Thikaana

Seventy Four

It had been a day and Sidharth was in London for his flight. He had been trying his level best to not think about her or anything else. Though that was not really the case and every breathing second, he was just thinking about her, whether knowingly or unknowingly. He wanted to drown himself in alcohol and completely escape reality because it was too painful to remember and feel.

He had been so afraid to even take this flight to London and leave his home. He was so conflicted because a part of him wanted to run away from the space they made home, since the day she left and then another part of him just didn't want to move from that house because that is where his Sana was. Every wall, every room, every corner of that house smelt and felt like her. Coming here to London was such a difficult call for him but he had to take it. Now that he was here, all he wanted to do was just escape this horrifying reality, escape this constant pain and hollowness he felt. All he wanted to do was just numb himself to everything.

He hadn't drank like this in a long long while but today being here like this, all he wanted to do was go out, grab and consume as much alcohol as he could and just roam the empty dark roads alone and so he did just that.

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Sana was still the same. Every passing second was eating her up. This house, that was supposedly her own, was beginning to suffocate her terribly. She wanted to run away and scream and jump out of this house and just run in to his arms. Speaking to his mother last night, it had shook and broken her to another level. The hollowness, the numbness she had been feeling since the day she came here, it felt like hearing her voice, broke her all over again. She felt like she was just drowning and drowning day by day.

She would just stay locked up in her room, constantly look at her phone, or at her tattoo, caress it and then cry some more. She knew her parents had been going to Akshay's house ever since and begging them for the marriage. She just wanted her Sidharth. Nothing else. Nobody else. Just her Sidharth. She wanted to break down in his arms. She just needed his arms. She didn't know what was going to happen, she didn't know what next her parents were going to do, she didn't know the extent to which they were willing to go to get her married to that man. She however did have a fair idea. She had seen them all these days.

She had seen the anger, the ego, the rage in their eyes. It was like they were dealing with some enemy and not their own blood. And so that is exactly why, she had again fallen weak after hearing his mother's voice. because she was the epitome of selfless, unconditional, motherly love and grace. Where at one end her own parents, were bent on giving her hell and breaking her over and over again, she, not even her own mother by blood, was constantly standing by Sana like a rock, even though her own boy was suffering because of her. She just couldn't understand this woman's grace, her wisdom and her heart, just like she couldn't understand her own mother's heart. She was so alone.

She just felt like she was put in the center of this big cruel world, right at the center, where nobody, nobody was with her, she felt like she was just stuck or thrown in center of the whole world, where she knew nobody, nobody stood by her, nobody understood her and it was just her, her alone against the whole wide world. That's how scared, how alone she felt. All she needed was her Sidharth. She felt like this circle against her was widening and expanding with every passing moment and it was coming to swallow her down.
She felt so unsafe, so scared, so alone inside the four walls of the place that she once knew as home but today, her home, her heart, her safety, it was somewhere else, with someone else.

She was just lying down in her room, staring at the ceiling when she heard murmurs outside her room. before she could make sense of what was going on, the door was pushed open and both her parents barged in the room. Sana just lifted her head up to look at them and once she saw it was them, she sighed and threw her head back on the pillow. This time however, none of them started bashing or ridiculing her as per usual. She found that a bit odd. In fact, they were just silently standing in the room staring at her. She wanted to lift her face up and ask them what they wanted now, but then she reminded herself that there was absolutely no need. It wasn't like they were here to embrace her in their arms and ask for forgiveness.