A Lot Like Moon & Stars | ✓

11 | arcturus

xxi.

arcturus (remenant)

Mr. Arnab's eyes cut right through me as he asks, "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Tara?" 

"Tara's dead, Virat. Why would you be playing this prank on me?" he asks me, instilling a sense of stillness in my heart as if it had no further reason to pump endlessly in my chest. Sadness had become all too familiar again.

"You're lying. Everyone's lying! I want to see Tara... one last time?" I plead, pushing him aside, and walking past him to enter his mansion. It's all white and has the same stillness of my heart. It is said that your hearts are compasses to your home, and this — whatever it is, didn't feel like home. "Uncle, everyone's saying that Tara's dead two years back? How's it even possible when I saw her like — two weeks back?"

Mr. Arnab's eyes burn so brightly that it could leave the entire room spinning. He knew something I should know. "That's not possible. She passed away in an accident two years back."

"Just like her mother, isn't it?" I dryly chuckle, rolling my eyes at him.

"You think I'll be joking on my daughter's death?" he asks sarcastically, I don't even know how to answer his question. I am rendered speechless, choked even. "How do you even know Tara?" How do I know Tara? How do I know the person who made my days blur together, the one who I still longed to see in a crowd full of strangers on a busy street.

Every time, you meet this stranger who would fool you into thinking that they're the one you truly, madly, deeply love, and your heart will race, and then your stomach will ache with excruciating pain as soon as their face goes back into being stranger and disappear in the crowd.

"I just know her." I say, brushing away my tears when I notice a picture of Tara with a flower garland hanging over it.

"Just let go off her. Don't wait for her, Virat." 

 I close my eyes. I cover my ears. I cannot watch this. I cannot hear this. I knew life was uncertain — that a temperate day doesn't mean it won't rain. But nothing was certain except us, except the moon and the stars. Then why were we this convoluted mess, destined for a murky fate? Why was Tara fated to be the harbinger of the death angel?

While playing cricket, I had several ligament tears, fractures, and bleeding tissues. But I never knew how it felt when your heart bleeds. But now I know that this is exactly how it feels when your heart bleeds, it's like something inside you is not exploding but imploding, reducing you to smithereens.

There is a blinding flash, a pain that rips through me for one searing instant, a silent scream from my broken body.

I am fighting with Aarav, and then watching Tara coming in my direction with her dazzling smile.

I am holding her hand when she's about to fall.

I am crying because I see her lying unconscious because of the cold.

I am laughing with her, as we read her favorite novels and watch her favorite movies.

I am smiling when I watch her eyes twinkle brighter than any star while we star-gaze.

I am crying when she runs away from me as I rip open my heart to her.

I am confused when she bids me her final goodbye.

For the first time, I can sense how fully agonizing staying will be. So I decide to leave.

As I leave Tara's place, I feel like a lone wolf, following the moon and the stars for the guidance. Entering my car, I open the dashboard and hold the moon and star locket in my hand, reminiscing her last promise, "Just promise me that you'll take care of yourself."

And I realize, in the memory of this tangible thing in my hand was the last silhoutte of my love against the backdrop of the darkness, seeming like a never ending abyss which separates the moon and the star.

•••

I don't perpatually remember how to take care of myself like Tara wants.

The only thing I remember is downing three glasses of alcohol. That's all I need, to forget and to remember. It's so strong that I cough for a moment, and my hands wrap around the bottle of the strong vodka, ready to pour more of the drink into my glass. Then I realize, the less I drink, the more I'll remember, and the easier would be next morning. So I pour in soda into my drink to cut down the alcohol, tip my head back, and gulp it in one go. 

I start coughing violently, my throat burning. People do notice; I am the throng of their attention, and yet I feel so lonely.

Stuttering as I walk towards the exit of the bar, I realize that the bar I was in is somewhere near the beach. Even though every nerve cell in my brain refuses to go there, I decide to go to the beach to feel a little as the world swirls around me slightly. 

Scrunching my toes, I feel the softness of the sand — still damp from the retreating wave. The sand blurs out into water, which seems like a blissful trance. I watch how each wave overlaps the other, sending the preceeding wave descending, as another wave emerges out which we see— the transparent fading water. Our memories are exactly like these waves, each having its own significance, but at the end it's just the reality which looms over our life.

"I'll trade a million lifelines to meet you again, Tara!" I scream at the beach. "To hold your hands, to see your smile, to touc you, and feel you." I slur, when I feel a drop of water at the tip of my nose. In no time, the drop of water turns to a goddamn waterfall as it starts raining heavily, and I am doused in the freezing water. I sigh, remembering the morning news which vocalized about the possibility of a storm. 

Storm, storm, storm —Tara is a storm, I smile to myself. In fact, I am a hurricane, and she was — is my tempest: vivacious, and daring — which will cause my ruin. Tempests are meant to leave, and I should have known that one day, Tara would also leave me. 

But storms always return, and I swear to God, that I would go through any amount of pain to see her return, and make me feel alive again. 

"What are you doing, Virat?" 

And just like that, she enters my life again. 

I'm clawing at my chest, out of breath and exhaustion — but I've never felt so awake and alive ever before. 

And nothing else, not the time, not the days, not the rain freezes except for my own pulse when our gazes fit like broken shards of the same matter. Tell me this is you, tell me that you love me, I feel like I'm dying.

"Tara?"