Saathi Rey

|"Hope and Healing!"|

"Hope is a thing with feathers,
 it flies off like the birds do, never returning to the same branch again,
 leaving the left-behind tree,
 bare, alone, and utterly wretchedly lonely.

Isn't that so?"

-Author

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6 Months Later

"Roothe khwaabon ko mana lenge

Kati patango ko thaamengeHaan-haan hai jazba, ho-ho hai jazba
Suljha lenge, uljhe rishton ka manjhaHaan manjha, haan manjha, haan manjha

She stood on the Academy rooftop, a long figure encased in white, staring earnestly at the moon, the stars, and the clouds that dotted the black horizon; pondering over perhaps the mysteries of existence.

"I wonder how you do it, moon; seem so near even when far away?"

Strands of her curly brown hair escaped out from the thin yellow rubber band she had used to keep them at bay; forming a divine halo around her beat-down face, as she continued to stand there in an almost lost silence, hoping for someone to arrive and free her from this all-encompassing almost-entrapped solitude and yet, terrified at the mere prospect.

"Because that is how it is, for most of the things, people, and emotions in our life. They seem so near, right next to you, as if you could touch them the next moment itself, and yet, when one goes towards them, to feel them, they vanish. Disappear like a thin stretch of smoke."

His gaze, fixed so intently upon her, unnerved her very being. Unexpectedly, her heart started to pound erratically out of rhythm, as if someone was hammering something inside her chest.

"Wha-What?" She whispered, confused but not so much, for even though her heart had long back refused to acknowledge his presence, her brain, had already started functioning in overdrive; as it set out to decipher the complex puzzle his words always guaranteed to present.

"I think, you know what I mean, Rani Sahiba!" He murmured gently, right next to her ear, bowing down to her height to stare at her directly, openly, without any ounce of hesitation, as if he had every right to.

"Khadoos Shergill! Step away, and stay within your limits. Don't dare to come near me ever again, samjhe?" The heavy impact of something near her ankles brought her back to her senses, breaking the alluring hypnosis his magnetic gaze seemed to have bequeathed upon her.

"Hmm? Oh, I-I am sorry, Rani Sahiba! Did I make you uncomfortable? This would never be repeated, and that's a soldier's promise. Not unless, you ask or allow me to, that is."

That- it was that apologetic tone of his words, the way he respected her bubble, even though she had already confessed her love to him earlier; which melted her icy heart, all the more. 

He knew, he understood that loving him did not imply she belonged to him, was not an invitation for him to invade her carefully-crafted life, to influence her choices and decisions, no matter how much she craved sometimes for him to do just that; to shout at her for all those mistakes which had hurt him just as much as they had hurt her. It infuriated her sometimes, his love, his patient, deep and consistent affection for her, which seemed to never demand anything from her except a promise for her to try, for both of their sakes.

"How do you do it, Karan? How are you so-so perfect? And, most importantly, how can I ever measure up to you, to your love?" She had not meant for him to hear her, but yet her words somehow managed to make their way towards his ears, like they always did, as a lone tear escaped from her wet lashes, traveling its way through her cheeks to land on her bitter, chapped lips.