Nobody's daughter ~ Yrkkh Musings

2.1 Ways to kill a mortal~ Abhira x Armaan

Hurricanes...these human shaped hurricanes, these devastating beings disguised as soft flesh and bone. Give your heart to the hurricane and tell him precisely what would hurt you and let him twist the knife. Feel the grief of it, of the betrayal from a trusted being, embrace it and make it a part of your being.

Grief, is a thing with fangs, do not resist it, it stays at your window sill, watching you with its piercing eyes. That grief, is a child waiting for you to put her to bed, to feed her with love. That grief wants a mother because who else would embrace such a monster. Grief is an orphan girl waiting for her mother. And if you ask Abhira, she was the embodiment of grief.

"Mumma...", Abhira cried sitting under the blanket, clutching her pillow close to her heart, to subdue the panic and pain that weighed her chest. "Why did you leave me Mumma, aapne toh meri responsibility ka bojh Armaan ko dediya, par usne bhi mera trust Tod diya...ab aapki yeh chidiya Kahan jaayengi Mumma. Aapko mujhe bhi apne saath le jana chahiye tha...mujhe nahi rehna uss world mein Jahan aap nahi ho."

She had heard the conversation between Armaan and Ruhi at the temple, heard Ruhi's idea of making the eternal declaration of their love. It felt like a punch in the gut and suddenly it all made sense. Ruhi's extreme hostility towards her, Ruhi's constant interference, Armaan's silence when Ruhi would insult Abhira and their relationship, Rohit's suffocation and heartbreak and his sudden disappearance. What did he do to deserve such a heartbreak?

Abira could feel it, a snake wrapping around her throat-whispering sweetness into her ears, while tightening it's hold. But it was certainly too late to notice the bite, to notice what an obtuse fool she had been, while the truth was jazzing right infront of her eyes throughout. But now she could feel the venom replacing her mother's warm blood in her veins. Despite her ability of persistent yapping, always having something to say, something to argue, Abhira couldn't explain the crushing pain she felt in this moment.

This wasn't the pain of unreciprocated love. It was the pain of trusting someone with fragments of herself that were dead. Humans are Pandora's box personified, all it takes is a cut to realise how deeply poisoned we are. And in this moment, Abhira could feel every bone in her body ache with the sense of loss. The loss of her Mumma's warmth and love and the loss of any genuine human connection she had.

"Where do I put this sadness Mamma? Where? This silence is so loud, it's defeaning, I can't bear it." Abhira could feel the rot of her dreams in her fingernails. The truth was, she needed someone, and today she couldn't be enough for herself. She needed to knock on her mother's door put her head in her lap like a baby and sleep away her miseries. Her home is too quiet and her grief, raw, wild and loud.

She did what she never thought she would, something she has herself been an warning sign against. This is not your family Abhira. This is not your mumma. This is not your home. But alas, a starving orphan would eat anything.

"Ma...", she could barely whisper.

Vidya was taken aback, not by the way Abhira addressed but by the overwhelming warmth and wave of protectiveness that suddenly overtook her, spreading a sense of urgency and care in her heart. Something was wrong, a mother's heart always knows when her child is in pain. Abhira wasn't her blood, but something about the way she could hear her breathe told her she wasn't fine.

"Abhira....meri bachi, tu theek hai na...Kuch toh bol beta...main sunn rahi hoon. Kuch hua hai?"

"Mumma...", was all that Abhira could manage to say between her sobs and her struggle to breathe.

"Abhira bata mujhe kya hua hai. Armaan ne kuch kaha tujhse? Main dant lagati hoon usey? Kuch toh bol meri bachi." If Vidya actually tried she could translate Abhira's pain in a language of her own. She could listen to her gut wrenching sobs on the phone, through her whimpers. Because Abhira was chaos, she was always loud but now her silence...terrifyingly gut wrenching.

"Nahi, ussey kuch matt kehna"

"Apni Ma ko nahi batayegi beta..."

And that struck Abhira like lightning. She doesn't want a share love that isn't hers. She is afraid she will drown somebody, and make it sound like a lullaby. This is not my home. This is not my Mumma. And she cuts the call. This betrayal was hers to deal with, she couldn't even begin to imagine the ways it would crush Vidya to know the truth. This wasn't her truth, this wasn't her mumma. Perhaps, her only comrade today was this grief...the creature awaiting her embrace. And she would nurture it, in the hope that one fine day, like any other monster her hunger would be satiated and it would leave. For now everything feels like a wound within this tiny space she has caved in, but there is nowhere else she would rather heal.
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Armaan could feel the grief heavy in the air, as if this house stood as a metaphor of all the bad things that could happen to her, Abhira, this was her home, or was it? He was scared he had tainted the sanctity of this place and the peace it brought her by his betrayal. He did not know what was he thinking, or was he thinking at all.

Now as he entered the dark room, he could feel the ghost of his mistakes dancing under the dim light falling from the atrium window. Ghosts are guilt and ghosts are secrets and he has let them run wild for too long and the consequences were right in front of his eyes.

He kneeled down beside the bed on which Abhira had curled into a small shell and fallen asleep. He saw the papers she was clutching and he dreaded his intuition about the contents of the paper were right. He had hurt her yet again, and this time he might not deserve the warmth of her forgiveness. He was about to commit a greater sin today, permanently besmirching the sanctity of his relationship with Abhira, but he stopped, rather his fate made him and he ran away, from his own lies and problems, just like he has been running all along. But this time he needed to clear his head, and he did, he knew what he had to do.

He gently kept a hand on her cheek, rubbing away the trail of tears. She had certainly cried herself to sleep, and the voice note he received from Vidya only reaffirmed his fears. And he hated himself for not being there to comfort her, to tell her the entire truth and come clean.

"I am sorry Abhira. Main tumhe kabhi dard nahi Dena chahta tha", he sobbed.

"Par Maine tumhe dard ke Siva aur kuch nahi diya. Pata nahi tum mujhe maaf kar paogi ya nahi, par main tumhara sapna nahi tootne dunga. Main tumhara har sapna pura karna chahta hoon, tumhe har Khushi Dena chahta hoon. Main woh dost bana chahta hoon Jo tum deserve karti ho, Jo tumhe woh support de Jo tum mujhe deti hoon, Jo sirf tumhare liye fight kare."

"I have lied to you Abhira, a lot. But I promise i will come clean, i will tell you everything from the beginning aur fir choice tumhari hogi. Main tumhe selfishly apne paas nahi rakhunga par main tumhari dhaal banuga, main tumhara sapna nahi tootne dunga. Tumhe woh har Khushi milegi Jo tum deserve karti ho, Jo main tumhe kabhi de nahi paya."

He gently kissed her forehead and sat there holding her hand with utmost care but with a grip firm enough to remind him that she is still there, she is fine, atleast physically. And he slipped into a slumber unaware of the disaster that awaited them, the disaster that would completely change their lives.