[ Featured : FanfictionINDIA Reading List ]
Manik Malhotra, a senior in the school run by Nyonika Malhotra, seems to have everything a teenager can ask for: life-defining friendships, a free pass to escaping trouble and a fashion empire title - "Mal...
Happy New Year you guys! The moment you have been waiting for is finally here, and I think this chapter will resonate a lot with this time of the year!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Please vote, comment and share the story with your friends if you like it <3
⭒
Manik
A heavy boulder lifted off my chest at the knock of my bedroom door. I blinked, washing tiredness away from my eyes as I checked my watch. 3:41. Who could it be at this hour?
Diyah was at the other end of the door, wearing a white and red floral dress with a big duffel bag in one hand and a handbag over another. Was I dreaming, or was she real? Had she really come all this way for me? Why me?
"Hi, come–come in," I moved to the side of the door, my hand reaching to grab her heavy bag. Our fingers momentarily touched, and Diyah's gaze searched for mine. Unfortunately, I was looking at everything around us, except her. "Make yourself comfortable," Diyah looked around the bedroom.
It was a minimalistic enclosure, a king sized bed with neutral bedding on it, and two wooden bedside tables that suspended on either sides of the mattress. On the side of the bed was a small walkway that opened into a balcony, overseeing the luxurious terrain of Lonavala. At the foot of the bed was a lavish ensuite bathroom, about the size of the room itself.
Diyah sat at the foot of the bed, fiddling with her thumbs. I arranged her bags beside mine and then swivelled in her direction, slowly making my way to her.
"I'm glad you came," I said, with a soft smile lingering on my lips.
Her eyes brightened in the dim lighting around us, and she almost got up when she asked, "Really Manik?" I held her shoulders and sat her back down, taking a spot beside her and rubbing my hands together.
I had evaded her for ten days. Over ten days. The guilt that I had not felt all these days for my actions was uneasily tugging at my heart on that particular night. If leaving Nandini in the dark caused her so much pain, I could not even begin to imagine what it would have felt like for Diyah... a woman who truly loved me. I sniffed, palming my mouth.
"Do you remember... the very first date we went on?" Diyah flushed as she looked at me, reminiscing those early days when everything was rosy and flowery in our lives. That night we went on a small walk around the gardens in her neighbourhood around midnight, starting off as acquaintances and ending the night off with a gentle kiss by her doorstep.
Months into our relationship, she had confessed that was the night she fell in love with me. Fell in love. She meant it whenever she said she loved me, her coming all the way here after all my attempts to shoo her away was proof. I, on the other hand, had reluctantly used that phrase only when it was most convenient to me. Like when we had sex, or when she said it first so I responded the same. Never... never have those words left my mouth without an ulterior intention–or fear–of losing the only person who had loved me.
