The Breakup!

THE BREAK-UP

It was another one of those mundane days. One of those days when the stars didn't shine because they were blanketed by the thick city smog. One of those days when the kids didn't play in the park as the rain had dampened their spirits earlier that afternoon. One of those days when teenagers stayed indoors and blasted their stereo at its highest decibel with meaningless angsty music that felt like a bitter slap in your face. It was just one of those days when the crickets eerily chirped amidst the phantoms of the night, further enhancing its random gloom. It was, after all, just another day.

Amidst the random occurring, he sat in a corner of his dimly lit room. The broken lamp, the dying bulb that flickered hopelessly, the torn photographs, the broken frames and the empty bottles of beer, all suggested that he had lost her...again.

A glistening tear made its way down his cheek. Traitor! Without thinking, he harshly wiped it off. Real men didn't cry. Or, at least, that's what his father had always taught him. Yet, somehow, the tears managed to trickle freely across his bruised face. He winced at the pain that shot through him where her hand had made contact with his face earlier.

He buried his head in his hands as he recalled the happenings of the day. No matter how hard he tried to forget about it, his heart still kept going back to it...to her; like a broken record.

"Hey, babe...", he had said to her earlier that morning as he wrapped his arms arounds her waist, diverting her attention from her friends to him.

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Her eyes twinkled as she relaxed to the familiar touch and the sanctuary of his arms. He held her gaze with his piercing, intense eyes. Her smile disappeared as her face divulged an array of emotions. She was searching for answers...answers that he didn't have. He sensed it and nervously rubbed the back of his neck refusing to meet her eyes. He quietly said, "Let's talk.". Tension was visible in her immaculate features as she let him lead the way.

"Aakash...", she said softly, albeit uncertainly, as they finally settled in their spot by the neem tree in the college quad. This time he abruptly jerked away as though her words were inflicting some unseen agony upon him. He tried his best to act normal but she knew it. Stiffening, she daintily put a hand across his tensed shoulders and firmly said, "Look at me.". He complied.

She could see a million emotions in his deep brown eyes. Pain, apprehension, fear, love, sadness but most of all, regret. Regret for what he had done...remorse for how he had let it get out of hand and guilt for the way he was about to break her heart...again.

She winced at the unmasked emotions in his eyes...she had seen them before and she definitely did not want to see them again.

"When did it happen?", she asked gravely, tears brimming in her eyes which she stubbornly refused to let fall. Furiously blinking them away, she caught hold of his shirt making him face her when he failed to reply. "When, damn it?"

And then she saw it...the reddish purple mark on his neck, right next to his pulse point, sitting shamelessly on his flawless skin. The bruise of passion proudly shone in the bright summer light except she wasn't the one who had marked him. She wasn't the one he had made love to the previous night. She gasped as the welling tears now fell freely.

"Who? W-when?", she fumbled with her words as every speck of coherence suddenly left her. Damn it, she never fumbled and he knew it. Knew it well enough to know what would follow. After all, she had fumbled only once before and that was the day she had broken up with him two years ago.

"Ayesha...I...", he said, measuring each word for it was worth. She looked at him as her eyes seared with raw agony...agony that he had caused her. That was the final straw for him and he broke. Desperately trying to wrap his arms around her, he spilled it out.