FF: Breathing Only Half of the Air - Chapter 10

Read all previous parts of this FF over here.

Please note I retain sole ownership of all these works of fiction on this blog so please do not reproduce or alter my work and claim it as your own.

Chapter 10

‘Di you’re awake?! She’s awake? Khushi? Khushi, Di’s awake!’ Arnav turned around to look for her in between the family members now crowding the bedside. She had been to the hospital every single day the past two weeks from morning till night, although she had never stayed over again. He’d ignored her but her presence had calmed him, her words had kept him sane, kept his hope alive and now her prayers had come to fruition but she was nowhere to be seen. He let go of Anjali’s hand and stood up, struggled past Mami and Buaji and out of the room.

‘Thank you so much Devi Maiyya, I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. I knew you would bring Anjaliji back, I knew you would bring his happiness back. Please keep everybody safe, please protect them. Please keep him happy. Always.’ Khushi wiped her tears away with shaky hands and walked away from the temple on even shakier legs.

He rushed to the temple in the hospital but she wasn’t there. There were signs on the idol of freshly applied tikka and he knew Khushi must have been here moments ago. Maybe they’d just missed each other. He ran back to Anjali’s room opening the door wide to an empty room. Oh there were people there. His family, her family, doctors, nurses, but it was empty in the only sense that mattered to him. Khushi wasn’t there.

---

Arnav saw her as soon as he walked into his room. She was sitting at the poolside, her back leaning against the doors. His week away had had no effect. He’d left because he knew he had no control when it came to Khushi, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself demanding to know what she’d meant last week; when she’d said ‘I love you’. He stood where he was trying to understand what she wanted, what he should say, what he should do. He walked slowly, unsteady on his feet towards the doors and raised a hand to the glass.

She sensed somebody behind her and raised her eyes to the pool, trying to recognise the owner of the dark shadow in its moonlit reflections. She had spent the week bridging old relations, renewing friendships and forgetting past mistakes. Except for the one that mattered the most. She stood up and turned. Their eyes met through the glass and her hand seemed to move on its own to meet his, together but separate, only millimetres of transparent glass preventing them from touching, skin to skin.

His eyes lingered on hers, recognising the pain and love that he knew resided in his own and he closed his eyes in anguish, fisting his hand together and turning away from her. His eyes were still closed as he heard the door slide open but there was no tell-tale tinkling of anklets to suggest any movement, and he guessed she still stood at the poolside. There was no glass separating them anymore, the only barrier that remained was the casings of the doors that ran along the floor. It was a pretty pathetic form of obstruction between them, only requiring her to lift her foot perhaps a few inches above the ground but as he waited, there was only silence.

‘You disgust me.’

The quiet words caught her unaware, so intent had she been on finding a way to begin her well practiced speech that at first she wondered if she had imagined it. She could see his muscles bunched and tense through the thin fabric of his shirt and the clenched fists hanging by his sides. She knew he said things he didn’t mean when he was angry and she had resolved that this time she wouldn’t let his anger sway her decisions. No matter how much his words hurt, she would say what she had come to say. Except that now he was actually here, she couldn’t remember anything she wanted to say.

‘I love you.’

Her voice was softer and quieter than even his own had been that he would have missed it had there been even been the slightest background noise intruding on the deafening silence on the room. The conviction in her voice scared him as much his own desperation to turn around and repeat her words. How could this one solitary woman, reduce him to this, reduce him to empathising with the one person he hated most in the world. Was this how Shyam had felt? So desperate to possess her, to join her name with his that it didn’t matter who got hurt in the crossfire?

No! He wasn’t like Shyam.

Shyam hadn’t cared about Babuji’s life or Di’s. All that had mattered to him was his obsession with Khushi. Obession and lust; that was what Shyam had felt. Shyam wouldn’t have cared that returning Khushi’s feelings would mean depriving a child of his mother, breaking up a family. Arnav did... but Khushi? Didn’t she care about her family? How could she... ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

The pain in his voice went straight to her heart, piercing her and bringing tears to her eyes. ‘...I just want to tell you the truth. The whole truth... for once.’

He turned around and held her shoulders pulling her into the room, ‘what truth?! That you’re no better than Shyam? You have a husband and a child but still you’re in my room in the middle of the night telling me you love me?!’

Khushi closed her eyes and shook her head, ‘no, no he’s not my... you’re not... please just let me speak...’

‘I don’t want your explanations! You want me to say I love you too right? Fine! I do! I love you! I loved you then, I love you now, I LOVE YOU!’

There was silence again, marred only by ragged breathing and thundering hearts. His grip on her arms was still firm, but no longer painful as they stared into each other’s eyes unable to look away after the magnitude of what had just occurred. Khushi recovered first and raised a trembling hand towards his jaw, her touch was feather light, only the tiniest tips of her fingers actually making contact. ‘I loved you too.’ It was a whisper, a thought a dream, a wish, a failed promise. If only she had said it before. If only she had trusted him enough, trusted herself.

He closed his eyes at her touch; light but searing, running through his entire body inflaming every nerve. Her words caused his eyes to fly open again, rage blinding him as he gripped her shoulders tight again and shook her. ‘If you loved me why did you leave? Why didn’t you stay? Why did you marry someone else?! You should have stayed! You should have fought with me! Argued with me!  Hit me! Anything!’

Khushi winced from the pain he was causing her but controlled the desire to shake his grip off, to step backwards and run away. ‘If you loved me why didn’t you look for me? Why didn’t you stop me leaving?’ Her voice was still soft, refusing to meet his tone, join him in the battle of wills that had always been their method of communication. He stepped back and looked away, as he always did but she followed. ‘I told Jeeji and Jeejaji, that if you ever asked... I made them promise not to tell anyone except... if you had just... Why didn’t you ever ask about me?’

‘They knew? Akash and Payal knew?’ His voice was rising again, he knew it would probably wake the entire household at this rate but he didn’t care. ‘They knew you were getting married and they didn’t tell anyone?! They didn’t tell me?!! How could you Khushi?! How could you dance with me, smile with me, laugh with me and then... how could you just leave and get MARRIED?!’

‘No, no Arnavji, I didn’t...’ she tried to hold his hand but he shrugged her off and stepped back further, ‘I didn’t leave and marry Suraj!’

‘Don’t LIE, KHUSHI! Buaji said you got married while Di was still recovering! You went straight from me to HIM!’

‘I didn’t! Please believe me, I didn’t! Suraj married SHWETA! Sharman is their son, not mine!’