A Bend in the road - Vol 2

51. Silences

That night Dev went to a home after his meeting with the shareholders.

He had proposed a name for CEO and had made a presentation for the apparent selection. The company being a family run business, there was general incline towards a Khurana running the business.

But Dev had known it's time for him to be more practical. That's what Maan would have done anyway.

After years of putting blood and sweat of running the business, he finally saw the taste of being free, had the chance to step back and observe from a distance.

He felt satisfied for the first time in years. He was doing the right thing. Now that he took care of his professional life, there's one more important thing to be taken care of. One person to whom he owed answers to. Tara.

He went back home in a mind to come clean. All these days of playing the truth game, had snowballed to this day.

When he had reached home, it felt different.

70s rock wafted from the floor above and he knew without a doubt that his wife had been painting again.

Although his leg isn't healed yet, he walked slowly ascending the stairs and stopped at the threshold of the room where she paints.

For a moment there, he just stands by the door, watching her.

For a moment, just a moment he wanted to walk in, and touch her tendrils that teased her when she had her concentration only to whatever that she was painting.

For just a moment, he wanted to have the courage to go wipe the blue paint that was on her chin.

"Tara..."

She looked up and somehow he felt he was watching her for the first time.

"I am starving. Want to go out for dinner?"

She remained silent for a moment.

"Give me 10 minutes" she had said and had felt her heart constrict when he smiled at her.

--

He was checking his phone and raised his eyes at the slight sound of her oncoming presence.

He had done a double take. She was dressed in a long rust colored skirt with a dark kurta and a scarf around her. Her long hair was left open in wavy curls and she was devoid of any makeup except Kohl and lip-gloss and large earrings yet, there was something earthy and ethereal about her that he never found her this beautiful.

In her unsuspecting presence, in her dark colors that covered every inch of her body, she still was the most beautiful. Maybe that's why he was a little late in averting his eyes from her lovely face when she had come to him asking if they could leave.

--

There was something about her tonight that was different. Dinner was filled with silence.

They were no strangers to silence but he had known two kinds of silences with her. Earlier it was because they had nothing left to say to each other. It later transformed to a companiable healthy silence.

But now, the silence in itself looked impregnated with words not let loose.

"You seem deep in thought" he remarked.

"Just this and that" she said.

"Humor me" he said folding his hands on the table and leaning forward.

They have placed their orders and awaiting their food to be served.

"I'm just wondering about how after years of spending every day with a person, they still could surprise you"

"Totally unrelated couple right?" He asks with a friendly grin.

"Totally" she says with a small smile.

"Spending years with a person not necessarily would reveal some things about them, but without you knowing you'd learn about other things, which they themselves might not know"

"Like what?" She asks mirroring his posture.

"I don't know" he shrugged "Maybe how when she kisses, she kisses for a little longer, maybe how she plays with the edge of her scarf when nervous" he said reaching out to touch her fingers gingerly, that were playing with her scarf.

She was surprised to say the least, his warm fingers brushing hers that made her want to ball her hands into a fist, if only to not feel anything from the touch.

"...Or how sometimes when she has a nightmare, she seeks out for comfort in touch, her body cuddling unknowingly, or that her hair looks breathtakingly beautiful even when she has bed hair..."

He looked up at her, still not taking his hands off her fingers, and she not mustering enough strength to do the same.

"But there are things you wouldn't know" she says.

"Like?"

"Favorite color for example"

"Brown"

"I don't mean that one question in particular"

"Okay then. Ask me whatever question you're curious about. Let's see how much there is to know and how much is already known."

"Favorite food?"

"That's quick" he smiled. "Chinese"

"Favorite actress?"

"Anne Hathaway"

"Catwoman?" She smiled.

"Very much so"

"You seem to have a thing for grey characters"

"Yeah. Maybe. She was in pursuit of moving on with her past. For a fresh start. I sort of get her"

"And in the process, she had let down someone who trusted her. She wanted to put her one crime behind her, but in that process hurt Bruce, had made wrong choices"

Dev studied her for sometime, something in him changing, as he withdrew his fingers from her.

"She corrects it later, doesn't she? She asks him to come along with her"

"Does it make the hurt any lesser?"

The intensity in her eyes made something in his heart flinch.

"Tara..." He began but right at that time, the waiter had come with their order and the intense spell broke. The moment was gone, but Dev realized this silence that now accompanied them is very different from what he was getting used to.

This silence choked him.