The sea breeze swayed around watching them enjoy the warmth of their closeness in peace while the waves formed a beautiful melody making it magical.
He bent to look into her intoxicating eyes filled with love, passion, ache and longing. It was tragic and excruciatingly painful to accept that he was to be blamed for all her scares and scars. To live with the fact that he will be a walking reminder of her worst days, wrecked him from the inside.
But even after all of that, she was here, leaned onto his racing chest. This glimmer of hope was all he needed from her, to kiss away all her fears and angst that were suffocating the pure innocent soul of hers even if it took an eternity.
They deserved to live a happily ever after. It wasn't just his dream but hers too. Always has been albeit took him just three long years to figure that out.
Reluctantly pulling away from the hug, he vowed in silence to make their dream come true and be by her side no matter what.
***
Ani had to pivot his mind from the barrage of perplexing questions to something more productive to keep himself sane.
His ever growing do to list came in handy. He reached out to the actors finalized for the video, had a quick call with Vicky about the schedules for the shoot and also cleared out his calendar for Pugazh's wedding day.
It was about an hour since she left and he had exhausted all his options to keep himself busy.
Every long and painful minute without her made him feel desolated and handicapped.
What was she doing to him? What was he going to do without her for a whole week? Would she be feeling all the same things he did?
Without having it in him to endure this emptiness that surrounded him, he resorted to his one drug. Their playlist. Her voice in his music. It still made him feel shivers all over.
Every recording was etched in his heart. Her smiles, frowns, laughter, cries, whines, complains and every other emotion under the sky there was. Name it and he has seen it all.
"From her late-night cravings to early morning cries, there is nothing that I do not know about her", he thought to himself which put a smile on his face.
"Except for Ashwin", his mind voice corrected.
Ashwin wasn't a topic she entertained with anyone. In their initial days, he had witnessed a couple of situations in which Siva Anna had tried to probe details but she always managed to steer away from it.
In three years, he couldn't bring up even a single mention of that name which she had initiated and all of a sudden, he was everywhere.
He couldn't help but wonder why.
Why was he the only topic she kept to herself? Why was she here to meet him out of the blue?
An unsettling feeling began to well inside of him.
He fiddled with his mobile contemplating if he should call or text her to check in, while his heart started to feel disturbed and restless.
***
"Kurta buttons en open ah iruku?", she questioned while his irresistible eyes were still bewitching her senses.
(Why have you left your kurta buttons open?)
Looking into her entrancing eyes without losing himself was too outlandish of an expectation even for a guy with extreme self-restrain like him. He stood frozen unable to gather back his senses which earned a gratified smirk from her.
