Lost | ✓

Chapter 30. Alone

🎶 Lehrein

Published on 14.08.2022

| AUTHOR'S POV |

Is it possible to get rid of someone who lives in every breath you take, resides in every thought you've, blurs your vision everytime you shut your eyes and beats in sync with your heart?

It isn't.

And yet like the miserable fool he has been, he tries. It's been more than two days since he last talked to her, last saw her, the memory still manages to make a shudder rack through him even if he knows she's completely safe and unharmed. There are text messages, missed calls, instagram dms, even emails from Inaaya to ask what's wrong, if he's okay, if it's her that has gotten him upset for some reason and yet he hasn't responded to a single one of them even though he had read each one of them when they appeared in the notifications. Too messed up, too vulnerable, too anxious, everything is just too much for him that he just wants to shut himself out from the whole world. He had just spoken to Neha once after the incident where he told her to inform everyone that he's alright and just needs some space and work is being really, really stressful of late and she had understood what he meant by "everyone". He didn't care if she told anyone else till the time she told Inaaya so it could put her at ease.

Out of all the emotions that were crawling within him, guilt was clawing at him. He was aware of his feelings, he knew they resonated with hers but to give into them felt so wrong, so much more like betrayal. But then, running away from them didn't feel right either. Telling the truth, coming out clean, starting afresh should be an ideal way to go forward but it was uncertain and a part of his knew that it would put a permanent end to everything rather than being a second chance especially when he knew now how much it meant for her to trust him with that sincerity. And he can't tell her that he had broken it already.

Ayansh makes way towards his wardrobe and pulls the door open. Inhaling deeply, he reaches out for the medium sized horizontal frame tucked between his pile of clothes. This was the first time he was glancing at the frame, taking in the pictures, reading the quotes and gazing at those little artistic details she had done to fill the gaps left.

It was beautiful. It made his heart clench, made his knees weak that he had to sit on the bed to not lose balance. As his eyes took in every polaroid picture, every moment associated with them that was vivid in his memory flashed in front of him, pulling him into their abyss, consuming him. He read all the tiny quotes and lines she had spent time searching for from his favourite books and his heart swelled because they were all so thoughtful. She had even taken effort to write them in an elegant handwriting and even though, he didn't want, his eyes welled up. Everything about the frame was so personal, so intimate and so much soulful that he wondered what did he do to deserve such generosity. How did he go from craving for a drop to love to receiving an ocean of it?

A picture of their entwined hands at the bottom corner of the frame catches his stare for a little longer and his mind reels back to the conversation they had that night later after that fleeting kiss.

The sound of footsteps made his head turn and a surprised smile on her face told him that she wasn't expecting to see him here. It was two thirty at night. She was wearing loose cotton pants and a tank top over which she had wrapped her shrug. Ayansh sensed her awkwardness by the way she didn't speak any word or made any movement to move anywhere and simply pulled her shrug closer. He gently patted the space beside him and beckoned her.

Like a little child, Inaaya walked forward and removing her footwear and keeping it at a distance, she sat beside him, folding the ends of her pants almost till her knees and dipping her feet into the shallow pool. Ayansh held her arm when she gasped and a sudden shriek escaped her as she pulled her legs up.