This one is for all the Nidhi lovers out there!
The rat had asked her to work under him? And here I was thinking that he would give her a sound lecture and send her on her way! Where had I gone wrong? Or rather, what had she done right?
I sit in the common room, nursing a cup of coffee that had already gone cold. What do you expect when you have been holding it for the last half an hour?
What was a woman to do though? I had tried everything I knew. Yet, the steely reserve was yet to break. I had been unforgivably rude to him, created a scene in public, tried to flout his authority, in short done everything that I should not have done! Not as an intern and not as a wife! And yet, I can't seem to help myself. When I come face to face with him, all I can recall is his rejection! He had rejected me, allowed me to leave from his home and, worse still, not begged me to return. Is it such a big crime? Is a woman not entitled to be pampered and indulged? Why did he not understand that what held us apart was nothing else but a need to hear the other's self expression? I wanted to hear that he needed me and that he loved me and that he would shrivel and die without me. Like I was dying without him now! I still remember the thrill that ran through my body when he had told me that I did not have an exit option, the last time I had tried to leave him. He had held me by the arm and told me that I had no choice but to stay by his side. That was like a balm to my heart and soul that had been hurt then by his support of his friend. I had understood his compulsions, his debt of gratitude to her and his intrinsic humaneness. The human being in me had understood all of that but the wife in me had wanted to be indulged. She had wanted to be told that her place in his life was unequalled. No friendship would ever come close to it. She had wanted his loving assurance. And she had got it the moment he had grabbed her hand!
Why couldn't he have done the same thing again? Why couldn't he have held me tight against him and dared me to break his hold? Why couldn't he have told me that I was a fool to think he would seek elsewhere the fulfilment of a wish that I alone had the power to grant him! What he wanted was not any baby but ours! A baby was the desire of his heart but I was the heartbeat that he needed to stay alive. Why couldn't he have begged me to let go of my resentment? When I could let her without punishment go for his sake, what was resentment after all? But why could he not have asked me for it? Why can't a wife expect that from her husband? That he should ask for her understanding, her support and her empathy? She gave it to him of her own accord most of the time but there were times, when she felt the need to be asked. That woman had tried to kill me. I did not want her to die for it. But I had wanted my husband to ask for my consent before helping her. I know it is probably a petty thing to want, given that she was in a vulnerable state and with child. But I can't help myself! I can't help wanting that reassurance that he places me above all else, and my emotions are what matter most! I know his humaneness will never permit him to ignore a human being in need of help, even if it were his foe. And this was his friend of more than a decade, so what if she had betrayed him in a moment of great psychological weakness. In a mentally and physically abused state, her old obsession had raised its ugly head and she had lost all reason in attempting to feed it. However, that did not erase all that she had done for him in the past and also the fact that she and her child were in desperate need of kindness and comfort. He need not even have said all this to me. Just one word pleading for my understanding and support and, I would have given it to him in a trice. I would never have grudged him that! But was it too much to expect that one plea from him? Wasn't i his wife and partner? Did I not have the right to veto? Not that I would have exercised it but he could still have acknowledged my right to it! I know it is petty ego but I am human too. Did he not realize that his refusing to indulge me on this was only reducing me to further pettiness? I did not want to be this way. But like Mallika had said, if her love for him had forced her to do what she did, then my love for him was forcing me to behave this way too. I am not proud of what I have done but my hurt pride and bruised heart won't let me be any other way!
Now, I sit here ruing my fate. I had deliberately encouraged a young, impressionable girl in her crush on him. I had felt like tearing her hair and scratching her eyes out and yet I had done it. Why had I done it? I had done it in the hope that she would irritate him so much that he would be forced to acknowledge me if only as a shield of armour. His open acknowledgement of my status in his life would be that one chink in the armour that i had been waiting for. I would then push my way back in and claim what belonged to me as my own!
I want him to behave atavistically, brand me as his own so one will dare think otherwise. I want to know that he wants me so much that no ego, no social conditioning and no professional code will prevent him from staking his claim on me. The empowered side to me is shocked at my weakness and my need but i can't help feeling it. Yes, I am being childish, immature, unprofessional and stupid. But I am doing it all because I love him. I want him to hold me in his arms and never let me go. I want him to lock the world out and love me till I forget who I am. I want to love him back so hard that he forgets who he is. I know I am being weak and vulnerable. I know that love is supposed to make you strong and not weak. But I can't seem to help myself. All my good senses fly out of the window when I catch sight of him. All I know thereafter is the need to bury my face in his chest and to be held in the security of his arms. I am probably a weak woman now. But then I am only half a woman when he is not by my side. Husband mine, come and hold me in the strength of your arms, claim me as your own, so I can stake my claim in return. So both of us can be whole again!
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