Note: This one's for you Nisha!
Part
4
Unconditional
Love
'Love, can be far more destructive than hate'
---
Maanvi
I looked at his deep brown eyes, filled with
pain and dejection. His eyes told a story, his egoistic, angry face another.
They showed the hurt suffered by a man who had been rejected by me so many
times. A man who had kept coming back for me every time I pushed him away.
Unmoving, he stood in front of me, all mine. A person who would have walked to
the end of this universe and come right back if I had asked him to. How had I
ever had the audacity to hurt him?
I didn't understand then, that I had the
power in me to hurt somebody so badly, that he would never recover. That a
person could, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
---
'Let me go, Rahul! Just leave me!' I tried to
pull away from him.
'C'mon Maanvi. It's just a swimming pool!'
'Leave me alone!'
'C'mon babe! Stop being so cranky! It's not
like I'm luring you into my bedroom' he said seductively.
Hearing him speak such filth, I looked at him
and spat right on his face.
'f**k. Off.'
He reeled back for a second, half-paralyzed
in shock. I took advantage of his momentary distraction and pulled away from
him. But he was just too strong. He pulled me back with his stone-like arms and
held me like a hunter holds his prey. He pulled me close to his chest, his
dangerous heart beating furiously against my spine. He breathed in my scent and
seemed to relish it. He held me so tightly, with his arms around me, like boa
constrictors that there was no way to wriggle out of his grasp. I knew what was
coming next. I knew what he would try to do. I have seen enough of what my
mother had gone through, and I just would not, ever, go through the same.
I closed my eyes, sent a tiny prayer to God,
asking him to help me this once and planted a well aimed kick on his guts.
He screamed in horror and fell back into the
swimming pool. A sudden splash. A loud shriek of pain. And then, silence. I
didn't want to turn back and look at his disgusting face, but something made me
look behind. I watched in horror as I saw him floating lifelessly in the pool
that was slowly turning crimson red.
I felt like I had been turned to stone. I
suddenly felt lifeless. I had killed someone. Again. Wow! I must really be a
witch. I stood frozen, unmoving beside the pool; the only sign of life being
the tears that were gushing from my eyes and the sound of people rushing
towards the pool. Some people were chattering around me. A girl screamed.
Someone was screaming. I didn't know who.
Warm hands found my shoulders and I found
myself being led away from the whole mess. I didn't see who it was, but I knew
it was him. Viraat. Who else would be my savior?
He took me a deserted room and locked it from
the inside. I didn't have it in me to look into his sincere eyes, filled with
nothing, but untainted, undying love for me, and tell him that I had murdered
someone. I didn't have a heart strong enough to survive his rejection. The
world could hate me and point at me all they wanted, but if Viraat were to ever
think ill of me, I would perish in an instant.
He pulled my chin up with his hands, and told
me, 'It's ok.'
I looked up in shock as I understood what he
meant. He knew. He always knew. How, I guess I'd never know. He knew it was my
fault a guy was lying lifeless in a swimming pool. He knew that the same hand
he has holding was the same that had pushed Rahul off the cliff of life a few
moments ago. He knew that the eyes he said he had fallen in love had been
boiling with blood and rage a few seconds ago and still he said that it was
okay?
'Viraat. ..I... I don't know how... I just...'
'It's okay.' He told me.
'Viraat, I didn't mean to...'
'It's okay Maanvi.'
'Viraat.'
'Maanvi. I saw what he was trying to do. I
ran towards you, but before I could reach you, you had already pushed him down.
I'm sorry you had to go through this. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I'm
sorry Maanvi.'
'Why are you apologizing Viraat?'
'Because I promised to protect you from the
world. From yourself. And I went back on it. I'm truly, truly sorry Maanvi. I
just...'
His words were drowned as I pulled his face
down to mine and kissed him.
The warmth of his breath lit
me up like a candle. A rush of heat started in my chest and slowly spread
throughout my body, reaching every last limb. I parted my lips slightly as I
let him explore the unknown. He leaned forward slowly, his hand brushing the
hair out of my face and he slowly locked his lips on mine, permanently gluing
them to his. His lips were rough and smooth, just like the way he was. He moved
them around in circles and my heart swelled, his breathing sounding deep and
loud in my ear.
His rugged, strong hands
found their way to my waist and I felt the rumble of a soft moan as he let his
instincts take over. His arms wrapped strongly around my waist, protectively
holding me close to him, shielding me from every sorrow on the face of this
planet. My heart is speeding with adrenalin and my mind forgot about every
trouble, about every misery as I got lost in the arms of the man I loved so
much.
---
'Answer me dammit! ANSWER ME!'
