Mananff - Iss Mohobbat Mein

chapter 44

The air is as thin as a thread among everyone, and the silence is so quiet that nothing else than the merged breathing and violent heartbeats could be heard between them.

Dhruv breaks the ice, looking at Nandini who is the center of negative attraction of everyone's piercing gazes.

"You say that drunkard Varun called you, personally, and warned you about Soha before abruptly cutting the call?"

"Yes." Nandini breathed, her nails digging harshly on the fabric over her thighs as she sat in front of them.

"Is it his personal number, Nandini?" Abhimanyu asked, he is in his formal uniform, about to leave again for his Army Training in Kashmir Regiment, but now he has made a decision that he's not going back before seeing his friend back here, alive and healthy.

"I don't know," Nandini mutters looking down. "When I called again, his phone was switched off. It's still dead." Breathing shakily, she clasps her hair preventing her spasms to stop. "Dhruv, Dhruv what did Manik said to you? How was the location like? Any damn clue! Anything! He must have been somewhere different, somewhere far, Dhruv please, what was he--"

"I've told you the 100th fucking time, Nandini. He said it's a desolated place. That's fucking it. Stop asking me useless questions again and again. He didn't even have his phone, he called me through a rotten fucking Phone Booth and that too 5 goddamn hours ago! Can't you get this shit in your head?"

"Can't you speak respectively to me?" Nandini's teeth involuntarily clenched, as she found it unable to hold her ire back.

"Fuck you and your respect!" Dhruv spat, his voice powerful and loud. "None of this would've happened if that son of a bitch Varun would have been in jail! And if only you wouldn't have--"

"I what?" Nandini's voice is calm, yet there is a fatalist behind her eyes, and ascetic pyre in her tone."Tell me."

"If only you wouldn't have let Varun escape..." Dhruv's voice faded away with a sardonic scorn.

"Manik wanted this!" She tries to reason, banging her hand violently on the glass table in front of her. "He wanted Varun to be free! He wanted to give him a second chance!"

"But then he fucking let him go to prison right? Then why the fuck did you interfered in between and started this oh-so-forgiving-bitchy role of yours?"

"Because I..." Nandini's words chocked, as her throat dries from a gut-wrenching feeling. Her eyes crinkles as she continues. "I...I wanted to obey his wish. And he wasn't wrong, Varun did needed a second chance. He wasn't wrong so I--"

"Stop defending your mistakes on Manik's name, Nandini." Mukti whispers while holding her head fatigably, the disappoinment in her tiring tone grabbed Nandini's heart, tearing it brutally into shamefulness. "You claim that you care for him, and then you make him a subject of escape to your wrong doings."

"Mukti I..." Nandini's words choked back in her throat, and she could form a mental image of hers that diminuted every kind of emotion that she was supposed to provide for him.

She felt wasted. Dirty. Vulgar.

"No...I don't..." She muttered, trying to find a better reason for why would she do that. "It's just that I could relate to Varun. I could understand why Manik wanted him out. I have got second chances. You all have given it to me. So I felt like he deserved it as well and--"

"And you decided to become the mighty protector like always, and gave him an escape? Wow! Applause! Now guess what? His Psycho mother has him, just like she has Manik now. All because of you." Dhruv sneers, losing his temper.