Devastation is a cruel, cascading wave that unearths something deep within her. Life has never been a smooth sailing journey but this seems to be the first time it has swung at her hard enough to shatter something within her. Her body aches with the weight of her devastation, her heartbreak and she can do nothing but curl up on the floor.
What has she done to deserve this? Why does it hurt so much? How can his words break her to this extent? The world has pulled her down time and again. Her own people have injured her with words way harsher and more cruel but despite being slowed, she has never let them hold enough power to break her completely. His words though, they feel like the last straw that broke the proverbial camel's back and she finds herself incapable of rising up again.
In the clutches of this destruction, there is only one question within her - why and the answer, the unbearable answer seems to be building up towards startling clarity!
_
The silence is loud in the wake of her departure, the shock too deep to mitigate in a blink even as her words repeat themselves over and over in his head. Her outburst had been a long time coming and the clarity it slaps him with is a fog of hatred born out of hurt finally clearing. He walks away from the hall and to the balcony, sliding down listlessly.
He'd known the words he had been using and the accusations are wrong, that he did not mean them and they stemmed more from the hurt he had realized the origin of. Now even as regret lingers, he feels calmer, the turbulence plaguing him healed just that little bit. That she had not deceived him, had not discarded him easily, it makes him feel relieved in a way he hasn't since the marriage. But it is after all, a momentary thing. Monumental yes but still momentary. Even as her anguished words reverberate in his head, he gets, for the first time, an inkling of how oblivious he has been of what she has been feeling.
_
She tries to battle it, the realization that is trying its damnest to spring forth. She really does but to no avail. She does not want to acknowledge it, does not want to realize it as something substantial. She wants to forget, she wants to forget everything. But when has fate ever listened to her before that it would now. It comes rushing in her psyche, even amidst the pain, the anguish, the rage, something do predominant, it rises tall even amidst the bleakness of misery. It rises even amidst the tears that refuse to stop.
She loves him.
Despite never wanting to, despite never anticipating it, she has fallen irrevocably in love. In love with a man who thinks the worst of her, in love with a man who only sees the burden of circumstantial mistakes when he looks at her, in love with a man who can never be hers despite being bound in the most sacred bond of all - marriage, because he has refuted the existence of it.
Like a slideshow, memories since the first time she saw him play in her mind. It is all she can do as bittersweet emotions envelope her, like an interlude in her predicament as the past handful of memories bring in nostalgia like it has been of ages! It was inevitable, she realizes, falling in love with a man like him, like she had given up any agency over her heart the second she met his eyes and learned the person he was!
The pain that comes as this realization cements itself in her is more than anything she has ever felt in her life. The interlude vanishes and she is thrust in full force in the center wave of the agony. She shatters, reaching her lowest point, something that has been coming for a long, long time. As if in literal solidarity with her broken soul, her body aches with what has been afflicting her in intervals since the past few days.
Here at her lowest in the aftermath of what should have been a beautiful realization, she curls into herself and shatters!
_
There is no time for reflection, no time for the thoughts to come as he is called back. With barely enough time to pack in a fresh set and assuage a just returned from her call Malini's barrage of questions, he leaves, a ghost of everything unprocessed and unrecognized haunting him.
F L A S H B A C K E N D S
PS: a shorter update than usual, this came out in a flow. I hope it is not hurried or ineffective as the intention was for it to be raw. Do share your feedback!
Also with this chapter, the flashback ends. We have been running in a flashback since chapter 3. Now the story will be back to present and continue from Chapter 3 so do read up 1,2,3 to refresh your memories. Also the Chapter 1 might seem a little inconsistent with this one but bare with me please.
Love,
Pratyusha
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Lakeerein - Ties That Bind Us
Fanfiction------ Can Be Read As General Fiction ------ One night. One event. Lives of two people altered completely. When Aditya Kumar Tripathi, Chief Executive Reporter at Bhaskar times stepped into Pagdandiya and met Imlie, he did not know how his life woul...
