Emancipating The Love (On-going)

Chapter 35

Identity

The deafening sound of silence echoed the slow beating of his heart that banged against his chest like a prisoner begging to be freed.

Whispers of possibilities—created by 'what ifs'—travelled back and forth like it was bouncing off the sturdy walls that keeps his mind sane.

His overimaginative daydreaming haunted him of what that day could've been like if he had chosen the other path — with her, with their child, creating memories, woving a future founded out of love.

The phantom existence of their shared moments coldly tinges against his skin along with the blowing of the air-conditioner. The weaved blanket of dreams they had created together—now an abandoned envisage, a forgotten place of fantasy—allowed his restless mind to wander even further. Far from the reality he couldn't escape.

Each passing day felt like a torture for the man who yearns for the presence of people who he could claim as his, but is continuously being towed away by the consequences of his choices. Pulled further from him by the aftermath of being a coward.

His eyes scrolled through the dancing letters boldly printed on the clean sheet of paper his attorney had just handed him in a whim. His breath hitched along the gliding of his eyes, every word making his stomach fall into a deeper pit of unsalvageable grief.

"What's that?" Questioned by a familiar voice, curiosity following each step she took as she dragged her pregnant self towards him. Her bump a little too laden.

He didn't need to look at her, just the faint smell of her perfume that perfectly mixed with the musky scent of his and the crisp scent of papers had already warned him of her identity.

"Petition for annulment." Aga absently replied as he sank deeper on his chair, the lingering weight of the featherlike paper's content pushing him even more. Each word a sharpened sword that cuts deeper in his throbbing heart.

"No way." She gasped, eyes widened, mouth parted—half-shocked, half-mocking. With a wheezing breath, catching the oxygen that barely touches her lungs due to her pregnancy, she went behind Aga and nosily took a peek.

"Yes. My lawyer just delivered this to me." He raised the stapled stack of papers with shaking hands as though they were the heaviest documents he ever had grasped. Adhira pulled herself closer, prying with a sharp sight like her life depended on scrutinizing it.

"You're in deep shit. Your love life is in deep shit." Her tongue clicked, head shaking in disappointment as she roasted him, though still empathetic of his relationship status.

"Yes, Adhira. I know that. Now, what am I going to do?" He seemed so helpless, so lost, his voice searching, his eyes looking at her with a silent cry, imploring for her aid.

A pitiful-sympathetic sigh escaped Adhira's fleeting breath upon realizing how devastated he has been.

The event had taken place weeks ago. With the pile of workload that mountains over Aga's desk, the pestering pressure that drowns him in his work, and his unspoken feelings that encages him in an awaken nightmare, it was the first time she actually had a moment to discern the changes that is noticeable on his physique. With a good glance, you could notice how he had lost weight; there was also a stubble growing on his once was always shaved chin.

But it only takes a good observer to see the miniscule display of difference that is hidden under the professionality of his attire and the composure he forces to wear every day.

His eyes were in deep distress—a window to every hidden emotion. The once glimmering smile had disrupted into a thin line of neutrality—an expression to cover the cacophony of cries he secretly weeps. His toned-up body had deflated into a less defined shape—he had uncannily lost a couple number of kilogram.