Conflagration

Chapter 23: Storm Break

Author's Note; Readers beware we continue with the mature themes of suicide and dealing with profound loss in this chapter. I called this chapter Storm Break because this is a breakthrough for Imlie. Since Satyakam's death she has been like a storm, quiet sometimes and raging the other times. Here she gets a different perspective from someone who has walked the path she is on giving her a new direction.

Aryan took deep breaths trying to control the wild hammering of his heart. He had been driving around frantically for the past one hour, trying to locate a missing Imlie when the cyber cell had called to alert him that she had been spotted on a traffic camera wandering into this park. He had broken numerous speed limits getting here, just in time to see her perched precariously on a rickety railing, staring at the sheer drop below.

With his heart in his mouth, he had sprinted towards her shouting at her to get away from the danger, but she did not appear to hear him.

With seconds to spare he had hauled her away before dropping her unceremoniously on the hard ground, his mind refusing to believe she would do something so reckless.

Imlie curled into a ball, resting her forehead on her bent knees uncaring of the mud that now liberally coated her white salwar. It seemed that even death did not want her now.

"Why did you save me?" she muttered exhausted both physically and emotionally.

"What do you mean?" he asked, unwilling to believe she would take this step in full control of her senses. His eyes tracked her drooping shoulders and the air of desolation that hung around her rapidly coming to the conclusion that yes she had been attempting to end her life .

Imlie didn't bother to look up her eyes trained on the hardground.

"All the problems would have ended if you had just let me be. Why did you save this apshagun (ill omen)?" she asked wretchedly.

He drew in a short sharp breath, deeply disturbed by the epitaph she had attached to herself. Meethiji's story of Imlie's childhood trauma played on his mind with vivid clarity. He was sure the 'apshagun' tag had come from the dregs of her Pagdandiya memories. Hatred and fury churned in his gut for the people who would brand an innocent child with such a vile word leaving her scarred for life.

"Everything I touch will die a horrible death. You should save yourself ACP, otherwise you too shall be caught up in the curse that is me" she intoned emotionlessly.

He didn't know how to deal with this lost and defeated Imlie and so he resorted to using the one emotion he could express freely. Anger. Grabbing both her elbows in an iron hard grip, he hauled her upright and shook her, his words tumbling out in angry bursts.

"What did you think? That with this everything will go back to being all right? What about your Amma, what about your dreams, Satyakam's dreams for you?" he questioned thrusting her away from him away. Ignoring her rant about being an apshagun, he ran a hand through his hair in frustration pinning her with his scorching gaze.

"You lost your father Imlie, I know, but that doesn't give you the right to take someone's daughter, someone's best friend away from them. Have you considered how your Amma or Di or Maa would feel? You are making a decision for them too without their consent!"

She didn't blink or acknowledge his words too lost in her misery. Stalking forward he hauled her up against him, banding one arm around her waist to hold her in place.

"Your life is not over Imlie. Think about what Satyakam wanted for you. Think about what he said to you as he lay dying. He wanted you to become the best damn journalist there was. If not for anyone else, then atleast for him. Don't do this."