Second Chance (Vol.1) Squandered

88: Miss Understanding

The door clicked shut quietly.

But it was enough to burst the fragile bubble that had screened them from reality. They were startled back to the here and now.

To anyone Zoya would have appeared unruffled; her usual calm collected self. But her heart was beating a tattoo on her ribs.

Alone in his presence... she was a mess... and she felt exposed... afraid... afraid he would guess. Guess what? How confused she was? And then...

And Adi knew her only too well. He correctly sensed her panic but got the cause all wrong...

She looked like an alarmed cornered trapped rabbit.
Was he some predator!

So instead of feeling safe in his presence, he now intimidated her. That made him go red in the head.

It had barely been a few minutes... He had barely doused his anger at her suggestion to see Doctor Habib. Her veiled masked alarm only stoked the embers smoldering in that doused anger.

However there was another Adi. The Adi who could not bear Zoya in the slightest distress even if he was the cause. That Adi struggled to fight the urge to give her one big reassuring hug.

The strain of holding his arms exactly where they were was proving tougher than arm-wrestling with gravity in one arm pull-ups.

His veins stood out with the effort and Zoya mistook it as signs of his rising repressed rage at her. And she deserved his ire and worse.

Their ship had sailed on an endless guilt trip propelled forward by a gale of misinterpretations.

When Zoya tugged at the mug he was relieved. It had been an effort to save it from cracking as his fingers fought the urge to curl into a fist around it.

Under the pretext of putting the cup down on the table she turned and put some distance between them; more to hide and calm her nerves; compose herself. She hadn't realised she had been holding her breath. She released it slowly and took a deep breath and another and another. She had to be brave to speak again and speak she must.

Adi did not move from the bed but could not take his eyes off her either. He did not miss the rise and fall of her shoulders or the tense spine. He could sense her dilemmas besides her panic.

Her anxiety for his wounds was letting her heart get the better of her resolve to ignore him.

Also she desperately wanted Doctor Arshad Habib's expert opinion on his wounds.

Adi and Arjun were used to body damage and recovery. And both brothers had mastered with great finesse the art of hiding their injuries from Ma and hence the world. It helped that they healed fast and good. They had little to show as trophies for their injuries. His deepest scars almost always faded with time to an uninteresting shade that defied its impressive tale of origin.

If only Adi could see himself through Zoya's eyes; he would see each of his wounds, recent and past, like under a skin-scanner; each clot bruise scar exposed in stark contrast to its surrounding unharmed skin...

Zoya was helpless. Against her better judgement she asked.
Zoya: Is there a resident doctor at Rishi's hotel?

Adi bit his cheek. He was just this much away from unleashing his frustration on Zoya. He had had an overdose of her IBA (her Insaaniyat aur Bewakufi Avataar).

He was torn between
Holding her tight and kissing some sense into her foolish head
Vs
Venting it all out on a punching bag

Adi covered his face with his hands and rubbed it roughly extra vigorously.