Almost Not Love! |COMPLETE| MaNan Fiction

20. Nandini Is, What Nandini Does

A/N: Hello readers, sorry for the delay. I got stuck with some work in the morning, hence updating now :)

Happy Reading!

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In the early hours of dawn, at the ICU

As Nandini slowly tried opening her eyes, her head felt very heavy. It was dark and she was lying on a bed, there were curtains around her and a soft murmur of people talking right outside the curtains, the place smelled like medicine, and she scrunched her nose in disgust.

"Hospital" she mumbled to herself, as she tried moving, but she couldn't, someone was holding her hand she realised. She turned to her right to see the silhouette of a man, sleeping, while sitting on a stool next to her while his head dropped onto her bed; he was clutching her hand. His face was turned the other way so she couldn't see him; how did she reach here?

It took her a few minutes to get her bearings right; wait she was at Abhimanyu and Mukti's, engagement party yesterday, wasn't she? Where..where he arrived. Aryamann. From out of the blue; her breath hitched as she slowly recollected the incident and soon realised how she had blacked out; who got her here? Did she disrupt the function, she thought guiltily but how'd she know?

Aryamann, how did he always have such a strong impact on her? Their relationship - it never knew stability. It was always high octane. Their love was epic and hate? Their hate was catastrophic. For a fleeting second she wondered if it was Aryamann here sitting next to her, but what were the odds, he was gone, leaving her in so much pain and anguish that she couldn't keep it together anymore. She, Nandini, had failed again. She sniffed unconsciously and immediately the sleeping figure became alert. Nandini could feel his palm muscles tense up, he slowly got up and turned to her; even in the dark Nandini could tell, his face was clouded with concern.

"Manik" she called out, not being able to mask her surprise. Manik heard her call his name and sat up straight, was he dreaming? No, she seemed to finally wake up. He immediately brought his face close to hers to check; yes, her eyes were open, she was looking at him. A sense of relief ran through him as he answered.

"Yes Nandini, it's me. How are you feeling now?" Nandini could feel the strain in his voice, she felt guilty. It was his sisters' big day and instead of celebrating it with her, he was here taking care of her.

"I'm fine, but you? What are you doing here? Why aren't you in the engagement? Mukti and Abhimanyu would be looking for you nah? Manik, how'd you find me? Did you get me here?" she had many questions and as her head started clearing, she kept gunning them out at him.

"Nandini, arre! Relax baba. The doctor has asked you to not take any stress at all!" began Manik, as he tried pacifying her.

"But Manik..."

"Listen, the engagement is done with, it's almost dawn now Nandini. And yes I found you when I went out looking for you. You weren't there, Abhimanyu and I got worried, so I got looking and found you..." his voice trailed off, as once again the picture of an unconscious Nandini lying on the driveway, came to his mind. He shut his eyes to block the thought; no she was fine, she was right here before him; focus Manik, he kept telling himself.

"Abhimanyu, he must be so worried; Manik please can you tell him I'm fine?" Nandini pleaded.

"It's okay baba, calm down; I have got it covered; he doesn't know you're here. He thinks you have gone home after the party. We will tell him today. Okay?" he told her calmly and she finally seemed to relax a little.

"Nandini, is there anybody else you'd like me to inform about you? Family?" he enquired; he was thinking about it at night too, while he was sitting next to her. He realised Nandini had never spoken to him about her family.