Fragile Hearts

Chapter 9

His hands held the strong iron bars and his knuckles turned white due to the pressure with which he was holding them. Blood did not pool in his head or redden his cheeks, although he had been like that for 20 minutes now. He was pale, his lips and skin and even his eyes all nearly the same shade. It gave him the appearance of a ghost, although he was solid enough.

Cold, and solid.

"Raghav" Pallavi hissed at him from where she was sitting, curled up in the corner of the cell, arms around her bent legs. Their eyes met and they stared together at each other. Pallavi observed him carefully, he was distraught by the turn of events, it appeared as if he had not slept after what happened yesterday. He was struggling with himself to find appropriate words.

"Was any of it real?" Raghav's voice trailed off as he asked her, "Were you planning this all along?"
Her stomach twisted. "No." She shook her head, fervently. How to explain that she hadn't even thought of it before? That she couldn't have done this to him? "I would never do—"

The words faded. She had exactly done what she was going to admit never doing to him. Even though it all happened unknowingly. It was her fault.

"I'm so sorry," she finished, the words falling lamely in the open air. Raghav peeled his eyes away, finding some place of resignation off in the dark corridor. "It's painful to look at you". Pallavi felt sick in her core, the entire core of her existence seemed to tremble when she saw a tear escaping his eyes. She felt terrible at that moment, she had with her own hands strangled the possibility of living a life with him. She felt disgusted at herself because she claimed to love this man yet she had hurt him more than anything.

He felt he was going to be sick, he noted, as tears stung at his eyes. He had hurt many before, and it hadn't mattered. Now that he knew how much it hurt he loathed his own existence.

"I will get you out of here" he managed to inform before he silently walked away. His boots did not make noise anymore, Pallavi was left alone to spend yet another night alone in the prison cell. This was the only time he had come to meet her there. Farhad had been there a few times, he too did not look at her like before. He looked at her like she was some dark object, "If you sign these papers, Anna will get you bailed" Those were the ownership papers, she agreed to give everything back to him. To not have him was the only loss she could not afford to endure. It was her utter stupidity which landed her here, she wondered if things will ever get better.
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When she was driven back to the mansion after two whole days, it felt strange. As if a storm was waiting for her ahead, the kind of storm which usually end up either changing one's life forever or ending it. The house felt like an abyss today, the atmosphere was blue and cold. She found him across the bar, sipping his drink casually. Her presence did not bother him at all, it should have. He was staring at the off white wall and gulping down drinks, one after the another and refused to talk to her.

"Raghav, it was all a misunderstanding. Just hear me out." she tried the initiate a conversation and address the elephant in the room. "Shhhh!" He signalled her to stop talking. After what seemed like hours, he stood up from the bar stool and with extreme difficulty walked upto her. He reeked of alcohol as if he had been drinking all day. "Stop talking!" He meant to shout at her but as always when he looked at her his voice transformed into a whisper.

"It was all a ruse wasn't it? You never loved me" it was evident that he was hurting. He burrowed his head in the crook of her shoulder and she held his shoulders in order to support him in standing straight. "Raghav I do love you.." She didn't realise that she was crying all the while.

"No you didn't! You have hurt me. No amount of pain could ever amount to that, no amount of tears that fall from your face will ever make up for the agony I've endured at your hands. No matter what, you will never be a saint, you will always be a husk of who you were - if you ever were something to begin with" his eyes were bloodshot when he said that. He was frantically shaking her frame in his arms.