Chaotic Tangles!

22|| Storm

That thought annoyed him more than he already was, at 2 in the afternoon. Placing his mug on the wooden center table placed in his balcony, Manik walked inside, and sat down on the bed, trying to push all the thoughts away.

Nandini was quickly becoming a noose around his neck, and he was absolutely hating her having that kind of grip on him, but his skin was on fire all the time and her grip on him were the only few seconds that burn was relieved. She was becoming a slow poison in his life and the only thing pulling him back from crossing the border and be engulfed by the insanity together.

A low growl escaped Manik's lips as he stood up, enraged, and ended up throwing an antique vase from his bedside right across with so much force, it hit his floor length sliding glass partition that separated the balcony from his room, causing a dent.

With uneven breaths, Manik walked over to the mirror and met his own eyes. He couldn't believe what he had done, or what he was doing.

Nandini Murthy had turned his world upside down, and he had let her, with a smile.

A string of curses left his mouth as he screamed loud, without being able to pin point of it was grueling rage or pent up anguish but he screamed until his vocal cords gave up and he fell down on his knees.

He was supposed to play her, but today, in that moment, he himself didn't know out of everything he shared with Nandini, what part of him was made up - a ploy, and what part had been gospel truth. The lines had been completely blurred.

His insides was a world of chaos.

And his emotions, all tangled.

Chaotic Tangles.

He remembered the first time he had seen her - met her - they had talked about the beauty of broken mirrors. She had impressed him without even trying to.

The memory hit him like a truck of bricks and something burnt inside him - he picked up one of his expensive French perfume bottles and threw it right across the mirror - shattering it.

A few huge pieces fell on his dressing table and on the floor.

Others, still formed a huge chunk of that shattered mirror.

“Indeed it is; when a mirror shatters, there is beauty in its broken pieces, because a mirror shows us one image, but now it can show us infinite ones. Destructed but beautiful! Isn't it?”

Nandini's voice, gentle and unfiltered, rang in his ears and he stumbled a few steps back, shaking his head.

"You were wrong Nandini. It's not beauty that broken pieces of a mirror reflects. It's truth. And truth is always painful deceit", Manik mumbled, his eyes roaming from one piece to the other.

And every reflection felt like a whole different Manik.

The Manik who was the apple of his mother's eyes, who was as genuine as her love for him.

The Manik that made a name for himself, and then paid a heavy price for that name.

The Manik who was bewitched by a certain fairy on earth.

The Manik who was betraying that very fairy with every bone in his body.

The Manik who loved Aadya.

The Manik who killed Aadya.

And the Manik standing in front of a shattered mirror - ill at ease, watching different versions of him smiling at him through different pieces of the same mirror, of the same Manik.