In His Custody ✎ | (MaNan)

✰ 69 - the right choices

Oh, I am so so nervous about how you guys are going to feel about this update.

Let me know please, this is completely stream of consciousness so I hope it pulls something in you.

Word count: 5532 words.

⭒

Manik

The curtains screeched open, inviting a cannonball of light into the otherwise dingy bedroom. I dug my face further into the pillow my hands were tucked under and murmured an abuse to Mukti, to let me sleep a bit longer.

I was sprawled over the bed as I slept on my stomach. She came around, crawled up on the bed from the foot of it and sat beside me. One of my flexed biceps was in reach, which a face rested on while some fingers walked up my back and slid down it.

My eyes irritably trickled open to shove Mukti away, when the sight of my girl next to me graced my eyes. Oh yeah, how did I forget I had housed her for the weekend?

"Good morning, Manik!" Through my blurry sight, I untucked my other hand and dazedly traced her hairline with a finger.

"Hmm..." I smiled to myself, "That it is..." Patting her cheek, I urged her to close her eyes as well while allowing my droopy lids to shut one more time... for some much needed rest. After the jitters from her confessions from last night, the sequences replayed, with emphasis on a different set of nuanced emotions each time. They kept me up well past dawn.

She said into a hollowing void, "Arrey... wake up na, I'm getting hungry..." but I wasn't sure if it was her or a daydream.

I had quite possibly drifted back to sleep right after. Until...

"MANIK!" came Dad's sharp call.

Shit!

I sprung out of the bed, half-disoriented. Where was Nandini? Rubbing any remnants of sleep out of my face, I rushed to the bathroom to make myself presentable. Before exiting my bedroom, I straightened up – letting none of the restlessness show – and slowly moved to the balustrade.

Dad's plate of food was abandoned at the dining table. He was standing in his spot, the napkin hastily handed over to the househelper as he directed an icy look at me. Nandini was not anywhere around him. My feet landed on the steps, descending on one after another.

As I shifted closer to face him, he had turned from the table and waited until I was an arm's distance away. My eyes met his at the same level. One cutting whip landed on my right cheek. Churning from the impact, I stood mum, mildly tracking the raw blazing sting on my face. Upstairs, I heard stumbling... which was when my heart began to race.

If at all a superior power was to exist, my only request was that Nandini should not see this.

"Who the hell is that?" He asked with a chilling calm. "Is she your new distraction?" I had known without a doubt that he had been referring to Nandini, and had possibly spotted her. Bracing myself for any further uncomfortable jabs, about her dressing sense... her lack of class... and what not, I breathed in.

As my chest puffed against his, he seethed in my silent defiance. "Are you having sex with her?"

I shot a glower at him, revolted by the callous remark that not only suggested he lacked trust in me, but that my personal life – and boundaries – were his business too. He needed to control that too.