What's a soulmate? ~ MaNan

Chapter 8

How many of y'all actually fell for it? ;)

I apologise. Just a harmless prank.

Here's the chapter. Your votes, comments, and feedbacks matter most. Enjoy.

-

Manik

The universal interpretation for the colour red, I think, will always be rage.

While I watched the sky blush into a crimson with freckles of yellow and orange when the sun long crossed its peak above head, vails of the ambulance faded in the distance, I puffed some air from my mouth. My eyes fixed at the bright sky no matter how much it stung to look directly into sunlight; I was blinded by the tints of red.

But red has never been the colour of rage to me. Red, to me, will always only stand for passion. That passion could be anything– passionate love, passionate rage, passionate mischief, just passion.

I looked down and back at my wife, who stood in the centre of sunlight, staring nonchalantly at the ground, leaning on my car, and it hurt my heart to think that she wouldn't stand in the shade instead because going into shade would mean her walking closer to me and at this minute, it seemed like she'd do anything but scoop closer.

Nandini reminded me of the colour red. She was my passion. I always thought music to be that, but it didn't take me long to realise that while music would always be my hobby, my passion was always just Nandini. Maybe that is the reason why the thought of completely cutting her off my life still terrifies me, because I know, just how a man without passion is lifeless, I'd be that without her. Alive but still lifeless.

But, there is a lot of difference between knowing that, and being able to accept it.

While a part of me knew I was empty without her, the other part of me also knew that I couldn't accept it, I couldn't let my heart overpower my head.

Stretching my hand which was now covered in white bandaids, I turn towards her. Nandini's eyes were distant and even while looking at me, they looked like they were far away.

A hundred thoughts ran in my head and while I tried voicing even one, nothing came out except two bland words. "Let's go?"

"I– I cant do this."

My feet, which had only turned towards the car abruptly halted and although I was scared to even ask her what that means, my head was quick to snap in her direction. "What?"

"I– I feel suffocated." She gulped, running her hands through her hair and putting some tresses behind her ear, her eyes everywhere but at me, something she often did when she was nervous.

I took a deep breath. "Then let's not go in the car. Would you like to walk instead?"

"Yeah," she pulled a small smile on her face, obviously fake. "Let's walk back."

I nodded, and locking my car again, we started walking in silence until we'd left the supermarket.

Not having anything else to say, I make small conversation. "Mia?"

"Chachi picked her up a few hours ago from school. I texted her to. I kind of figured we wouldn't be done with your nursing until sun down."