Destined ✓

38 - the future

Author's POV

Weeks passed by just like the monsoon season, that drenched people whole in its wake since the last few months.

While some liked the idea of it being September, the last month of the dreadful season that caused water-clogging in local areas, traffic snarls, delayed flights and shutting down schools – creating havoc in the city, some simply enjoyed the downpour because it was their favourite season, however, it wasn't exactly the kind of monsoon they wanted.

Neil was busy, incredibly busy in something as 'important' as a political conference that needed security. He knew what was to come when he met the MLA, and since then his mind has been a mess. He would rather solve those cases that needed to be shed light upon unlike what he was doing past few days. However, things like this weren't in his hands.

After that day, Neil met Avni just once. Digging up on the card, he found it strange, those details and a kinda similarly. It felt too relevant to go unnoticed. He was at her doorstep early in the morning before going to work. He didn't like the feeling that invaded his chest out of nowhere, that sudden gush of sorrow hitting him, jabbing at his senses. So he knew, it was now or never.

He asked her if she knew that person or if she could remember him properly. But, if there was something Avni was bad at, it was at remembering faces; of people, she just caught glances of, once.

She told him things that she could remember. Though there was nothing strange about the conversation but it was still eating up Neil. 'Cause he was sure that the card he found in that girl's case (who referred herself as Viv) and this had similarities.

One, how she described the person in that second investigation was quite close to how Avni did. But there could be so many people who could describe someone like that. But the second one made his doubt turn into an assumption – that the person that Viv mentioned and the one who handed Avni that card was maybe the same.

This was ridiculous though. To think that the VR imprinted on the card and the flower bouquet that depicted VR as the recipient were the same. There could be so many people in the world with those initials, and Neil was jumbled up because it was his first time it seemed that two completely different cases had the possibility of molding into one.

But that was it. He didn't get to meet Avni again since his attention was solely focused on the cases. It was unfortunate that there would be an average of three cases registered under murder in a week. Other crimes included assault, theft, abuse, arson and a few more but the stress that came with cases in which the culprits were unknown was extreme.

Somehow, they tackled it trying different ways, looking at things from a mismatched perspective. They knew if something was out of their reach and then it was transferred to be handled by investigators who excelled in it.

There were days where Neil could just wish for a good sleep, all because of how tiring it was. Some days were easygoing if there wasn't much work to do, and on those days he wanted to meet her.

So, here he was. Instead of going back to his home after a tiring day of work, he went to a person who strangely, yet surrealistically, felt like home.

He rang the bell twice when the person whom his eyes searched for, undeniably, in this gloomy, hazy weather didn't show up the first time. It was crazy, to think that he was here in this weather despite how rashly it pounded against the pavement, he could hear it, he could feel it as the cold breeze brushed past his body but he didn't try to reason with his heart. It was only fair if he gave his mind a rest and let his heart take the course of what it wanted.