Discordance

Chapter Thirty-Two

Butterflies, that's all she could feel around him, so how did he expect her to look him in the eyes? Or worse, talk to him? She tried so hard but the moment he looked at her, all the courage left her and her heart started beating out of her chest to the point where she was concerned she would go into cardiac arrest. And to add to it, every night he whispered in her ear about how much he liked her before they went to sleep. He had made her feel so good when he had touched her like that and she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that he had wanted nothing more in return, he had been gentle, sweet and so damn concerned that it felt like the remaining chains around her heart were crumbling.

Since that day, he had only kissed her every now and then and understood without her explicit words that she just needed a little bit of space, which he gave to her aplenty. How could she not fall deeper and harder? They only talked, or more so, Akshara could only talk to him in the dead silence of the night when she didn't have to meet his eyes or see his expressions but to her those few words she exchanged with him, her nose buried in his neck, meant more to her than anything they did during the day. She always looked forward to sleeping in his arms and it ruined the day after if he was away on call or she was busy and they couldn't see each other through the night or she didn't get his sweet kisses.

Just last week he had done something so sweet and cute for her that Akshara had felt her heart melt into a puddle at her feet. It had been late at night and she was sitting on their bed looking at a couple of clothes online for the shelter when Abhimanyu had come in and sat behind her pulling her back into his chest, looking over her, at the screen. He had swiped her hair away to the other side and pressed a kiss on her shoulder making her heart race.

"You know, I love you in dresses like this, you should get more like this one" he said as he snapped her thin strap. He suddenly looked up and must have seen the horrified expression on her face so he hastily tacked on "I mean I love you in everything really, but something about this..." his voice trailed off as he gestured towards the dress she was wearing. How did she tell him that it wasn't his words but just the fact that she couldn't afford to buy clothes for herself? He had said she had unperturbed access to his money, but she could barely talk in front of him, she definitely could not spend his money. She had distracted him by asking some question and as they slept at night she had assumed that was that until the next day he came home with bags and bags of clothes

"What is this?" she stammered as Abhimanyu rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You wouldn't have bought it for yourself, so I bought clothes for you" WHAT? she was so shocked that she spluttered trying to get words out, nervously wringing her hands.

"I don't want it" she had said in a tortured voice before fleeing towards the door needing to put some distance between them, his gesture overwhelming the living shit out of her but she wasn't as lucky, she wasn't even two steps out of the door before he caught her and pulled her back, hugging her close and instantly all the fight had left her body, especially when he turned his neck towards her knowing it would help her anxiety.

"I don't want it Abhimanyu" she murmured into his neck after a long time and instead of responding to her, he lifted her up and brought the two of them on the bed, caressing her back gently.

"You know I won't force you to keep it, right? I just want you to know that you deserve good things as well. You're my whole world and I don't know how to make you believe that or make you feel like you have ownership over me and everything I own." What could she have responded with? Who said such things so casually? Only her husband, that's who. He was right though; she just could not believe that someone would go out of their way to do something nice for her without any ulterior motives.