• Eternal Night •

12

Annika couldn't sleep. She kept looking at Shivaay's sleeping form in the darkness and felt like everything she had so carefully built over the years, tumble and fall. Everything was about to get destroyed. Prithvi's words echoed in her ears. Shivaay was dying. Annika felt her chest ache dearly. This was so unfair. This couldn't and shouldn't be happening to her.

As a child, as a teen; Annika had always been fiercely independent. She had no friends in school. She preferred to stay alone in college. She had never bunked a class. She hadn't attended a birthday party. She had never went out to watch a movie with friends. Everything that she ever did, was either with her family or nothing at all. She knew that it wasn't normal. She never claimed it to be. But Annika genuinely liked being alone. It was addictive.

In a case like that, when her family started to look for grooms and someone sent them Shivaay's way; Annika was shaken. She had no idea how to deal with a man; let alone a prospective husband. On their first date; she was nervous. But Shivaay has pleasantly turned out to be easy going and sweet. She felt good after a while and even nice. That's when she had made up her mind about him.

Over the years, living with Shivaay was overwhelming but she had gotten used to his family. She and Shivaay had gotten physical. She liked it too. But otherwise, she liked to keep to herself. That's how she functioned. That was her nature.

Now that she was thinking of her life so far, Annika was seeing how closely and deeply had Shivaay made himself a part of it. He was everywhere even if she wouldn't agree to it completely.

He had become a part of her life. He had learned to love her.

Had she?

Annika had no answers. Any other wife in her place would have been crying her eyes out on hearing such news. She wasn't. What did it mean?

But then, why was her chest aching? Why was she so worried about his health? Why was she not able to sleep? Why was she jealous of Mallika? Why was she feeling like even her life was about to end? 

Annika silently hit her forehead. This was stupid. Shivaay was her husband. He was the only man she had allowed to touch her. Of course, she felt something for him.

Then why was it so difficult to give a name to their relationship? Why couldn't she just admit that she was in fact in love with him too?

"Annika..." Shivaay mumbled in his sleep. "Stop moving so much. Sleep na."

Biting her tongue, she apologised. "Yeah sorry. Sleep."

She placed a hand on his chest. His heart was the root cause of all problems. Why was it so nice that pushed her into feeling all these emotions? She would have been happy with a detached marriage too. Why was it so weak that it was taking away the only human she deeply cared about?

In the darkness, Annika didn't realize but she cried herself to sleep. 

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

"I have checked all files. They are fine..." said Shivaay whole handing them to Gauri. Then he gave her a separate bunch. "Now these are problematic. I want you to underline the phases which are faulty according to you. Yeah?"

"Okay. Got it..." Gauri took the files and settled down on the couch.

Shivaay stared at Gauri while she diligently poured herself over the files. She looked scared, lost. She looked like she was on a bloody war. It wasn't supposed to be this way. But Shivaay knew what she was thinking. She wanted to learn as much as she could from him before he was rendered completely useless. 

But if he was being very honest, Shivaay had already started to feel useless. Everyone had collectively decided that he would not go to the office. The little office related work he did was also monitored by everyone. He didn't want to be treated like that. He hated it.