Chaotic Tangles!

28|| Hasty Truths

Recap : Manik and Nandini share a kiss. Meera gets attacked with a sharp edged pebble in Nandini's bedroom. Nandini ends up giving an ultimate reality check to Manik, making him aware how close he is to losing her forever.

Abuse can feel a lot like love - Starving people will eat anything.

- Penelope Douglas

Manik Malhotra had always believed time is fluid, but forty eight hours after Nandini had walked away from him post showing him the mirror he had kept covered in fog deliberately, he wasn't sure if he believed in his own theory anymore.

Every second after she left had felt like a decade and every hour felt like an eternity. He had driven home from the hospital in a haze early morning , and hadn't been able to do anything productive since then. The only thing he actually remembered doing was mailing his leave application, and since then, he had cooped up in his own apartment unable to make any sane decision about anything.

Nandini's words had been ringing in his ears every breathing minute, and no matter what he did he couldn't shut her voice out. Cooking didn't help, loud music just gave him an added headache, patient files didn't interest him and if he tried to sleep, he would wake up gasping for air, trying to save his mother in his nightmares.

All in all, the last forty eight hours had been nothing but a terrible experience, and mind you, he had plenty experience of horrific days and yet, these felt like one of his worst ones.

His mom, his sister, Aadya Verma and Nandini Murthy - every piece of the puzzle his life was in front of him, dancing in the air, but it felt like they burnt to ashes in front of his eyes if he tried to piece them together, leaving him behind to scrape the ashes.

In all of this, unlike his expectations, the most prominent thought in his head wasn't Nandini - it was his sister.

His dead sister.

It had been years he had thought about her so much for so long - she was a part of his life that he liked to bury deep down in his head. Her memories - he hardly had any, but they brought up intense guilt and regret, a fire in his blood that skinned him alive in its vicinity. But the past two days, he had been thinking more about that accident than he ever had.

Right now, he still was thinking about the same, standing by his French windows, his gaze distant when suddenly, the sky thundered so loud, it almost felt like a threat to drown the entire city in one beat. Manik slowly raised his head to look at the black sky full of dark clouds, his palms pressed against the glass doors. Exhaling loudly, he cursed when he realized he didn't really mind that outcome - in case.

He couldn't remember if he had always been so pessimistic and cynical or it was a new development. Probably not. But he didn't remember the optimistic years of his life either. Even his memories from when his mother were alive were mostly filled with a lot of worry, ache, questions and struggle to help her. Although every second was precious to him - his mother was his lifeline - it still hadn't been rainbow and sunshine as far as he remembered.

Another loud thunder broke his chain of thoughts and he pulled himself away from the French doors he was leaning on. It had started to drizzle, but heavy downpour seemed incoming. Manik turned on his heels and limped his way to his bed. Sitting down, he pulled his bandaged feet up and pushed himself against the headrest, before turning sideways to open his bedside drawer and with the expertise of a familiar but un-practiced motion, he pulled out an album kept beneath the bundle of other stuff.

Pain he had known for too long rose up inside his chest as if it was a knife stabbing him through and through. He didn't remember the last time he had found the courage to open this one album- possibly years ago with his mother during one of her lucid phases. It hurt too much - the knowledge that she was supposed to have more than one album and it was his blame that she didn't.