MaNan : Love is Just a Word

2. Blue Moon

Happy New Year, I genuinely hope you all will like this story as this new to me and I'm trying my best to give you a good read.

~~~~~~~~~

Abhimanyu won't stop apologizing.

Nandini lets him babble on from the curb as she watches him secure the car-seat to the backseat of his hideously sleek SUV even though it's already safe. The seat never leaves the car. Aarav claps along like Abhimanyu is singing a song, legs pumping, mouth trying to emulate the sounds.

There's a rhythm to the apologies, how Abhimanyu got the dates mixed up and then forgot that he did. What shitty luck that today was the one day he had to go into the office and no one ever teaches you how to properly maintain a schedule as a freelance artist and Abhimanyu is in his 30's, now he should have learned this.

"Abhi.."

Abhimanyu hits his head on the roof of the car. The nice dress shoes he never gets to wear are getting soaked in rainwater. "Can't remember the last time you called me that."

"I call you that all the time," Nandini says. Aarav backs her up, garbling excitedly in Abhimanyu's direction.

"Even longer since Mukti taught you age means nothing. I think it may have been when you were seventeen. No, sixteen? Before you hit your obnoxious growth spurt."

" Abhi."

Abhimanyu rightens, the car seat quadrupled secured. He leaves the door open, yanks the left shoulder of his coat back into place. There are tiny lines starting to burrow into the edges of Abhimanyu's eyes and forehead.

She's at a dissonance with the Abhimanyu of Nandini's memories, big square glasses and counterfeit Japanese brand hoodies, his hands pulling Nandini along while Mukti rolled her eyes but never said anything against Nandini's tiny feet following them everywhere, her smaller footprints embedded in mud and pavement and sand right behind theirs.

Nandini says, "It really was okay. The professor. I mean my TA. He was understanding. Don't worry. Thank you for coming to pick him up. You didn't have to."

Hurt flashes across Abhimanyu's face before he can hide it, school his expression, but Nandini sees it, feels it like it's a living breathing thing sucker punching her in the stomach. 

Abhimanyu says, "Nanduuu.. Of course, I had to. Maybe it's been too long since I've told you that."

"Abhimanyu" Against the glossy black sheen of his car, Abhimanyu's smile looks painful. "You have another class, don't you?"

Smarted, Nandini nods.

She lifts Aarav from the carrier, takes a moment to press her face to his cheek and inhales because she never gets tired of that balsam of a scent, not the same as when Aarav was a newborn but still un-mistakingly baby, tiny things that breathe life, the new, that remind Nandini how very not young he is anymore.

Nandini gives Abhimanyu the baby bag, and tucks Aarav into the seat, heart squeezing when Aarav reaches for her own cheeks, thumbs pressing into the impression of her hallow cheeks. He does this every day. Nandini doesn't know why it feels like a knife to the heart now, biting into a peach pit.

"Say bye-bye, bub," Abhimanyu encourages, steps back and walks towards the driver's seat.

It's just five hours. Just her economics class and a core faculty requirement. She skipped her second class, knew that the professor wouldn't be so forgiving.

Like he understands, language and words and what it means that Nandini is standing on the sidewalk and not inside the car too, Aarav reaches a fist out, coos, the sweetest sound.