HIS LOST BELOVED

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE :- The politician

Abhay

"Are you okay?" I ask Neitra.

She is curled into a ball under the woolen blanket and is staring in the front without blinking.

Her hair messed up and eyes red in anger, matching the colour of her left cheek where palm prints rest....now turning a shade of blue.

I turn my eyes away from her face. As many times I look at the marks her mother imprinted on her, I want to swallow her alive.

Damn these manners! I had to leave that vile woman.

"I'm asking something", I repeat handing her BP medicines.

She takes them without looking at me.

"Neitra?"

Why this silent treatment?

"Neitra...hey..listen", I try to grab her hand but she pulls it away.

Still looking at the front at God knows what.

Even the knocking of the door didn't distract her from glaring at the showpiece in the right corner of the television she was staring at.

"Hey sale sahab", I try to smile at this sick moment.

(Hello brother in law.)

"Is Di sick? Won't she comes to see us off?" Shashank questions me standing at the door.

What do I answer him? I'm not sure if Neitra would like to meet him after what happened three hours ago.

I am guilty for telling my father, to ask Neitra's parents to leave. But that's the most intelligent thing I could do to take Neitra away from that trauma.

"Shashank." Neitra calls from inside. "Come in."

Pushing me aside he enters the room and jumps onto the bed.

Why does he still act like a kid?

I wouldn't lie but I still feel a different kind of fury when I see him. As much as it sounds illogical, dumb, stupid, immature .... obnoxious, he is the reason why Neitra suffered so much.

He isn't at fault. At all.

I remind myself.

"Are you really very sick?" He questions Neitra sitting beside her.

"I am a little", she smiles faintly at him.

"What happened to your cheek? Why is it so swollen?" Getting worried he gently touches the area and wince as if he is hurting himself.

Where were you kid? When that good for nothing mother of yours hit my wife?

Sleeping?

"It's nothing", she tries waving it off.

"Doesn't look like nothing", dude is getting older.

Tell him Neitra. Why don't you?

"Did he hit you?" Shashank's eyes widen and he looks at me, squinting them.