MishBir: Someone You Love(d)

|19| A Hard Day's Night

Note : This chapter isn't about Mishti. This is about her family's reaction to her wounds and the revelations of the previous chapter. I believe it was a huge shock for most of them and everyone needed due time to react to what they saw. Especially Abir. So I wrote this from all of their perspectives - including Kuhu.

Happy Reading.

The nights had always been his favorite - his escape from the world he would never feel home in. The  starry sky smiling down on him, would always comfort him amidst the constant dull ache in his chest otherwise. But today, as hew walked down the familiar route to Rajvansh Sadan, he could feel the noose around his neck tightening with every step he took and for the first time in years, the same night sky that had always acted like a balm to his aching heart, felt like a dagger through him instead.

Probably it was one such night Mishti had ran that blade through her nimble skin?

Abir physically winced at the thought, his chest feeling heavier by each passing second. Only if he could cry out loud, or just scream maybe, he might be able to bear that thought but not a word escaped his clogged throat, neither tears escaped his red eyes. It was almost like he had been captivated in a trance - a limbo even.

Walking inside the mighty Rajvansh Sadan felt like walking on coals to him. It burnt him in his entirety, and he could feel the physical pain as he walked up the stairs. The house was otherwise silent, and dark.

Dark, he chuckled at the thought.

When had this place been anything except dark?

People lived here out of fear and obligations it seemed, the love between the family members just a curtain to hide the jealousy, the fear and the borderline “respect”.

Abir's smile grew bitter at the thought. How could people sleep in peace in this house after ruining an innocent life just like that, he would never know. He hadn't slept one night properly post that wretched day.

Abir felt his heart physically ache at that. He had a mother, always have had but he would never know what it feels like lying in her lap and cry out his pain, his guilt and his sheer hopelessness. He could keep finding a mother in Badi Maa and a home in Mishti, but that would never wipe the stain of being a homeless orphan from him.

He pushed open his door and dragged his tired body to the bed, but sat down on the floor instead. Pulling his knees to his chest, his hands made a mesh over them and he rested his head over that - hoping and wanting to cry, but the tears never came.

Footsteps did.

Meenakshi, Parul and a visibly stressed Kunal, the three people awake in the dead of the night, for their own reasons, waiting for Abir's return, made their way to his room, and stood by the door, but Abir didn't move. Didn't react. Didn't acknowledge anyone.

He kept sitting like a corpse, his eyes unfocused in the space, like everything inside him had died. And it had - in every literal meaning of the word.

Meenakshi took hastened steps, and sat down on the bed, just beside him.

"Abir?", she called out softly, wanting to probably say something but before she could speak Abir raised his head to look at her, and smiled.

"Congratulations Maa, Aap jeet gye", he managed to croak out, and finally the tears he had been so painstakingly wanting to bless him rolled out of his eyes.

Kunal sucked in a sharp breath at Abir's words, and Parul almost gasped. But Meenakshi Rajvansh continued to look at him, without speaking another word.