𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒃𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎: 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞

~"टूटी चारपाई वोही
ठंडी पुरवाई रास्ता देखे
ढूंढो की मलाई वोही
मिट्टी की सुराही रास्ता देखे
कैसी तेरी खुदगर्ज़ी
लाब नमक रमे ना मिसरी
कैसी तेरी खुदगर्ज़ी
तुझे प्रीत पुरानी बिसरी
मस्त मौला, मस्त कलंदर
तू हवा का एक बवंडर
बुझ के यूँ अन्दर ही अन्दर क्यूँ रह गया.."»

Reyaansh Malik

If there was one single thing that I needed the night before a seventeen-hour flight was a peaceful night's sleep but that sleep was nowhere in question for me today.

" Mahira, atleast listen to me." I spoke slowly holding her shoulders but she jerked off and took a couple of steps back. " Bhabhi, can you leave us alone for some time?" Suhaana nodded before moving outside of the room, closing the door behind her with a soft thud. " Bhai, what is all this? You both live in different rooms. The wedding pictures are still wrapped up and are thrown over in a corner of Bhabhi's room. If you're not happy together, atleast don't pretend or atleast try to give this a chance."

I sighed and looked away from her. " What do you expect for me to do? Take her lovingly in my life? Give her the place which once belonged to Moulika? The place that nobody has the right upon?" My breath turned heavy as soon as her name slipped from my tongue but I ignored it. I had to. I can't let it affect me for forever.

" Bhabhi is different from that bitch okay? She's everything that Moulika never was. She cares for all of us. Do you know she sends me all her designs for review because I told her that I fucking loved her designs. Mom once told her that she wanted red chikankari saare with some minor details which I did not even understand but bhabhi gifted that to Mom. Did Moulika ever do that? Bhabhi doesn't love you but she still treats us like her own family and that woman loved you, actually pretend that she loved you and still always looked upon us like we were a nobody to you. Bhai, please atleast give a chance to this. " Her voice turned to a mere whisper at the end.

" I can't." I mumbled before sitting down on the couch. " Why?" She asked growing hysterical but she does not understand what we had wasn't something I could let palpitate between Suhaana and I. What I feel with Suhaana is something else than what I felt for Moulika. Moulika may have left me but I still feel like she's still here even though that is slowly fading. How can I not feel her when I had given her all the small and the big parts of myself to her. My mind was always in a constant race with her, it was always like the whole world was a delusion and she was my only destination. She completed me. She completed my home. She completed my prayers. She was the most beautiful in my eyes at a point, even moon has its scars, but she never had one in my eyes. Now that I realise, I really gave all of my life to her. I dedicated all the happiness and peace of my life to her. And now, I can just wish that I should have not given her those. I don't know if what I felt towards her was love or something else, but that feeling broke me into pieces and now, now I feel like Suhaana is picking up those pieces. Whenever she reacts to my touches, whenever her breath hitches and her eyes grow wide whenever I'm in her proximity, all the playfulness that lights up her eyes when she annoys me and whenever she looks into my eyes and doesn't look away, it does feel like she is picking up those pieces. But that is not enough, picking them up is not enough because I also need to glue them together, to shuffle those pieces into the puzzle of what I used to be. And I'm not ready to do that anytime in near future.