Tum Hi Ho

Chapter 18

Two days later…

“Nikhil, can we talk about this later please? I just returned from a tour. I am really tired. I have a break for a week. We can discuss everything you want. Just leave me alone for now, please.” Paridhi said and closed the door to her bedroom.
She had just returned Mumbai, came home by a cab. She didn’t know why, but she felt hurt when Darshan didn’t offer to drive her back home like last time. Although it wasn’t midnight, just evening, it stung that Darshan hadn’t talked to her at all.
He listened to all her instructions, just never talked or even never glanced in her direction. He looked down at the ground whenever she talked and it made her feel insulted. She was already tired after the back to back concerts, the silent treatment of Darshan and the emotional drama of Nikhil.
All she wanted to do was to curl up in bed and have a nice long sleep. But as soon as she had entered in the house, Nikhil had bombarded her with questions and had tried to convince her to let him have his way about their marriage. As soon as Paridhi shut the door to her bedroom, she slumped down, he back resting against the door for support.
All of this was too overwhelming for her. She was more worried about the cold indifference she had seen in Darshan’s eyes. She had raked her brain, trying to remember what might have made Darshan angry, but she just didn’t know anymore. She had also wanted to talk to Darshan when they were sitting at the airport. He might talk to her rationally in public place, she had thought. But Hardik had advised against it. Despite his warning, Paridhi had still tried to talk to Darshan, but he had again ignored her. It was then that she had decided to pay heed to Hardik’s advice and talk to Darshan after a few days. Paridhi woke up next morning after a well rested sleep and braced herself to face Nikhil. But she was relieved when she found that he had already left for an important meeting.

She spent the day resting and catching up on her friends. She really needed to meet Preeti and talk to her about her relationship with Nikhil. She was tired of fighting with Nikhil. He always treated her badly, hurt her all the time and never listened to her. It felt like she had no freedom in this relationship, she always had to do what he wanted her to do. She spent the day trying to think of a solution to keep peace in her relationship with Nikhil, but her heart was done.
At last, as a last option she called Preeti and told her to come over to discuss something important. Preeti had plans, but she agreed to meet next day in the evening when she noticed Paridhi’s serious tone. After she was done with Preeti’s call her phone rang and she ignored it. She was not really in a mood to talk to anyone. But after a few moments, it rang again and she decided to check who it was. If it was urgent, she would receive it. She swiped the receive button as soon as she saw that it was Naushad Khan. “Hello sir. Good evening,….sorry the phone was in purse.” Paridhi stammered out. “Paridhi, it’s ok. Listen, you need to come in for work tomorrow. Darshan will pick you up. It’s a last minute photoshoot. They had to shift the date because of a blunder. You don’t have a problem right? Any plans that can’t be canceled?” Naushad Khan asked. “No sir, no plans. I will be there. And I can go on my own, why is Darshan coming to pick me up?....I mean I can manage, he doesn’t need to bother.” Paridhi said, still startled by the fact that after days of ignoring her and giving her cold treatment, suddenly he was offering to pick her up. “Actually, the photo shoot is near your area. Behind Jogeshwari circle, there is a lane where there is that shop, Girinath cloth emporium. The location is the old paper mill, Padamji paper mill, behind that Girinath cloth emporium. You know where it is?” Naushad Khan asked. “Yes sir, I know it. It’s 10 minutes away from my home.” She told him. “Ahh, I knew that you would know the location. The thing is Darshan doesn’t know how to go there and it’s not showing on the Google maps too. So I told him to pick you up so you could direct him and also assist him at the shoot. You know, the usual technical things. You will handle it, right?” Naushad Khan asked and Paridhi assured him that she would handle everything.
After the call was disconnected, Paridhi realized that if Darshan came to her home, he might come to know that she was staying with Nikhil. She no longer had a problem with Darshan or anyone else knowing about this. But she wanted to sort out her relationship with Nikhil first. Everything was so messed up at the moment that she didn’t know what she was supposed to tell people.
Also, she was confused about Darshan’s behavior. It was like he was bi-polar or something. After she felt like her head would explode with all the thinking, she decided to leave the matter. Jo hoga dekha jayega.

That night she decided to sleep before Nikhil came home as she wanted to avoid the fight about how to talk to their parents. She knew Nikhil wasn’t going to listen to her and then they were going to have a huge fight about it. She just wasn’t in mood. Before she went to bed, she messaged Darshan on Whatsapp.
“Hey, reminder. Tomorrow 8.30 my apartment. You remember the address?” It was delivered instantly as Darshan was online. She waited for two minutes, but he didn’t read the message even though he was online. It looked like he was still ignoring her. Paridhi was frustrated now. She wanted to talk to him and sort out the matter.
She didn’t even know what she had done that had upset him. She was about to call him when the notification of his message popped up. “I remember, will be there.” After that he went offline. Paridhi was so mad that she immediately dialed his number, but a moment later, she heard Nikhil coming in so she cut the call, switched her phone off and immediately pulled the blankets over her head.
She heard Nikhil call her name, but she lay still in the bed, not moving at all. She could hear Nikhil opening her door and calling her name again, but after he realized that she was sleeping he went away.
After a few moments, Paridhi was startled by the fact that now she was so tired of him that she had started to avoid him. What was she even doing in this relationship if she didn’t even want to face Nikhil? If this was the condition right now, then what would happen after marriage? Were they even ready to get married? Should they even marry?
Paridhi drifted off to sleep with these thoughts in mind. Paridhi was running in an empty lane. She was running away from something dangerous, frightened that whatever she was running away from would catch up to her and then something terrible would happen.
She ran even though she was exhausted and breathless. As she stopped in the middle of the road to catch her breath, the shadow or the monster she was running away from appeared behind her, making her scream. She started to run again, but she tripped over a stone and fell down, scraping her hands and elbows.
As she turned around and struggled to get up, the monster walked over to her and as he came near her, she realized with horror that the monster looked like Nikhil. “No…no…please leave me.” She whimpered as she slid backward, trying to get away. But her legs seemed to be frozen.
Suddenly out of nowhere, a man jumped between her and the monster and he stood there facing the monster. “Leave her alone.” He told the monster and the monster grunted. The Nikhil-faced-monster tried to shove the man away, but the man stood firmly and shook him off. He then punched the monster and the monster fell down. The man then turned to face Paridhi and with a jolt Paridhi woke up from her nightmare. “Darshan…”
Next morning, Paridhi was so shaken up from her nightmare that she stayed in her bed, pretending to sleep until Nikhil went to office. He had tried to wake her up, but Paridhi had pretended to not feel well and he had left her there.
She was shocked by the fact that she had seen Nikhil as a monster and Darshan as her savior. Nightmares were common for Paridhi, she got them often as a result of a horrible incident that had happened when she was 15 years old. But this was something different. This was the first time that the monster had a face, that too of someone she thought she loved.

After Nikhil stepped out of the house at 8, Paridhi jumped up, cursing. She had less than 30 minutes to get showered and ready to go with Darshan. Hopefully, Darshan might be late as usual, which might give her extra few  minutes to get ready. 40 minutes later, she was sitting in the living room, sipping a coffee and waiting for Darshan’s call.