The Enchantress | COMPLETE | AbhiGya Fiction

9. Children of the Damned

Pragya:

I looked at him enquiringly; he looked vulnerable for a few moments before he snapped back to reality and tried to pull himself together. He looked at me with questioning eyes, but by then my storm had subsided – this man was no intruder, this man couldn't possibly love Bulbul, this man was my Abhi all right. 'My Abhi?' this was the first time I had found myself asking that question. It was so easy to be swept in emotions and claim a man to be mine, when he wasn't – and Suresh? He was my husband and I never felt a claim towards him so legitimate – I hadn't confronted Suresh for such a huge blasphemy but I couldn't help confront Abhi for being intimate with his wife-to-be? Suresh owed me answers that I didn't feel like asking and I was going to ask Abhi questions that he owed me no answers to.

At that very moment, standing in front of Abhi Mehra, knowing that I loved him, I had an epiphany – an epiphany that had answered some of my most important questions in life – when Suresh cheated on me, it had hurt my self-esteem, he had broken the wedding vows, the partner in me was hurt – it felt like my life had fallen apart, the pain was severe, but I survived it – standing in front of Abhi, I had understood, I had survived that hurt because what I thought was relentless pain, was nothing, it wasn't pain, it was disappointment; Pain was what I felt at that very moment, standing in front of Abhi - the excruciating pain that comes with heartbreak. All of Suresh's deepest treachery could only upset me, but Abhi's slight legitimate intimacy with his fiancée, was what it had taken for me to feel monumental pain in the truest self. I shuddered softly standing before the first man, I had ever fallen in love with, in all my forty something years of life, realizing that was what it felt like, to be in love.

I realized love is such a powerful feeling that it doesn't let self-esteem come in the way, the self-esteem that would stop one from confronting, that had stopped me from confronting Suresh – love demands answers and rightfully so. If love can overpower you to the point of such irrational pain, then it is befitting that love should can be charged with questions of as high magnitude. In that moment nothing on earth could stop me from tearing into Abhi for not choosing me over Bulbul.

"How could you, Abhi?" I almost whispered, barely able to hold on. He looked at me dazed for a few moments and suddenly changed his expression to revolt.

"How could I?" he hissed in anger before continuing, "How dare you Pragya?"

Standing there, seeing him defiant, brought me to my moment of highest courage in life, I said something, I thought I was not fated to say in this lifetime to anyone. I looked deeply in his eyes and had responded without batting my eyelid, "I dare because, I love you and I cannot ever let you go". For the first time in life I felt I was in so much control, I felt empowered to dictate my life on track for once, no matter what damages I needed to pay. I had felt love in a drug like way that night; I needed it no matter what, no matter who paid. I needed Abhi selfishly for myself, just myself.

***

Abhi:

I stared at her when those words escaped her lips. I was overwhelmed to the point of numbness by its effect on me, in my heart of hearts I knew she wasn't lying. In that moment nothing Bulbul ever said, mattered. I didn't care of Pragya's purpose of loving me, if she was being selfish, satisfying her ego, defeating her sister or otherwise – there I was forever in love with her and here she, finally loved me back the way I dreamt of, in all my life. Had life ended for me that very moment, I'd have no regrets.

I had instinctively pulled her close to me while she was looking at me with demanding eyes; "Kiss me, Abhi. Kiss me the way the sun hits the water at sunset – quietly, but with heat".