The Forbidden Fruit (MaNan FF)

xiv.

Nandini would be lying if she said she wasn't expecting him. When her college let out and she stepped out of the gates, she saw Manik leaning against his car in the parking spot and nostalgia quickly rushed over her. She remembered seeing him just like that a few days ago and that had been the worst day of her life. He had kidnapped her and forced her to marry him. A surge of anger suddenly passed over and Nandini clenched her fists, glaring at the boy who was completely unaware and simply browsing through his phone.

As she stomped over him and finally reached him, she almost shouted, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Manik finally noticed her and looked at her with a confused expression. Why was she so mad all of a sudden? "I just came to pick you up," he innocently answered and her anger rose. She just wished he would stop pretending for once. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" she mocked him bitterly and Manik sensed that he shouldn't have asked that. "I'll tell you what's wrong! You just screwed up my whole life; that's what's wrong!"

"I-"

"No, you don't get to speak!" she cut him off. He thought that they had started to make improvements with the anger and hatred but clearly, he was wrong. "You don't get to speak or explain yourself after ruining my entire life! I hate you, Manik Malhotra, I hate you so much! I don't want to see your face or stand close to you. You disgust me; everything about you disgusts me. I wish I had never even met you because you are vile and disgusting and sick and repulsive and just the worst! You're a monster, Manik; that's what you are!"

Once she had finished her rant, Nandini paused to catch her breath. Throughout the whole time, Manik just calmly stood there and she hated that. She wanted her words to affect him. She wanted to make him feel sick and ashamed of himself. She just wanted him to die of guilt and leave her alone.

"Done?" he silently asked and unintentionally caused her anger to rise. This time, however, she was too drained out to speak and thus started glaring at him. He took that as his cue to speak, "Can we please go home now?"

"I don't want to go anywhere with you," she said but ignoring her, he simply got inside the car and unlocked the door. She stood there for a while, seething in anger but eventually, she got inside as well and slammed the door real hard.

"We're going to go to a different house today where we'll stay for some time," he informed as he put the car into ignition. "You just have to trust me."

Nandini's eyes went wide and ears perked up at the word trust. She remembered Navya's words and how she denied trusting him. She didn't trust him; she didn't wantto trust him. She hated his entire being and she hated herself even more for giving him a chance.

You can't trust him.

Navya's words played in her head and she closed her eyes, wishing it would go away. Why did she trust him after all that he had done to her? She had made up her mind that he didn't deserve a single bit of it and that she didn't- she couldn't trust him. She hated herself for being so kind.

"I don't trust you and I will never trust you," she told him, her tone laced with pure hatred.

"That's good," he said while driving the car, not paying much heed to her words. This annoyed Nandini even more.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Manik! I'm not-"

"Look," he roughly cut her off, finally losing the last bit of his patience, "if you don't stop talking right now, I'll lose my concentration and we'll get into an accident and probably die. If you don't want that, then please save the complaining till we reach."