Prithvi... [Vol 5]

Chapter 135

Holding a tightly clenched fist against her chest, Nandini lay coiled up on the mattress, hopelessly re-experiencing four instants of time that were flowing continuously one after another in a close loop...

The first was the heart-stopping instant when she had known instinctively that he was about to move towards her.

It was followed by the glorious moment in which she had imagined capitulating to the forceful pull of the longing that had afflicted her from the time they had met at the stepwell, and even more so since she had seen him sleeping peacefully in the morning.

She had imagined walking to him...curling her arms around him tightly and burying her face in his chest, and feeling the warmth of his arms around her, holding her close...silently promising each other that they would never part again. Then she would touch his face, and reach up to kiss him softly...

It was a dream that had been shattered by the third instant, when she'd made a torturous return to the brutal reality of the situation.

And the final instant....

Nandini pressed her knuckles hard against her quivering mouth.

Cruel and agonising as it was, she knew she had done the right thing. She could not act upon the cravings of her heart, regardless of painfully strong they were.

It was difficult to believe that, long ago, she had struggled pathetically to gather the mental strength to express her love through physical gestures. Tonight, she had needed to exert a thousand times of that effort to stop herself from doing the same thing...

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Prithvi awakened with a start, and propping himself on his elbows, surveyed the room with a drowsy confusion. Someone had been talking to him. But there was no one around.

A dream, he thought irately. 

He lay back down and looked at the watch lying near the pillow. It was going to be six in the morning.

Prithvi closed his eyes again. There was serenity for a second, and then memories of the previous day – and night – came back to him in a rush.

He sat up abruptly, swinging his feet to the floor. But he remained seated on the bed for a while, wearily recalling the ferocious inner battle he'd fought to suppress the blackest thoughts and emotions, and to reclaim a smidgen of equanimity.

It had taken all of his mental strength to slowly blot out atrocious memories that still held tremendous destructive power. But he had managed to overpower them, and the cold fury and scalding pain had subsided at last. And then he'd only had to tackle a stark, desolate barrenness, and a virulent disgust and loathing for himself...for the weakness that seemed determined to drag him back to the depths of an icy despair.

He would not have slept a wink if not for utter physical exhaustion. Even then, he'd slept only for about two hours. But it had been a deep, restful sleep, and physically, he was restored. But the emptiness within him had intensified during his nap instead of showing him the courtesy of disappearing quietly...

It was an insufferable, suffocating sensation, and felt enmeshed with his insides. He wished he could fall asleep again so he could become oblivious to it for a while. There didn't seem to any other way of getting rid of it...

An image glimmered before his eyes.

He erased it immediately, feeling extremely disturbed.

He had made a massive mistake in coming to Shamli. He should not have returned to the town. He had obviously not been prepared for it. Perhaps, he never would be, he mulled jadedly.