A Lot Like Moon & Stars | ✓

13 | aldebaran

xiii.

A L D E B A R A N (the one who follows)

The water falling onto my skin felt like icy needles piercing right through my skin, and chasing away the clinging shadows of my life. Closing my eyes, I step deeper into the spray, willing the lingering fear and nausea to circle the drain at my feet.  

"Fuck." I place my palms flat against the cool tile and absorb the chill of the punishing deluge into my bones. I was a selfish asshole to her tonight, I know.

In fact if I'd been a better man, I would've walked away from Tara Dobriyal the moment I saw her.

I step out of the shower, and put on my trousers and vest. Deciding to leave, letting Tara go was never easy but somewhere I knew, I am in love with someone who is going to be taken away from me... eventually.

I had already packed my bags, and couldn't wait to go back to Delhi. As I am about to shut the door of my room, I notice the last souvenir Tara had given me — her locket. I take it in my hands, and see how the delicate diamond catches the gleam of the sunlight. An intensified wave of memories rushes back to my shore, and I am left with a blurred vision in an instant. 

No. I must forget her. Every single memory of her.

That's why I decide to leave Tara's last memory there.

When I get down, I realize that my driver had not come to pick me up yet. So I just stand outside the hotel lobby. As I take out my phone to enquire my driver about his whereabouts, I'm left flustered when I see Tara walking towards me with an expressionless and stoic face. She takes a step towards me, and then another... until she is standing right in front of me.

She refuses to look at me, but I can't look at her. I can't look at her because if I do; it will only break my illusion that the Tara I knew — the vivacious girl who I loved was lost in the shadows of a person who is going to die.

I expect Tara to hurl curses at me — call me a cowardly backstabbing, selfish asshole but she stays silent and walks past me. Now I truly know what they mean when they say— silent ones kill the most. She clicks on her heels, turns around abruptly and leaves in the direction of the exit. I hear my heart breaking again as she slowly fades away.

Tara waltzing back to my life, and messing up with me again makes my heart infinite times heavier. Sighing, I glance at my watch when the driver calls for me loud and clear, "Virat Sir."

"Where the hell were you? I was waiting for you since an hour!" I rebuke in anger, hopping inside my car.

"Sorry Sir. The Mumbai traffic is crazy." he replies in a low mumble. Groaning frustatedly, I ask him to drive me to the airport.

"Make it quick, my flight is in two hours and I can't afford to miss it, okay?" I warn him in a half-concilatory tone, and he nods at me slowly. 

When we hit the road, I cannot help but think about the direction in which my life was heading. People say that our lives always form a perfect circle, but my life had taken a shape which I cannot understand. I have always been at the losing end. Always.

My life was only a perfect circle in the terms of the hollowness of my soul — the void which exsited before the advent of Tara, and even after her departure. This void was my constant, my forever and always. This void had promised every single ounce of bl —

The car comes to a sudden jolt, and helps me escape the oblivion — the hollowness in my heart was creating. "What happened?" I enquire my driver when I notice the never ending traffic on the road. Mumbai's traffic lately had not been the best considering the rapid influx of population in the city which was affecting everyone.