Furore

45| Six Feet Under.

45| Six Feet Under.

I lazily sat up, my eyes still drowsy, my body numb out of sleeping too much. I quietly observed the room, it was eight thirty in the evening, with the sky dark. I pressed my eyes, wondering what I could do to kill the rest of the time.

"Better?" Mumma questioned me and I simply nodded. She came and sat on the bed next to me, looking at my face in emotions. I had caught fever after that night and hadn't been able to leave my bed.

"You know Sithara." Her eyes moistened as she stroked my hand. "It aches every time I see you like this and then when I imagine how you went through all of it alone."

"You should have told us, we would have heard you, we would have been with you Sithara." She gasped. "Just a day and look at you, all feverish and weak. How did you do it alone?"

"I'm okay, Mumma. Seriously. Probably I over-worked last week, nothing more. You don't have to worry, it is okay." I consoled her with truths and lies. She had come to Delhi straight after that incident. "And let's just forget about it."

"We can only forget when you ready to let it go Sithara, if you'd stress out like this, we would never be over it." She replied. I understood but it wasn't in my hands to control myself on this, I got scared, I got restless, I got anxious every time I thought where I had come from. I did not say anything.

"Who is calling?" Mumma annoyedly asked. "Receive it." She told me and I shook my head. "Some spam." I told her, watching Arsalan's name flash on the screen.

He had been calling regularly for days now and I could only avoid them. I did not understand why would he care do it, I did not understand him anymore nor what he wanted from me.

He had sent his own security team for my house who stayed along with the police. I could see chocolates and cokes on the table, all sent by him.

"Ma'am." Shrika, my helper entered the room with a basket of fruits. "That lady came." She told me and I knew it was someone from his office.

I sighed, asking her to keep it in fridge and leave kiwis for me. I had said no to that woman but it was useless, she did not heed, she came and left them here daily. She said Arsalan had asked her to not obey me or else she would be fired.

I didn't bother to call Arsalan or talk to him over this in anyway. I could not. I had no energy. I let him do what he wanted to, he was too stubborn for my intervention to work.

I had no clue if Mumma was pretending or she really did not know that Arsalan was sending this. She did not question me about anything, not even about all the news about Ranbir and his father's party that was being published by his newspaper house. Not only her but no body in the family enquired about it.

Maybe they were giving me my space but I couldn't wrap my mind around what Arsalan was upto. His newspaper had been rigorously writing against all of it, more than any other channel and it was turning out to be effective in creating all the pressure.

I had not left my house since a week, nor I had posted anything more on Instagram or twitter yet people were acknowledging the facts and talking about it all because of his paper and the NGO.