Silent Hearts

32 | Thirty-Two

I will look for you in every lifetime,

Until we finally come alive, together.

* * *

Nandini whimpered, a shaky breath eluded her dried lips, her head moving more into the comfort he had to provide, as she felt herself stir into the tight spot between his arms she had secured for herself. His arms pulled her more into the care only he could provide, as Nandini, greedily accepted, rubbing her red nose over his clothed chest, her fingers loosely clutching at his shirt from behind.

How long had it been? How long, since she bared herself and her emotions to him, completely?

"Nandini..." He mumbled, his voice giving away nothing, yet she could feel everything, feeling his arms trailing to her head, where she felt his fingers threading through her locks, while they caressed her hair with so much care, she could not come to believe it.

She waited.

Nandini waited for him, for the words her ears could listen to, her mind could perceive; she waited for anything... Anything that could make that heartbreak go away.

Nothing. Nothing he said. Nothing she heard.

Slowly, her head tilted back, thrusting her chin up, perplexed, as her eyebrows curled, her face squinched up in a look that no doubt, gave out her desire to know, why, like no other, he had said no word to her, her eyes peering through her wet, heavy lashes, just only to find his eyes already on hers.

He was looking into her, seeming as if to follow the depth she had had within them with his stare, a look on his face she couldn't discern the meaning of, an unknown emotion in his eyes she could realise to have known but could put no words to it; he stared into her eyes, so intensely, so raw, such pain swimming around his irises...

He said nothing while she felt his fingers placing themselves over the soft, damp skin of her cheeks, hiding the red that had flushed her cheeks, as the tear streaks lined them, his thumbs grazing over her cheekbones, wiping away the littlest hints of moisture beneath her eyes. And his eyes, never freeing her as his emotions caged hers, beseeching her to know something she dare not.

Until that moment came when she could hold herself within no more, he caressed her, until the moment she could finally free herself of that certain emotion, he let her swim in his warmth, to hang onto him, until the time came when tiredness gradually took her in, as she fell into his arms, she remembered the way he brushed her hair away from her face, gently as she was taken away, until that moment came, Tushar never left her.

And when she believed she was a cowered, she had heard a word he had whispered in her ear, only for her to listen to, brave, he had called her. And maybe, just maybe then, Nandini believed she truly was, brave.

*

She sat by the window of the room she had grown to know as hers, legs tucked beneath her frail arms, her chin rested upon them, head tilted to her side, eyes shut. The pale curtains swirled with the sombre swish of the wind, momentarily knocking at her the nooks of her body, the moon, however, was hidden behind the shadow that reigned over the sky, and the heavy clouds blanketed the moon and the stars.

Nandini had been alone for some time now. After she had woken up to a dim room, only lit by the lamp beside the bedside table, it was night, but the time she could not point out. She was alone in that room, as usual, yet somehow this room, and the loneliness bothered her. For reasons unknown, she suddenly didn't like the stillness anymore. She wanted someone beside her. Him. Tushar. She wanted Tushar to hold her again. She wanted Tushar to caress her head once more, wanted the care he had given her, craved the comfort she had found within his arms. This day, she did try the last time to let go, but now she knew, she could, no more. He held her back. His thoughts. Him. Tushar Chatterjee. And, Nandini wasn't ashamed anymore to let herself know of this truth.