Stubborn Love

An Appeal To The Moon

'I am closing the shop. Either come along with me or leave. I can't wait here forever.'

Sia peered at the middle-aged man staring down at her with growing impatience. She had been through hell in this one day. Survival instinct alone steered her through the upheavals without breaking down. She had fallen, bled, lost. But in this moment, she was lonely. Lonelier than she had ever been.

With nowhere else to go and no one looking out for her, she had to go out on a limb and trust the man. She stood up with unsteady legs and internally groaned in pain. She couldn't show the man she was hurt. He could take advantage of her weakness. Her eyes loomed around the empty hall and froze. She blinked. He was there... He was really there!

Or was he a figment of her imagination? Why was he not moving towards her?

.

.

.

He spotted her sitting on the floor and stood suspended in his track. She was alive and safe. He wanted to yell out her name. He wanted to run to her. He wanted to pull her up in his arms and wipe that sadness from her face. But his mind seemed to have lost all its connections to the remaining organs of his body. So, like an onlooker, he remained still, watching her. Like his mind was rejuvenating its dead cells with her sight. He saw her slowly stand and his mind jerked into action when a blanket of pain masked her countenance . Was she hurt?

Then she looked at him. And he saw her. Really saw her in ages. A mix of hope and disbelief glimmered in her eyes. Then the beautiful emotions began to disappear under the clouds of doubt.

A powerful resolution fuelled his legs. He saw her attempting to move. He wasn't sure who sprang faster but in the next moment she was in his arms. Her hands were around his nape and his arms secured around her waist. She hid her face in his shirt and he buried his in her thick unkempt tresses.

She was crying, he realised uncomfortably. He would ask her to stop. In a minute. Once his own muddled vision cleared...

'Raghav,' she spoke in utter happiness but her voice croaked. Pain, restrained until now, flowed unchecked. In between hiccups, she mumbled gratefully, 'You came back for me.'

Her words made him loosen his hold on her. He had left her alone...

Sia pulled out and looked at her surroundings. With a giddy sense of possessiveness, he realised that she was still holding onto the front of his shirt. A possessiveness that made him internally recoil in self-hate. Her vulnerability was barring her to see it right now. See that he was a fraud impersonating as her saviour. He deserved to be despised and yelled at. Not held onto with soft trusting fingers...

Krishna smiled at her. 'You got us all scared, Sia.'

Sia smiled despite her dishevelled state and teary eyes. She saw the police interrogating the shopkeeper and spoke gingerly in his defence. 'He is a good man.' In spite of all her apprehensions, she didn't want him to be judged for helping her.

'Don't worry. They are just asking a few questions. Why didn't you call someone from his phone?' Krishna asked.

'He didn't have one.'

At her reply, Raghav looked at the shopkeeper and then studied the contact information displayed on the shop's board.

His attention was brought back when a subdued wince escaped her lips as she shifted on her other leg.

'You're hurt?' he asked anxiously.

'I am fine.' She smiled with contradicting tears forming up in her eyes.