What's a soulmate? ~ MaNan

Chapter 12

Called you on the phone today
Just to ask you how you were
All I did was speak normally
And somehow I still struck a nerve

Manik

That night, I slept like a dead man. Partly because of my sunken eyes after letting those tears out, and partly because of how much I drank once I was home. After dropping the divorce papers to Nandini's house, of course.

I think I lost count after the fourth glass of whiskey, because I briefly remembered the bottle getting over before I broke it into tiny glass shards and opening the most expensive wine bottle in my cellar.

I was celebrating.

I was celebrating my wife moving on.

I was celebrating watching the woman I love perhaps slowly fall in love with someone else. I was watching her find her happiness elsewhere. And maybe they were assumptions but I couldn't decipher why my heart hurt that way when I was the one who wanted that in the first place.

So that might, I drank till my liver took it, till I didn't remember my own name and in the same disheveled hair and messed up and wet office clothes, I passed out in some corner of my huge house.

I think it was the sixth time my phone was ringing when I was asleep. The first few times, it felt like a faint buzz. The fourth time, I could make sense of it but the banging and stupid hangover in my head didn't let me move. The fifth time, I was convinced it was Cabir trying to ask if I'm coming to work, but I didn't give a flying fuck.

The world could burn, because mine already did.

When it rang for the sixth time, I groaned while opening my eyes. By the time I grasped a hold on reality, my Apple Watch showed me the time: 3:33 A.M. 

Then, I felt panic set into me.

By the time I managed to open my eyes completely and hastily fetch my phone fallen on the carpeted floor of my living room, the phone had stopped ringing.

Although my vision was blur, I could make out the name in a heart beat.

6 missed calls from Nandini.

Panic. Chest tightening. Cold midnight air rustled inside from open windows of my garden area, intensifying the chill in my bones.

When the phone rang for the seventh time, I wasted no time in picking it up.

"Hello..." I answered, panic clear in my tone, "Hello?"

"Manik..." Nandini breathed in return, her voice seeming distorted but perfectly fresh.

"Nandini.. are you.. are you okay?"

"Manik, it's raining..." She answered, "badly."

I took a deep breath trying to calm myself down. There was nothing wrong. She was okay. "I know...I know yes."

"Mia is at her friend's place, she's sleeping there but there's a storm outside. I feel giddy about leaving her there, Manik. I.. I feel anxious, like something's wrong." And now, her voice cracked like tears were filling into her eyes. "Manik, the girl's parents aren't picking up either. I'm... I'm telling you, it feels like something's wrong."

"Nandini..." I deep sighed, rubbing my free hand over my eyes as I stumbled onto the couch in the darkness. In all the years of our separation, Nandini had never called me except with work, and never out of time like this in the middle of the night. "Are you sure you don't just miss her?"