Chaotic Tangles!

24|| Almost Shore

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up." — Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones

There are times in life when everything around you seems to be in motion while everything inside you seem to pause - as if all the blood that otherwise runs up and down repeatedly from all the adrenaline has frozen deep inside your veins.

Numbness at its very worst, you could say, because there is no visible reaction coming from your physical body, even when the mind feels on a overdrive.

Nandini had a similar epiphany as she stood frozen in shock, her back against the wall, goosebumps all over her as she watched the mighty man in front of her - in tears, hiccuping and in a mess.

Even in her wildest nightmare had she never thought about witnessing a moment so profound - It was almost like she could physically see every chunk of his armor fall apart, bit by bit - torturously slow, but every tear impactful enough to strip him off his strength.

She blinked when her own tears rolled down her cheeks, almost coming back to earth from oblivion, getting her senses back. Her steps faltered as she walked closer to him, falling down on her knees, when she was an inch away from him. She could see her own hands shaking as she leaned forward to hold him by his shoulders, very softly calling his name.

It was then he looked up, his eyes catching her gaze. His own eyes were just as red, a tale of his heartbreak resting in the hollow of his under eyes.

This wasn't Dr. Manik Malhotra, the great psychiatrist of the country, Nandini could tell by the way he was staring at her - staring but not really looking. His gaze was unfocused, he was a in a world of his own, and it tugged her heart to wonder how many times did he visit that place in his mind, alone.

"Manik", Nandini managed to whisper, afraid to speak louder and break this trance they were both being drawn into, but she did shift closer and her hands moved on their own accord, tracing the path from his shoulders to his face as she cupped his cheeks, her thumbs wiping the trail of tears off his skin.

Manik whimpered, flinching slightly as the lost look in his eyes began fading, he now really looked at her - inches away from him, holding his face in her delicate hands, crying for some reason.

He instinctively leaned into her touch, his hands cupping her hands. Nandini smiled between her tears, shifting more closer. He was slightly trembling, she realized, he had goosebumps all over him.

Whatever memory that had been triggered, Nandini concluded, wasn't something superficial, it was embedded in the core of who he was. Or rather it had defined who he was now.

She bit her lower lip, threatening to burst into tears herself but holding onto the last bit of strength she could muster, for him, because right now he needed this breakdown more than her.

"Manik?", Nandini called him out in a whisper, her left hand finding its way to the soft mob of his luscious black hair, as she began running her fingers through it, her right hand still holding his face.

"I didn't do it Nandini", Manik cried out, "Or at least I don't think I did, I mean I don't know, I can't understand", he complained, sounding like a lost child who didn't know how to seek his way home without his mother, and well, that kinda held true for him anyway.

"Do you remember what exactly happened that night? Your last conversation with Aadya? You had a session with her that afternoon right?", Nandini questioned again, trying to see through this chaos he had fallen deep into.