Silent Hearts

12| Twelve

"She was the woman who opened her heart to love him, when it prevailed broken, for she was brave, not weak."

***

Sometimes, our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed and altered in a way to relocate us to the place we're always meant to be. When Nandini had listened to his words for the first time, she believed it inferred no meaning to her, naught at all. She remembered laughing at him. Nandini had not understood why he, one day, said that, nor the intentions behind those words. She remembered how she had disparaged the words:

"Oh, why does life need to change? For all I know, whatever is meant to be should happen anyway, am I not right?"

Those had been her exact utterances, for Nandini knew what destiny had planned was not something to happen overnight, nor did it ever prefer a change for it, for they had to, perpetually, find their way back to the millions of lives. But, wasn't her life to be with him? Wasn't he her irrevocable fate? Then why did it never happened? Had fate ever asked for an alteration before knocking at the lives of mortals? Then, what was the difference with hers? Had she sinned?

The answer from inside her bruised soul would jab at her shattered sanity. Yes. Yes, she had sinned. She was no more but a sinner. The sin she could never beseech forgiveness for.

Rested beside the shrubs in the lawn of his house, presently, Nandini gazed at the pink, little flowers growing beside her waist, her hands playing with the thin, chiffon, white dupatta, that seemed to slide down her shoulders. The warmth of a September afternoon felt like gliding through her body, the lightly decreased waves of humidity reached crashing down the bodies of the inhabitants, the unmistakable, white clouds gave away nothing but the evidence of no rain for the past days.

The lawn, a small, green area by the right of the property grew little to no species of bushes, only a few plants of jasmine, some roses and two average-heightened trees of hibiscus, giving a bit of confirmation that the owner had hardly any interest in beautifying the area. The house was, however, proper and clean, as if there existed no men in the here. Nandini, as she hauled her head towards the sky, memories of the days before began swivelling her mind.

It has been a month, she remembered. A whole thirty days since her being here; a month since she became a married woman again; a month since she donned the familiar red on her forehead, those sacred bangles around her wrists. It didn't feel like missing, now. Oh, why would she feel their absence, when she never got to wear them for long?

In midst of these thirty days, she learned her parents were reasonably living, just the absence of her, and the tension for her made them a little restless. If she had not forgotten, Naitee had called almost every day, which she would ignore. Although she, herself possessed no phone, Nandini refused to even talk to her.

Tushar, however, conversed, almost every time Naitee or her mother called, save for the time he was working. In between, Nandini spoke with them three times, yes, she remembered. She was remorseful, yes, but she did converse with them. Her dear father was happy for her and nearly, even if he felt embarrassed, he blessed her with everything he could think of. After that day, the day of reception, she had entirely locked herself, never allowing herself to glance at him or him to look at her.

That night when she came to realise what she had done, Nandini could not keep the shame away from her reach, when she had known she, for that time being, worked together with Tushar as his wife, Nandini had felt her heart twitching with the pain that tormented her, and she felt the burning touch of the first of her tears on her cheeks. She cried to the point her vision got hazy and her body ached. Minutes later, when she had felt light-hearted, Nandini stood up to see the door to the room opened and a shadow of someone through the pale curtains.