FORNEVER | ✓

CHAPTER 58 - RED

HIM

I raised my eyes furtively, to be able to her holding onto the side of the bed to be able to stand, from my drenched lashes -

"'Look at me -" She whispered,

"I'd rather be dead, than be saved, again, by you."

Gut wrenching silence ensued after her words boomed, not in the room but inside my heart. I had never craved to be deaf before, but tonight brought a lot of first times for me.

"Shana listen-" The foot I had put forward was forced to stay in place, as she looked at me with the same eyes that beheld erupting volcanoes, the ones I had seen the first time I ever saw her, but this time, I could see no fire but her seething soul through them.

"Shana-"

"Margayi hai Shana tumhari!"

(Your Shana is dead.)

"Please listen to me-"

I heard a mirthless chuckle as her lips turned lopsided. I wanted to hold her, kiss her, tell her that we would make everything alright, but what I was seeing in front of me was a Suhaana who did not need that kind of saving - at least from me.

"Listen to you. Sure. Go ahead-" She plopped on the visitor's chair next to the bed as she stared at me with darkened blood veins and tears visible in her eyes.

"Tell me - what had gone so terribly wrong in your life that you chose to be a monster in every life you touched?" She grabbed the handle of the chair as she struggled to speak, a thin stream of blood trickling down the palm of her hand courtesy of the way she had pulled her IV tube out without an ounce of mercy on herself.

My heart thudded with every step I took towards her, but I had to do what I had to do. I walked up to her, only to kneel in front of her knees as I took the hand she had tortured earlier, in mine.

"Suhaana I am so sorry." I pulled a handkerchief from the back of my pocket to tie around her bleeding hand. She chuckled again, pushing herself back into the chair. I raised my eyes surreptitiously to see if she was okay, but all she did was stare at me from her place. She wasn't glowering, her eyes did not have anything in them just yet, and when I thought she had calmed down, she pulled her hand from mine when I could only tie one loose knot around her palm, startling me in all the wrong ways.

"You're scaring me Suhaana-" I said as she tried to get up from the chair, but failed.

"Somebody has to." She retorted before hoisting herself up by keeping her hands on both the arms of the chair and pulling her weight up. I rose on my feet as I encircled my arms around her waist and back, causing her to throw hands at me, again.

"Do not fucking touch me Siddhanth." She said through gritted teeth, her eyes burning with a rage I had felt only inside of me, but never seen in another person.

"Suhaana, you are not okay-"

"WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I WAS OKAY ANYWAY!" She pushed me away with all her might, causing me to stumble. She might have looked frail and weak, but she did carry some strength to fight a man, if she wanted to.

"Suhaana!" I did not intend for my voice to rumble but she was hurting herself more than me, as she may have thought.

"Do not raise your voice at me! You are the sole reason why I am here -"

She let down her arms as her palms sprawled, signalling at her state.

"I was here, in a fucking hospital, the first time I met you, and look. Here we are again -"