A Part, Yet Apart

Chapter 124- The Punishment

Manik's POV:

Nandini walked out from there and I followed her with a hope that she would talk but I know I deserve worse. "Nandini, please listen to me" I held her hand but the sudden change of weather didn't let us stay still. It drizzled all of a sudden and it felt like Nandini's anger! "The weather is too unpredictable Manik, just like you!" she said before leaving. Right, the rain in the month of March should definitely cool things down, instead it raised the temperature. The rain tasted like my failure. I stood outside Nandini's home and let it drench me, because somewhere in my mind, I believed I deserved this. The cold, the wet, the bone-deep chill that matches the hollow ache that's been living in my chest for weeks. The rain is honest. It doesn't pretend. It just falls and soaks everything and makes a mess of carefully styled hair and pressed clothes. I wish I could be more like rain. Instead, I'm standing here rehearsing an apology that feels impossibly small for the magnitude of what I've destroyed. I've written seventeen versions in my mind. Deleted sixteen. The seventeenth is still not good enough because no words exist that could adequately translate the specific flavor of devastation I feel every time I remember the look on Nandini's face when she realized I'd chosen my mother over her.

The rain intensified, and I didn't move. My shirt clings to my chest like a second skin, and I can feel water running down the back of my neck. My phone is probably ruined in my pocket, water damage, password locked, dead weight. A metaphor for everything I've become. I hear the door to the building open. Footsteps. And then her voice! sharp, practical, cutting through my self-flagellation like a blade: "You're getting pneumonia" she said. I looked up to her. Nandini is standing there, her hair tied up in the bun, her expression a mixture of exasperation and something else I can't quite name. Concern, maybe. Or just the irritation of dealing with a man who's too much of an idiot to come in from the rain. She held an umbrella in her hand. "I deserve worse" I managed to speak after an hour speaking within myself. She didn't smile at that. Didn't soften. Just looked at me with those eyes that have seen through every performance I've ever given and asked: "Why are you here?" It's the most important question anyone's asked me in weeks.

"I'm here because I finally understand something," I said, and even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're not enough, but they're true, and for once, truth is what I'm choosing. "I finally understand that I've spent my entire life choosing the wrong people. I've chosen my family's comfort over your dignity. I've chosen my mother's approval over your trust. I've chosen being a good son over being a good husband". Water dripped from my hair into my eyes, but I didn't wiped it away. "And I know that understanding doesn't fix anything. I know that just realizing what I did wrong doesn't suddenly make me the man you deserve. But Nandini, I need you to know that I see it now. I finally see what I've done". She was quiet for a long time. Just standing there, watching me drown in rain and guilt and the accumulated weight of my choices. "For the past few weeks. Since you stopped coming home. Since I realized that the woman I love had to protect herself from me. And what I've been sitting with is this: I don't know how to choose you first. I don't know how to prioritize our marriage over my family's expectations. I literally don't know how to do that because I've never done it".

"So what are you doing here?" she asked again. "If you don't know how to choose me, why are you standing in the rain?" "Because I'm going to figure it out," I said. "Not tomorrow, not after I've figured out my mommy issues. But right now. Starting right now. I'm going to figure out what it means to love someone without needing them to fit into the structure of my life. I'm going to learn what it means to be brave enough to disappoint people I love in order to protect someone I love more". She wrapped her arms around herself, and I can see her shaking. From cold or emotion, I can't tell. "I'm ready to choose you Nandini, over anything and everything. I've realized my mistake. I'm not asking you to choose me anyway?" I said. She's shaking harder now, and I realize she's not just cold. She's been holding so much alone, and I finally see the weight of that. Without thinking, I pulled her close, rain and all. She had let go off her umbrella.