Snow on Hampton

An Uncertain Vacation

                       Chapter 2

Did you just say we're going to visit the pallycan alley ? " her eyes glittered and from them shone a glimpse that stole his heart for how many times now he couldn't remember. "Yes. The famous theatre in Audburn Street!" he smiles.

"Oh the play! Are we going to watch ? Oh don't tell me we won't! I would so much have loved to see it. I wanted-- so much !" she clasped her hands and looked up at him through her dressing mirror rather shyly. He smiled which was a nonchalant smile. His eyes took her with gentle calm and a touch of patronising emotion. "Of course we will. I won't disappoint you like the last time dear ! I would hate to do it to you ! " she smiled with jubilousy. "Really?  Oh....we would have such a lovely time. You and me. No more work. No more lonliness. You & me. "

"Do I keep you alone a lot? I do I know! Don't I ? But it's not by choice. My work makes me do and I hate it when I know you have to be alone home and I-- at the plaza doing meetings which more than often is meaningless ! Oh how I hate it !" his eyes motioned at the open window and he sighed with a vast stretch of melancholia that Piya could see and all her love filled heart etched for him. She knew, knew it wasn't by choice but a choice they couldn't decide. It was work and they had to succumb to it like other people did but for them it seldom brought happiness for happy they would be only if they were both could be left in each others company, not alone in separate chambers of two separate world but together.

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An hour and a half later our car was driving down the road towards the corner, leaving the market on the left. I looked at her and found her amused. She was watching everything even the crowd with curious eyes and I felt happy. It was always lovely to watch her, especially her brown eyes that stopped to smile at nothing they saw except perhaps when they were sad. Of course the reason of her sadness was most the time me. That I knew well and tried to change myself but failed. I was an idiot and an accessible mess of lot when it came to her happiness because somehow to make it all nice for her I always ruined it. I felt terrible and my mood turned sour at once. No more did I feel great. She asked me what was the matter but I shook my head and waved my hand, she took it with no hidden thought and kept on talking jovially about the week we were to spend. She talked rapid and eagerly and I once again felt happy. Just  watching her was enough to make my day. Although I could never tell till this moment why inspite of the great bond we used to spread so far apart at times. It was like all sudden my mood worsened and I did say something and then she would turn awfully silent. At those moments her calm was so severely profound that I felt an interminable urge to hold her in my arms and not let go. Yet this happened quite frequently and the scenes repeated itself like I stated. I wondered now why, although looking at her I could never know what she thought. Our life winged together yet sometimes was far apart that the other seemed miles away from another.

I turned my face away. It was no good staring at her when she talked. It rather made matters worse for me. The love for her intensified and the feeling made me wretched. Torn. I wished we could be happy. Just happy nothing more but I guessed it was more than I could hope to ask. Not a thing a man like me would or could wish to have given the awful mess I had led others into. I wasn't surely any saint nor I wanted to be but fact was I wanted my sins not to touch her for she was too innocent, too gentle, not fit to be in a world with a man like me. Yet I was as I'm- a wretched selfish fella who wanted the best things not the worst things in life and so I snatched yes not take but snatched her and placed her into the midst of my world. My rotten world and wished her to be happy!  How strange. We humans are a strange and selfish lot and so we value our own selves the most than we do the others whom we claim to love so much.

I bit my lower lip and turned to her, she was still immersed in the streets and the people. She loved people and crowd. And I was the one who always prevented her going anywhere because I hated crowd like a fish that hates dry land, it's more like self preservation than hatred. It's out of fear not hate, which is rather a coward 's act. I felt rotten and more rotten inside but for her I kept silent because if I spoke I would have said a lot of things that would have ruined her happy face and I didn't want it. I didn't like to see her with a hurt face because that's all I had, the only thing I was left with in life was the wish of seeing her happy if that was ever possible with a man as me in her life !

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He pulled her fast & close to himself. The journey was long, as he searched for her hands he felt her body tighten at first which was odd then it loosened and her head sacked back as he leaned more closer to taste her lips. Strangely again they tasted like fear, a dripping panic that he could almost feel even if he were a length away from her. Her heart beat always gave her away, the nervousness that he'd felt on several occasions even before, throbbed at his mind even now. He tried to have a good look into her eyes but alas they were closed. He could see none of it. The trauma or wether it was the fear, all was lost to him. In seconds her body melted up to him and he felt her cold moist hands clutching onto his side of the back of his collar with complete surrender- a place where she'd always found security and calm.

He knelt his head and his lips touched her eyelids, a faint smell of tulip flared his nostrils. It was her. He inhaled deeply. His and his only - Piya. His wife his life his everything if he could sum it up.

Yet he couldn't tell why at times he felt her miles apart from him, why she appeared so distant inspite of being next to his body.

Lot of questions were there but he never could have had the answers. The answers those were always tough to find.

He loosened a button of his shirt, suddenly feeling it hard to breath and quickly an inexhaustible tiredness weighed on him, he thrust his head backwards and rested his head on the seat, his one hand still holding her reluctantly.

She hadn't spoken a word and he preffered it that way. In her silence he felt he could see things but when she avoided him was the deadliest part he could hardly handle. But she was in his arms now, her head still resting on his chest which inadvertently meant she wasn't avoiding him at least. And that was better. Better than being close to her and yet be far.

He loved her. He did. And her aloofness, lost eyes, missing gaze troubled him like nothing else did. He wanted her, not the body, he'd had it already, but her mind, her love and most of all - herself!

Abhay closed his eyes, the smell of tulip still flogging his mind like the wings of a colourful butterfly fluttering ensuing an odd happiness he couldn't explain or dare to explain. Some things are best when kept secret. Well love was, anyway the most integral part. It was the heart of everything and the route of every good as well as Evil!

Even for him it was no different. Love was what made him do what he did.

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Till here please please please tell me how it was!! I'm sooo anxious to know!! I know it's late so awfully sorry for that :( and I am scared because it's my first ever story so pleeeeease share your insight!! Thankq! ! ! Much love! Muaahhh❤

P.S. And yeah to add further the place mentioned here is out of pure imagination. All made up in my head! :) so please don't get confused if you don't find it anywhere. ☺

P.S.S. I have started penning the next part so I won't make you all wait this much! Promise!! :)