In His Custody ✎ (MaNan)

✰ 50 - lena-dena

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Manik

Stay.

It was her suggestion, it sounded like a suggestion if it wasn't for her blistering tone, akin to that of my mo – Nyonika – when she meant business.

But staying also meant acknowledging what had just happened, and coming to terms with the fact that a mere touch of hers nearly split me into two. Against my will.

Very unmanly, as my father called it – crying before a woman. Utterly disgraceful.

And now, I had to not only be in close confines with, but also provide an explanation for my pathetic behaviour to the woman I insolently broke down in front of.

Disgusting.

The involuntary hiccup had left my lips when etched pads of her fingers bridged the space between us and gently stroked the scarred tissue above my left eyebrow. Amidst my drunken lightheadedness and the barraging loneliness that permanently set camp within me, her caresses were a past life memory. To reminisce what it felt like to be touched so gently, it ached.

A part of my chest was ripped raw by her warmth, as the two figments paved way for her to return, willing to even be trampled upon if it meant being close to her again. Like we used to be.

I didn't want to tell her that. It made me look pathetic.

The least I could do to retain some remaining sense of pride was to breathe normally, pretend it didn't affect me. At least that I could try to do successfully.

Silence prevailed as she patiently studied every twinge, every twist, every crevice on my skin. Jittery under her sober scrunity, and the channels of interpretation it opened, I knew I had to say something... anything...

Rubbing my temple with my damp hand, I revealed the scarred spot again, exposing one of my physically visible scabs that had long healed, and could no longer be agitated. "That's the mark Harshad left behind on my forehead when he revealed Cabir's secret to us." She was not looking at the spot I was showing her.

Was I reeking of alcohol? Was it the stench that was repulsing her? Otherwise, why would she blankly stare at me like a variation of me from a different universe had descended in my spot and taken my place... without her knowledge?

The warm water landing on my skin extinguished the coals of courage I desperately shovelled to keep myself afloat. Anchored. In control.

"What happened?" She asked, almost in disbelief more than wanting an answer. Concern, compassion and care all wafted through those two words; it was more than I had expected from an acquaintance.

"Huh?" I managed to say.

Shaking herself out of a trance-like state, she lazily let her arms drop to her sides. Aware of the running water that was going to waste, her middle-class impulse would have been to shut off the tap, I mused. She obeyed my suspicions to a T. When she turned from the tap, she looked bewildered like she had seen a ghost in broad daylight. Maybe from a distance, the hollows on my face were pronounced, claiming the limelight.

"What... have you become, Manik?" Sourness from either the beer I had earlier, or my bile, or a cocktail of the two pooled in my mouth at her unwarranted accusation – as if some characteristic of mine that no longer existed disrupted her brilliant plan.