Apricity

Part 5

"Oh, there she is," said Mohit, ushering in his daughter, who alternated her surprised gaze between her father and her father's manager. The manager's smile faltered and his head bowed with his eyes downcast, unable to meet her piercing eyes.

"It is Lalit's last day. He's retiring." Suhani's eyebrows shot towards her receding hairline. "Oh. Congratulations."

The sound of her voice tore through the air, as if each syllable had been sharpened to a razor's edge. She spoke without emotion, masking the raging inferno of turbulent emotions that boiled in her chest. Lalit nodded, biting back any words or glances.

His sloping shoulders and shifting feet would make an observer suspicious, but Mohit Malhotra found himself blinded by the overwhelming emotions at his closest aide's retirement. "I'll fetch a bottle of scotch. I had saved one for your retirement!"

Mohit ambled to the bar in the dining room, leaving the relentless woman and the discomfited man by themselves. "So, retirement, huh? Aren't you scared for my father?" she asked, taking a predatory step towards the manager, who took a step back.

"I'm... I'm sorry. He... he had lost his wife..."

Suhani's face contorted with bitter rage as she remembered the pain of her mother's death, a sorrow that had lingered in her heart for two decades. "And I had lost my mother," she hissed, "you stole my father too, leaving me with nothing but an emptiness where my family used to be."

Lalit clasps his hands tightly together; he could feel sweat dripping down his forehead as he dared not to look into her eyes before she spoke. He knew that if he looked into them now, they would be filled with rage and disappointment from all the hurt he had caused. No matter how much he tried to explain, his words were stifled by a lump in his throat. "I... I just wanted to protect him. I-I never meant to hurt you."

The man shuddered as her biting words seared through him like a hot blade. "Oh, you knew what you were doing," she sneered, her voice dripping with contempt. With a forced calmness in her voice, she continued, the acid of jealousy curling around her tongue.

"It must be so peaceful to be my father - to never worry about anything." A glimpse of grief flashed across her face before she masked it with an icy chuckle. "I haven't had that luxury for years now."

It had been an eternity since he'd last been able to savor the privilege, too. Not since a daughter ached for her father's loving hug. Not since he crafted an impenetrable barrier of regret to ward off a daughter's desperate pleas for her father's safety.

Lalit's voice cracked as he uttered his apology. His fractured words hung in the air like a ghostly reminder of all that was lost. She refused to meet his pleading gaze and instead offered a twisted smile that reached her hollowed eyes. And then, they both knew it was too late; irreparable damage had been done, an abyss gnawing itself into her heart, no amount of remorse ever capable of bridging the divide.

She stepped away with her lips curled in disgust. The muscle in her jaw twitched and the gritting of her teeth reverberated in her ears. "Never show your face to me. Don't you dare come back to this place!"

Tears rolled out of Lalit's eyes when he nodded. Suhani drew a deep breath and stormed out of the living room and towards her room. The concealed typhoon in her mind had brought up the memories buried beneath layers of denial and distraction.

She walked slowly across the room, her steps measured and heavy. Then she slammed the door shut with a flick of her wrist so hard that the whole house shuddered. When she leaned back against it, her back bent so low that it was almost parallel to the floor. Her shoulders shook with each sob that burst from between her teeth, and she pressed her trembling fingers against her mouth to prevent the lament from escaping into the room. The space beneath her ribs vibrated with pain, jarring in time with her rapid heartbeat.

"How will sir knowing about this help you? He's already in pain. What will you gain by adding to his misery? This will break him beyond repair!"

Her tears had traced salty rivers down her face, and she trembled with fear as her fingernails viciously clawed at her skin with a mad ferocity. She was exhausted from her sobs, but still she could not summon the energy to move even an inch. Every muscle in her lower back felt like it was on fire with pain, yearning for some kind of support, any kind of reprieve from the agonizing torment, yet all she had was suffering and despair.

The phone that lay forgotten at her feet started to vibrate. The tactile stimulation did not escape her notice. However, neither could she impel herself to answer the call nor could she convince herself it was a good idea to answer the call in her state.

Her heart raced as the phone buzzed incessantly, demanding her attention. She couldn't bring herself to answer; the cause of her battered state could never be explained. The vibration ceased, and the oblivion of torment hung around her like a dark cloud of regret, tightening its grip with an unyielding force that felt like death itself.

She wanted to break free and unleash her fury, to annihilate the world around her. Nothing was safe from her rampage of destruction - not even her own tranquility or faith in those around her. But she was held back by a force too strong to resist, an obligation deep within that strangled her screams and pinioned her arms, silencing her primal urge for revenge.

The phone's ringing tore through the silence. She had a choice of a few numbers allowed to ring during the 'Focus' mode enabled on her iPhone, and all of them were emergency numbers. She swallowed the lump in her throat and wet her lips before her hand made its way towards her phone.

Her eyes scrunched at the sudden light from the display. It was her manager. The vibration and the ringing died down between her fingers, and that was when she noticed that the previous call, received fifteen minutes ago, was not from her manager, but Ranveer. He had also left a message for her.

"Hey. I tried calling you. I hope everything is fine. Is it possible to reschedule, prepone or postpone the next meet? I have to attend a conference on the decided date."

A rueful smile danced on her quivering lips. She did not remember the last time she had felt everything was fine, but she could not tell that, could she? She moved onto the message from her manager, which revealed there was an incident at the clinical trials which needed her immediate attention.

As her body continued to shake, she slowly tried to push herself off the ground. She reached out and grabbed the edge of the stone wall framing the door for support. The stone was rough and worn; it had been a part of the house for generations. As her hand wrapped around the shapely block, her head swam, and a wave of nausea hit her hard. Her stomach knotted and knotted until she thought she might retch all over the cabin floor.

As she supported herself with her right hand, she typed away to her manager to send a cab to her home. Neither did she trust herself to drive to the office, nor did she wish to disturb the driver who had retired for the day.

She abandoned her dreams of reprieve, abandoned her desperate hope that the torture she endured would somehow get better. But each passing day seemed to bring further misery as if the torment was slowly eating away at her soul. Her prayers to be delivered from despair were replaced with a desperate plea that it would not become worse, for she teetered on the cusp of insanity.