What's a soulmate? ~ MaNan

Chapter 14

Manik

One kiss was nearly not enough.

I kept all my wildest thoughts regarding Nandini tucked in the darkest corners of my heart, so far away where even I couldn't access them for all the years that passed, and it took me one kiss to lose my sanity.

Because once I started, I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop.

I sat in the front seat of the car that Cabir was driving, and kept staring at her face in the rearview mirror.

The rains had finally receded enough for my best friend to pick us up from the motel to Nandini'a relief and my dismay.

As if just on queue, Cabir's eyes flicker from the road ahead to me. "You're staring."

"What?"

"You're staring at Nandini." He repeats, a little louder this time, enough for the woman in the backseat to catch it.

She shudders, her cheeks turning slightly red as she purses her lips and pretends to not have heard anything, pulling our daughter closer to her.

A slight change, something maybe Cabir wouldn't notice, but I did.

"Drive," I glared at him, but the smile I was trying so desperately to hide makes its way to the top in a concealed gesture.

Whether she accepted it or not, I affected her just as much as she affected me, if not more.

~

Nandini

The feeling of Manik's lips on mine still persisted long after I was home, tucked in the safety of my blanket.

That was troubling, since the divorce papers awaited me at my house. Ones that I demanded for.

Logically, I knew this kiss was a one-off. Nothing would have followed after, but a what-if still lingered in the back of my head.

What if Cabir hadn't called and broken our moment? Just, what if?

The divorce papers sat on the shelf under my stack of medicines, unsigned by him, waiting for my signature first.

I wish I could've signed on it as confidently as I had asked for these to be drawn up, but I couldn't. Even if not for the kiss, I needed to take my time to say goodbye to the last half decade of my life, which I lived being Nandini Manik Malhotra.

My phone buzzed in a corner displaying Aryamman's name, who probably was calling to ask if I reached home safe after I disappeared from his guest house in the middle of the night with nothing but a note behind, but I let it ring.

The only man occupying my thoughts that night was my estranged husband.

~

Manik

"Hold on, let me make sure I got this right," Cabir dramatically batted his eyelashes while he sat sprawled across the couch in my living room, as if he owned it. "You dropped the divorce papers at Nandini's house?"

I nod.

He goes on, "And then you realised that you actually don't want to divorce her, and you need a solid plan that should involve begging on your knees for her to not leave you right this instant?"

I reluctantly nod again. "Yes to everything except the last part."

He grabs a pillow and throws it flying across to me, which I catch effortlessly and even glare at him.