• Eternal Night •

11

"Aren't you going to the office?" asked Shivaay as he eyed Annika working on her laptop.

He was lazing on the bed and doing absolutely nothing. He was obviously bored. He stared at Annika. She looked devastated. Shivaay knew that Prithvi would have told her about his situation. He didn't feel as bad for himself as much as he felt bad for her. He had thought about it a lot. Maybe he should have understood when Mallika left him. He really shouldn't have married anyone at all. Now, he had spoiled Annika's life. She was such a nice girl who deserved everything. What was he giving her except problems? Shivaay cursed himself and sighed. He had no wish to make Annika upset. 

"No..." Annika whispered. "I took a holiday."

"Chutti? Why?" probed Shivaay. He knew that Annika rarely took holidays. "Is it because of what I did last night?"

Annika looked at him. "Correction. It is because of what happened with you last night."

Shivaay smiled at her. Knowingly. "So Dadu told everyone?"

Annika kept her eyes on the laptop screen and the ASD article she was reading. She mutely bobbed her head.

"Okay..." Shivaay mumbled. "So now I am the only one who does not know. And it's about me."

Annika didn't answer. She stubbornly kept her eyes on the laptop. She read the complications. And then again. Annika really had nothing to say. She was blank and completely crushed.

"Now...will you tell me?"

She heard Shivaay ask. Would she? Annika's eyes stung with tears. No, she couldn't. There was no way she was telling him that.

"No?" Shivaay raised his brows. "So at least tell me if I am taking the yellow taxi to heaven or not?"

Annika could taste her salty tears now. When and how did their life come to this? When she had so blindly chosen Shivaay as her partner, as her husband; she had expected a few things. She had wished for them to have a full life. She had dreamt of having kids together, successful careers and having a happy life.  

She was here now, obsessively googling about a disease that was waiting in the wings to claim her husband.

Neither had she expected to feel for someone outside her family like this. What was this paranoia that had settled in her chest since last night? Why was she feeling like she was the one who was dying? Why was she feeling like her heart was crumbling to pieces?  

"Shall I ask Mallika?" Shivaay asked. He inquired like a lost child. "Will she tell me?" 

Annika squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't even get angry at him when he behaved like that. She still could recall their wedding day in detail. Just how nervous she was. Her heart was fluttering and she couldn't walk straight. Then, Shivaay had slyly wrapped his fingers around her cold ones. And just like that, she had felt better. She had felt like she could survive the ceremony. Wasn't life just like that ceremony? Weird, chaotic, noisy and absolutely confusing? She needed Shivaay to hold her fingers. Or else how was she going to survive the ceremony?

Annika slowly closed her laptop. This was such a mess. Through the corner of her eyes, she looked at Shivaay. He seemed to be looking at her. Her heart quivered and her thoughts reframed themselves. This was a tragedy.

**********************************

"Wow, you are also in bed..." Shivaay remarked after seeing Mallika on the mobile screen. Unable to sleep anymore and with no one to talk to, he had video called her. "And your eyes are swollen too."