her voice
not to lose cool and prayed for him to just go away.
But her Devi
Mayya wasn't on her side.
"If you think by pulling silly stunts you
are going to put me on a spot then think again," he said picking up his blazer.
"I am not going to let you do what you think you can do."
She looked at him, puzzled. He dropped
these intriguing lines on her which only confused her further. She had no idea
what he believed to be her doing.
The pain and heartache of two days took a
back step as her anger took over. Her eyes flashed at his enigmatic
insinuation. "Oh, don't worry about pulling stupid stunts. I am not you." She snarled.
He raised an eyebrow and smirked. "You mean
smart and conniving?" He asked. He had seen affection, anger, pain, happiness,
silliness, childish joy, hurt, pity, care and every possible conceivable
emotion on her face directed at him. But he hadn't seen eerie indifference
masking her disgust in her eyes before. For some reason, it chilled his spine.
"No. I meant indecisive and pathetic. You
are obviously punishing me for something but you are too frightened to utter it
out loud." She laughed at her own words. Without responding to her cutting
words, he walked away from his room
slamming the door shut in his wake.
comment:
p_commentcount