MaNan : Moon Light

11. Blue & grey

Nandini pounded her fist on the door of the house and she didn't really expect an answer. 

It was late, very late, and she was stupid for even coming to the building but she couldn't help herself. She had tried to go back to their place or den and yet her legs had brought her here instead and there was turning back now.

Not after everything.

She lowered her arm and moved forward to press her head on the door, feeling that it was cool against her brow and that her skin was baking hot. Of course, it was, for she had run all the way from the restaurant from the building without stopping for a single second. Her heart was racing in her chest and she breathing in through her mouth rapidly as she tried to slow it down.

She was pretty certain that there was a sheen of sweat all over her too for she could feel a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face and her stupid wrinkled shirt was stuck to her skin and irritating her tattoo again.

"Come on, just answer the door. Please."

Nandini had left The Continent restaurant just seconds after eavesdropping on Mukti and Abhi's conversation in the kitchen. 

She hadn't wanted them to know that she had been listening but they hadn't caught her. She had, however, caught Mukti kissing the other man and that was what had made her decide that it had been time for her to leave. 

It wasn't right for her to see something like that and she felt like she had done yet another horrible thing by doing so. Though she had only caught a mere moment of it she had seen that it was nothing like what had happened between her and Manik.

Mukti and Abhi. 

It had been a real kiss, a soft and yet somewhat passionate kiss that hadn't came about from hair pulling and ended in biting and fingers digging in and pain. 

No, she had seen Mukti bring her lips against Abhi's softly in a way that was so very unlike her friend and when they had deepened it with the most gentlest touch, Abhi's arm around Mukti's waist, Nandini had turned on her heel and left the restaurant through the front door.

The doorman hadn't stopped her and had just moved aside to let her go and she had managed to get to the end of the street before she had started running and here she was: right outside Manik's house, his wooden door decorated with the creepers that are growing out. 

She stopped here, breathless and hopeless.

Nandini couldn't help herself from reaching up and banging her fist on the door again. She had her jaw clenched so hard that she felt the impact of her rolled-up fist at the back of her teeth, throbbing away like a headache. She can't go to Cabir's, she didn't feel like and sometimes, Cabir does crash here. 

She just knew that they would both be gone when she needed them the most.

"Please please please..." she muttered under her breath and she was aware of the fact that she was almost praying for the door to open. Her, praying.

Nandini didn't know what she was going to do if no one answered the door. She supposed that she would just curl up on the steps in the stairwell, leaning on the door, and stay here for the entire night. 

She couldn't possibly go back to the den after everything that had happened, she couldn't stay in the same room as Mukti after the argument and everything that she had overheard: Mukti telling their friend that she wanted out, that she wasn't happy and that she didn't want her getting dragged into all of this, that she was scared that she might just end up dead all because of this one stupid friendship.