Yours insanely

32.All for you

You sat quietly on the couch, biting your nails as you stared off at the pool in the backyard.

Surely, you should've known that Shubman would run behind you all the way up to the terrace on the second floor.

Your mind felt darkened with gloom and anxiety. Despondent, downhearted, anything you can call it.

The skin surrounding your nails almost started to bleed with the way you were chewing on them.

Yet you didn't stop. Not until you tasted blood and felt him sit beside you.

"Baby," Shubman kept his voice as low as possible, his expression crestfallen when you refused to look at him. "Honey, please, look at me."

He held your hands but even as you turned slightly to face him, you avoided looking at him.

"Baby, I'm so sorry," he apologized, eyes searching for yours. "I didn't know you were waiting outside. I'd never raise my voice at you."

"I know," you said in a barely audible tone, but you were restless in the way you kept looking down and remained unresponsive to him holding your hands.

It wasn't you he yelled at. You knew he'd never do that to you.

"I- I just-" you chewed on your lower lip, searching for the right words. "I don't like it when people yell."

You felt your throat tighten, an uneasiness in the back of your mind as you finally looked at those eyes you'd recognize even in complete darkness.

"You're not mad at me, right?" You asked and Shubman felt his heart break at the sight in front of him.

"What? No, baby, I would never be mad at you," he held your cheeks, frantically wiping away the tears that streamed down your burning eyes.

He held you in his arms in a desperate attempt to stop your cries, while also internally beating himself up a thousand times.

You didn't hug him back, but you let yourself lean against him, barely able to control your sobs.

Shubman felt helpless. How could he survive seeing tears in your eyes? How could he hurt the person who meant more than his life to him?

It was only when you wrapped your arms around him after a few minutes that he could think straight again.

"I'm sorry," he kept whispering in your hair once your sobs died down, still hugging you tightly.

"Don't be," you said with a sniffle. "I'm overreacting."

Pulling away from Shubman's chest, you took a deep breath to calm yourself down.

"I came to ask if you were going to join me for an evening snack," you wiped the streaks of tears from the corner of your eyes. "Ishan and Shahneel were making cookies again."

"Of course, baby. Anything you want," he said and you nodded, giving him a kiss on the cheek before you both walked downstairs together.

He still didn't stop chastising himself, holding your hand tightly and kissing it to calm himself down, more than you needed to be.

You'll never leave him, he told himself.

Though he didn't deserve someone as divinus as you, he'll do anything to make sure all you felt was love, he told himself again.

In Shubman's mind, he has unforgivably failed you once. And he'll make sure that it never happens again.

All he ever does is for you, right?

As for the man in the office, a bullet in the head would've been enough for earlier. But now that he was an indirect reason for what just ensued, it didn't come close to being enough.

Now it extended to the use of scalpels and a few hours in the cold storage room until he finally bit the dust.

Late at night, Shubman slipped under the duvet with you, changed into more comfortable loungewear after a shower, having discarded the slightly blood stained clothes.

Like there was nothing in the world that threatened your happiness. Nothing at all. He made sure of it.

A criminal to the world, yet an angel in your eyes.

He kept you warm in the midst of the world enveloped by the cold that was humankind.

Times when you'd just close your eyes and picture the sun. That's what it felt like to love him. Warmth.

And he was ready to burn the whole world down to keep you that way.

Like a flower that bloomed in the middle of thorns; you could only be admired from afar, in the embrace of the one destined for you.

Shubman wanted to wrap you in his warmth and tell you that you'd be safe forever, and so he did.

He set fire to the world around you, but never let the flame touch you.