I wanted to reach out and grab his hand and
hold it to me, right over my heart, right where it aches the most. I don't know
if doing that would heal me or make my heart break entirely, but either way
this constant hungry waiting would be over. I couldn't hold myself any longer. I had been strong long enough. I just
couldn't go on being so heartless to the man who owned my heart. My feelings
found their way to my face as my eyes got welled with tears.
'Viraat.' I said as I fell into his arms.
I clutched his shirt and cried my heart out.
---
Viraat
I was silent for a while as she grabbed hold
of my shirt and continued to cry. Was this what I had wanted? For her to sob at
the mere demand for the truth? All I wanted to know was that. The truth. Why
was it so hard to speak about?
I pulled her away from myself and pushed her
to the wall. For once, I didn't see the wonders of her eyes. My eyes were fixed
on the face that had haunted my every day, troubled my every night.
'Do you know the feeling, when your heart is so
hurt, that you could feel the blood dripping?' I asked her.
She remained mum.
'When you care so much for someone that you
feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it?'
Her silence aggravated the void in my chest
that was beginning to fill with anger. Quiet, defeated anger that guaranteed me
the right to my hurt; hurt that believed no one other wound possibly understand
hurt any worse.
'Is this love, do you think?' I whispered.
'Being crazy about someone no matter how much
they hurt you?'
There was no other way to say it. After being
heartbroken for so long, I had made myself completely numb inside. Maybe not
from physical pain, but anything emotional, yes. Sexual pleasure? Numb to that,
too. I'd have been a great actor. After all, I had the perfect, mind-blowing
orgasm down to an art. I suppose I deserve an Oscar for that.
She managed to
look up at me after a silence that felt like eternity and said, 'I'm sorry
Viraat.'
'Sorry? That's
all you've got? For all that you've said and done, you think a sorry is
enough?'
My heart
raging with fury, I grabbed her arms strongly, knowing it would hurt her and
said, 'Sorry doesn't mean
anything! Not when you have left my questions unanswered. It's not just that
you left'it's that you never bothered to explain why you did what you did. You
left, never to come back, leaving me in pieces Maanvi!'
'Then, my body burned to see you with Steve.
Just when I somehow managed to convince myself that maybe Steve wasn't the one
who loved, maybe it was me; you pushed me away and said that it was Steve you
that you wanted. And now, six years later, I see you engaged to someone else.
What's his name this time? Rishab?'
'It just goes on and on Maanvi. I keep showing
how much I love you and you keep showing me how much you don't. I keep trying
to come closer and you keep trying push me away. I keep trying to convince
myself that you're not a part of my life, and you keep proving me wrong by
hurting me so bad. Why Maanvi? Why do you hate me this much?'
She tried to say something, but this time, this
moment, I just didn't want to listen to her. I wanted her, to listen to me.
'When you left, I thought you were gone
forever, I thought you'd walked away from everything, because I had failed,
because I destroyed the only thing that ever mattered to me - your faith in me.
I waited for you to come back and give me an explanation, but you didn't.'
My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands,
and my teeth bit into my lips, my knees were locked, but I could not faint. I
had to tell her what it felt like, being without her all these years.
'I was not weak; I did not cry. But it hurt me,
more in a kind of refreshing, thrilling way, than a kind of pain that would
cripple me and send me away crying. This was the kind of hurt that could only
be inflicted by someone you loved, who you thought loved you. It was sort of
like being stabbed from the inside out.'
She looked at me, her eyes filled with some
undefined emotion. A sentiment I was unable to read.
I couldn't breathe for a while as I finished my
rant. The disappointment that had been buried in my heart for so long, the agony
that had been ruining my life, the angst that had been tearing my heart into
tiny little broken pieces kept following out as I found it difficult to control
the volcano that had erupted in me.
'You know how it hurts every single time I see
you with someone else? How I hate it that someone else makes you smile, and
that there's nothing I can do to stop this. I can't think straight, and
everything hurts, and nothing makes sense anymore. You're shredding my heart
with one hand and stroking your ego with the other. And it's killing me,
Maanvi. You're killing me.'
'And
it's only going to get worse.'
She looked up in surprise, probably wondering
how it could get any worse than this.
'I would have done anything for you. Anything.'
'But this is what I will do from now; I will
hurt you.'
'I will hurt you the way you hurt me, and I will make you understand the pain of the wound you have inflicted on me. I will show
you what it feels like to be a walking corpse. I promise you, I will.'
With that, I walked away and pushed my way out
of the door...and as the door eased shut, I realized that I had demonstrated
another way 'I love you' could be said without actually uttering the phrase.
---
Edited by ..Ankita.. - 11 years ago
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