Chaotic Tangles!

29|| Open Doors

"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
- William Shakespeare"

There weren't a lot of emotions Manik Malhotra wasn't familiar with, but dread creeping up his spine was still one of those he absolutely loathed feeling. It was always an erry vibe - cold seeping up his bones, goosebumps on every exposed and unexposed part of his skin, his mind sometimes freezing for a long moment to actually articulate the situation.

Yet, this was worse.

Because this time, the dread wasn't just surrounding him, it was engulfing in it a woman he cared for a bit too much while struggling with himself to not to.

The keys contained to dangle in his face as Nandini held his gaze, her face giving away nothing. He searched her eyes, for a second longer than necessary, but she did not even blink or even flinched for half a second.

"You aren't surprised", he found himself whispering. Nandini didn't even avoid his gaze as her lips quirked up in a lazy smile, and if he didn't know her the way he did, he wouldn't have noticed the slight bitterness in her answer.

"The pebble has to find me one day, hasn't it?", Nandini deadpanned, shrugging her shoulders, as if she couldn't care less about the mess her life had become, effectively hiding the way her heart was beating loud against her chest. And then without giving him a chance to comprehend, she attempted to walk inside the open door, her action shaking Manik from his stupor.

He acted abruptly, extending a hand and grasping her left wrist to pull her back, and she stumbled into his arms, not expecting it.

"Are you crazy?", his voice rose, his eyes widening and his face morphing into one of sheer concern,"You have no clue what you might be walking into and you don't even care? Are you just brave or just stupid?"

Nandini watched him this time, everything he was feeling reflecting too clearly on his face. She could see the worry as well as the tinge of fear in his eyes. Her eyes softened as she raised her free hand and placed it on his chest. His heart was beating too fast. She couldn't tell if she was relieved his body was physically reacting to the fear and it was good to know he was obviously not faking his concern for her, or if she was more worried about this growing attachment between them. He wasn't supposed to care for her, or be worried for her in the first place. She wasn't possibly even on his side of the chessboard because Nandini knew, she would choose the truth over Manik in a heartbeat - if it came to that.

Yet, there was something between them, warming the blood in their veins every time they touched, even if it was a fleeting one.

There was something that made her heart beat faster when he looked at her like he was looking at her now - as if she was the last remaining thread to his sanity.

There was something that held her back whenever she tried to think about him as the culprit of the entire situation, something she had felt too vividly in the moments they had spent together, the moments she called "real" in the confinement of her heart.

"Atleast now I can see some reason why Manik had been so bewitched with you all these years".

"I told her about you - this girl I had been thinking about for months"

The words echoed back in her mind, Dr. Simran and his own, and Nandini couldn't take it anymore. She needed the confusion to end. She needed solid ground to work on - whatever it was she was working on - she needed to know. So despite his tight grip on her and his eyes glistening with some emotion she couldn't place, Nandini drew in a deep breath and put words to that one question that someone wiser would say, not the absolute need of the hour, nor was this the place. But Nandini needed to know. And she needed to know right then.