Desire ✔️

Part 18 - Yeh Dooriyaan ( These Distances)

Ishita

"Bin tere bin tere bin tere
koi khalish hai hawaaon mein bin tere"

The week following their Sunday outing felt surreal to Ishita.

She had returned to her home after their encounter in the community hall to find her parents and sisters engaged in preparations for Abhimanyu's visit.

She had informed them that she did not want to marry just yet,and had then been subjected to hysterics on the part of her mother, who had emotionally blackmailed her into at least talking to Abhimanyu without making any final decisions.

She had greeted Abhi with genuine affection when he arrived with his mother, but had told him what she had told her parents.She did not want to think about marriage right now. She had no reasons. No explanations. She just did not.

Her old friend had taken her statement remarkably well.

"I know Ishu, it's awkward isn't it. You and me, there just never was that sort of feeling between us, and now our amma's are sitting there hoping that we will make a match of it. I know, it's difficult. But Ishu, you and I are friends aren't we? So can't we continue to be friends? I'm here for a month, and then I need to go back to Istanbul for a couple of months to sort out a few things. So while I am here, can't we meet up, learn about each other and our lives again? I'd love for you to meet the boys, show me the city. If at the end of the month, you still feel the same, then fine, no hard feelings. But if you change your mind, you'll make me very happy. So what do you say, Ishu?"

Ishita had glanced over at her mother then, who along with Abhis mother, was staring unabashedly at Ishita and Abhi. She could see the entreaty in her mothers eyes, the forlorn hope in her face.

Ishita felt ashamed of herself - ashamed for not being able to give her mother the one thing in the world she so desperately wanted, for her selfishness in putting her own feelings, her own happiness first.

She had spent a lifetime trying to please, and she did not know where this selfishness had come from, this unreasonable hankering for an impossible dream.

All Abhi was asking was that she not give him a final answer for a month. Surely she could do that?

HIS face had come before her again as she stared at Abhi. HIS eyes, tortured, spitting fire, asking her for the world, while refusing to give an inch. She had shuddered and closed her eyes momentarily, before focussing on Abhi again.

"Okay'" she had said quietly. "I won't give a final answer for a month. But Abhi..."

"No buts Ishita" Abhi had interrupted her. "Let's just see how things go, huh?"

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So Ishita had spent the week keeping her word to her parents while nursing her confused heart.

Abhi had gotten in the habit of dropping in everyday - to the clinic and at home. He took her out to lunch, brought her mother her faviroute sweets from the halwai, took her father for a test drive in his new car. She could see her parents were getting more and more fixated on him as the ideal husband for her.

And she felt nothing. He was a friend, but nothing more. His goodness left her heart untouched.

And in the meanwhile fate kept throwing her against Raman.

She bumped repeatedly into him on the stairs, where he would stand by rigidly, waiting for her to pass, jumping back if they came into contact.

He was at the coffee shop where Abhi took her on Tuesday. She watched out of the corner of her eyes as he jerked his chair back as he saw her enter, making some excuses to his companions, before striding out, as if he could not bear to be in the same room as her.