Humesha | ✔️

Chapter 20

Love is destructive.

M A N I K

"Manik Malhotra, you need to understand. All she is, is a simple girl, living a simple life, with a simple outlook towards her dreams and the world. You don't behave this way when all she's done is forget a promise, get that. You say she'd always choose you over everyone so atleast give her a chance to do that, don't judge her by a broken promise when she's already kept a thousand unsaid ones," Cabir tried persuading me as I put another ice cube in the glass of champagne.

I gave him a quiet half smile and continued drinking my third glass. It wasn't really as simple as he made it sound. Only if he understood that she not spending the evening with me or not keeping her promise wasn't just the case.

The glass was snatched away from me and before even I could flicker my eye lash to look at him, it reached the floor, breaking into a hundred little pieces across my dark house and he gritted with irritation. "It's Diwali tonight, stop drinking for fucks sake!" Cabir's voice was an headache tonight because nothing actually made sense.

"Cabir," I called in a calm voice as I got up from the side bar, crossing the glass pieces and sat on the other side of the room, picking up a pack of cigarette and lighting one between my lips. Taking one huff, I decided upon continuing what I was about to say, not testing his patience more.

"It's not about her not coming tonight or about her being with Aryamman. It's not really as simple as you think it is. I am not angry or hurt or any thing even near to jealous, as you're assuming. Appearances are deceptive, and silence isn't just of being angry. Silence is a roaring storm within one, and it cannot just be justified with one emotion like anger or jealousy," I tried putting it in the best words as my shoes crushed the used cigar underneath it on the polished flooring of my house, creating a flaw there, just like my heart was made up of a billion such small flaws, too little to be noticed individually but when they're seen together, they're too many to be ever patched again.

"Care to explain?" His voice was hoarse.

"Some years back, such a same Diwali night, I saw my father dying. Such a Diwali night, a year after that, Mukti went missing. The fear that had erupted in my heart at the only thought of losing Mukti a few years back was stronger than the pain of ten bones broken together. It was... engulfing, the panic that ceased me when I wasn't being able to find Mukti, when I feared that she would be killed for a mistake that was mine." I stared at the fire burning in the corner of the room which would be dimmer as the one in my heart a few years back.

"Ever since that day, I cut out every person off my life. Or actually, no one bothered to stay. I have never felt an emotion so strong after that day because I had no one to care about, or no one to lose. But today, today was like having to re experience that day. The fear that rose like a hurricane in my heart when Nandini didn't reach here, and when no one knew where she was, was terrifying. I thought I lost her to Nyonika like I lost dad and like I was about to lose Mukti. After so many years, I felt that fear again," it was hard putting into words, the feeling that had rose in me upon not finding her.

"And the relief when I saw her with Aryamman, alive, was much more than the anger or anything even close to being hurt for her not keeping her promises. I was so happy for the first time in the past decade upon seeing a person alive. And that's when I realised what mistake I have done, Cabir. Her world has been very different from mine, she isn't meant to be dragged in the dark games. I have committed a sin by exposing her to Nyonika, by exposing the fact that there's someone in this whole wide world whom I actually care about.", I sighed.