Silent Hearts

Two

"Behind her smile is a hurting heart; behind her laugh, she's falling apart."

***

Tushar took heavy steps, with his heart thumping loudly against his chest, with his hands clenching and unclenching simultaneously, with his mind swimming with uncertainty and unwanted questions that lusted for answers. Naitee's mother, Mrs Nidhi Roy, had just some moments ago called them up, notifying them about Nandini's awoken state. To hold the truth, Tushar did not wish to go to her. Not with a sane mind.

However, he watched as Naitee jumped ahead and ran towards Nandini's room, pushing every other thing out of her way. Tushar watched, with a little mirth shining through his eyes as the grateful smile of Naitee lit up his world. Naitee was happy that Nandini was up, and she would be much happier if he married Nandini which was not possible; not with his sane mentality. He could not fetch the fire, for it would burn him to ashes. 

He shook his head at that thought as he resumed his walking behind Naitee.

As he neared that weirdly suffocating room, Tushar could do nothing except bowing his head slightly to avoid any sort of looks...especially of her. The dark curtains of that room seemed to warm him to move back as well as the off vibes he got. Mrs Roy was in the living room with her husband, and Tushar could hear their voices, one was low and almost dreary and the other one was shaky as if the person had been crying. And he knew who had been crying.

Stopping near the widely opened door and leaning against the threshold to that room, not wishing to be noticed, Tushar looked ahead as the scene unfolded before his eyes. He noticed it all. The way Naitee lunged herself at Nandini, pulling her into a tight embrace, the way her petite physique trembled and he thought, that might be something beautiful because he had imagined Nandini to hold her sister back.

But disappointed he was as he noticed the still frame of Nandini. Neither did she looked down at her sister nor did she move her hands to hug her. She was as still as a statue, not moving, not reacting. Her eyes looked ahead in front of her that never wavered nor her lips ever form any word. She was lifeless. Nandini was cold-heated. Nandini was dead in every sense from the soul.

A sudden wave of anger surged through Tushar as he wanted that selfish woman to think for someone else...other than herself. Tushar was angry looking at the way a hurt Naitee took steps back. He felt the hurt too. He could have never imagined Nandini to be that heartless. The way Naitee looked down, in loss of words affected him, in a way unknown to him. Naitee was his love and he could not look at his love being hurt.

However, just like everyone else, he failed to look into Nandini. The real her and not her shadow.

He observed as Nandini took steps back, looking towards the sky, her form as rigid as a stone. For a moment everything felt calm; the queer silence that hung over them to the sounds of heavy gusts, everything felt paused and disastrous. It felt as if the time had been halted...until the very next moment when he felt himself sucking in a sharp breath and looking down as the words left Nandini's mouth.

That voice. That voice came too calm that was much lower than any normal low note. Toneless whisper it was, not meaning to reach anyone's ears but it did somehow reach his. The whisper that conveyed a pain no one knew about, that held an emotion no one dared to notice, carried in by her dead voice. Neither was it shaky nor was it broken, yet it was shattered.