LOVING Aman | ✓

13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I HAVE KILLED BEFORE. Not in cold-blood and definitely not a human being, but I have, with a gun however I almost did kill a person today. Just pull the trigger and then boom...blood, and pain, and death, and silence, and if I had a gun, I feared I might have.

Nevertheless, I had killed him a thousand times in my head already, and picturesquely, a bloodied him lying helplessly on the floor gasping and grasping for dear life stood redundant on my mind, playing over and over again like a scene in a noir movie.

I was no murderer nevertheless and Aman was definitely not worth risking hell and so I settled on ignoring him completely instead.

However I was pissed. How can he say something like that and yet not care to elaborate? What does he mean by we've met before? Where? When? How? Damn him and his clipped responses. If he knew he wasn't going to tell the whole story why'd he even begin? And that was why I did what I did.

It was simple; pick up a stone and throw it at his back with as much force as my anger permits, he deserves it only I hadn't calculated the risk of him turning towards me and the stone hitting his forehead nor the scarlet liquid suddenly raining down his face. I wasn't sorry though, he had it coming.

And so we stood glaring at each other; Me with my arms crossed against my chest and him with his bloodied face captured in a deep scowl.

His lips moved but no sound passed through and for a moment there, his eyes flickered with something bordering on admiration, but it disappeared almost immediately replaced by his inscrutable, unnerving expression that I almost thought I had imagined it.

"What was that for?" He asked as he kneeled, opened his backpack and began scrambling for something. Water? Cotton Wool? Spirit? Or all three? Turns out it was all three.

I watched unrepentant as he used the water first on his face and then he'd dipped the cotton wool with the alcoholic liquid and cleaned the wound. He cleaned it twice before he'd used a bandage on it, sealing the wound behind its brown sticky cover. I, however,  still maintained my silence. I was too angry to feel sorry even though the stone had left a ghastly cut.  He stood and without a word, resumed his walk as if I hadn't just injured him and wasn't apologising.

It takes two to tango, I hissed as I followed him. If he wants to pretend everything was okay, then it was fine by me. I hold a gold medal in arrogance too.

However something made me stop in track; it was a trail of blood. I looked up at him, shocked. His gait seem a bit labored now and sluggish. And so for the first time today I felt something other than disdain for him, I felt sad for him. I wonder what kind of life he'd lived so far that he couldn't ask someone for help. He sure is pathetic!

And before I can stop myself I find myself calling him.

He stopped but he didn't turn. I covered the distance between us and stood in front of him.

"My feet hurts, I'll like to rest,"

"Oh...okay?" his gaze wandered away as he took in our immediate surrounding. Thankfully,  we were still in a clearing; surrounded by tall trees and shrubs.

Perhaps thinking what I was thinking; about how great this location was, he handed me the mat we'd used in praying earlier and he'd laid back on the forest's floor, his head rested on his arm as he stared at the peeking fading sun. Maybe that was why he was startled when he felt my arms peeling off his shirt. His hand held mine prisoner.

"What do you think you're doing?" He hadn't  move but his eyes rests on my face now.

I ignored his question and break free my hand as I continued what I was doing. He grabbed them again and this time, he pinned me down, his whole body holding mine captive.