I'm Dying

3.

Tears streamed down her face as Suman scribbled the pen on her diary

How it is like to feel your inners bawling under the seems of your skin?
How it is like to feel a whip of somebody's words in your heart?
How it is like to let your skin heal so that you could cut it more the next time?

She let the antiseptic dry on her cut. It felt exactly the opposite of what it had felt when she was cutting it. While the razor worked on her skin, she felt liberating - opening up literally, and when the wound closed itself- it felt like she was getting caged, she was holding an ocean of storms.

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Shravan couldn't help but feel his stomach growl. It wasn't just about food but something bothered him about Suman. So much so that he promised to not poke her "much" for a few coming days. He shoved away from his comforter and got up on his slippers. It felt fuzzy and dizzy at the same time. 2 in the night, wasn't really the time to wake the Tiwari's for a snack. So, he just walked down towards the kitchen in hushed steps. When he opened up the fridge, he found a choco bar lying untouched. Most probably Veer's pneumonia had saved the snack. Thinking that he would be doing a favor to the kid, he opened the wafer and bit a piece of chocolate and milk.

Insomnia wasn't new to him. His thoughts had an endless trail to cover, it started from the day his father was wrongly accused, to all the memories of Colonel Vijay Tiwari which haunted him. As he walked towards the main door and then towards the lawn, he saw a shawl sprawled over the floor, which had an elaborate embroidery of kings and queens. He had seen it so many times and had memorized it be Suman's favorite.

What was she doing here?

On Shravan's arrival, Suman became alert. She saw him munching an ice cream bar and then looked at his baby face and messed hair. He gelled them so tightly in the day, that she almost prayed that he might forget to do it for once. The way he always kept his hair flowing 7 years back. She gawked at his face, on his unexpected arrival and wished that they could be strangers once again. Fall in love, once again.

Entering her reality, Suman picked her shawl and crumpled her feet inside her slippers, to subside the feeling of dissolving. 'Let me..' she initiated the action of leaving until Shravan stopped her. 'Stay.' he said, his voice a mixture of autumn and spring. His words fell on her like petals. Without a question she adjusted back in her seat, trying to feel the breeze and not listen to her thumping heart.

Can he read me?

Shravan looked ahead still noticing the anxiety which had taken over Suman. As if she was stealing something as if she was doing something wrong. And even then, she looked tired and worn out. Friction drains energy. So he decided to initiate a pep talk.

'How's it going?' Shravan asked, looking anywhere but at her. It felt extremely awkward to ask somebody who was filing a case at your father, in the middle of the night, that how it was going. Awful.

Suman, pranced, licked her lips, and tucked her hair behind her ear. As if discarding the question, she put forward another conversation. 'I hope Bunty has told you, already.' she coughed.

'What?' Shravan darted his head in her direction. What more surprises awaited him?

Suman frowned at him, tying her eyebrows together. 'You, don't know? You seriously don't?' Suman asked again, to which Shravan replied in a negative. He shook his head still hysterical.

Suman huffed and continued 'Kanchan is coming tomorrow.' she announced.

'And how does that relate? Don't you think that you should talk about Bunty first?' Shravan raised his hands in confusion.

'That is the same thing.' Suman made a point and rolled her eyes.

'How come, Captain Tiwari? I mean- just- look at you, you seem to create puz..'
'Kancha and Bunty are getting married.'
'create a puzzle in the air as if, Wait, WAIIIITTTT!! WHAT?' Shravan's eyes popped out of nowhere.
'Kancha and Bunty are getting married.' Suman again repeated a tone that reflected the slight grin on her face.

'What the F'in hell?' Shravan's voice screeched the sky.
'SHhshshs....' Suman mellowed him down, and he imitated. 'Veer's sleeping. the whole Bhopal is!' Suman stood and walked forward. 'You told me Bunty was your friend? bro? Like, hmm, seriously?' Suman teased Shravan and couldn't help but pull his cheeks. But, she won't.

'Oh, com'on. I was on a mission, field duty. Okay, or he would have called me.' Shravan tried to play it all cool when he was muttering every curse to Bunty's quietness and seclusion over the matter.

'Agreed Captain.' Suman zipped her lips, grim and red. She could barely hold the facade for 2 minutes, before giving in to a hearty laugh enough to wake up the entire Bhopal.

Shravan looked at her watery eyes, pearl white teeth which jeweled across her lips resembling rose petals. She was a landscape for him, her each feature was the burning reality of this universe. For him, she was the only one he could keep and remember in his mind in her sheer absence. The silver lining of her jaw, the twinkle of her eyes- everything! everything was deeply engraved in his heart. Maybe, more than a victim he was her patient.

Suman could feel her gut explode. She stopped laughing, as soon as she had started. It felt like stones pitting inside her heart, and then finally hitting her tear glands. They spilled like crazy and the shame was it all happened in front of Shravan, who was standing mesmerized the previous second and shocked the other. Her nose had turned red, her cheeks scarlet and she still basked the apology of spiling it all open, that now, there was no way back.

Shravan didn't ask but just took her hand in his. 'Tell me. It's all safe with me.' he ascertained that her secrets shall be his. He didn't know why he said that but it just felt the right thing to declare. He didn't know why he would tell all that to a woman who was fighting a case against his father. Maybe because she was the only woman he had loved.

Suman looked at the earnest look in his eyes. She felt guilty and dirty. Why had she pushed him away? Why she had to lose so many years of togetherness? Heck! Why didn't he come around? He had loved her, he should have been there- even if she was bad, foul and what not. And then somewhere she knew, that she would have ruined him, that it was better for him to leave this self-loathing burden of flesh and blood which they called Suman Tiwari.

Even with a tornado of thoughts creating a disaster inside her, she let go of his hand. 'Where were you when I wanted to talk to you? You think' she gasped for air 'You think, that whatever happened to you was the end of our universe, Shravan? Where were you when... when I was alive?' She grabbed her mouth, looking hysterically at him and then at her words. Shravan gulped harder at the intensity of her speech, the cracking of her throat- the darkness of the reality.

Before he could have stopped her, she left the spot, trying to hold herself together. While leaving, she had unknowingly left the shawl at her place, the king and queen embroidered, on the far ends- he realized.
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