Never Let Me Go

Twenty one

Samar sat quietly with his eyes fixated on Nandini, she was elaborating every little detail of her disappearing, from the day she left his father and him to last night when she walked into the hospital room, he tried to pay attention to what she was saying but his mind kept wondering every time their eyes met, he never imagined, not even in his wildest dreams that this could happen, nothing could ever prepared him for this, to him this woman was a total stranger no matter what she said, he searched through every memory he had of her, trying to match it to the face he's looking at right now, but he blocked these memories for so long that he couldn't recognize her anymore, everything seemed like a dream, he got used to the idea of her absence that he never thought that the day will come where she'll be sitting in front of him, and as much as he wanted to be happy or feel any kind of emotion towards her other than resentment he couldn't, it was hard for him to push down that feeling and replace it with affection or even combation, as if it wasn't enough that she left him, but to be married to Aakash on top of that!! that was too hard for him to digest.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything" Nandini voice echoed in a shaken tone

Samar snorted in disgust, thinking 

Isn't that apology a little bit overdue?!

His mind drifted, Maybe she should go back and tell that to the kid who sat on the doorstep of his house every day for months waiting for his mother to return, or better yet, tell it to the boy who went to bed every night thinking what he did wrong for his mother to leave him, or maybe to the man who watched his father blame himself every minute of his life for disappointing his wife to the point where she decided to walk away from him and her only son and never come back

Any other man would be on cloud nine, to be reunited with his mother after all these years, but he felt like his life shattered into a million pieces, all the pain that welled up inside of him, that he had shoved down all these years floated up to the surface again, she might have a good reason to do what she did but it didn't spare him the pain or his father's life, the image of his father lying dead on the hard cold concrete floor in a crimson red pool of his blood lashed back to his mind making him feel sick as if he was punched hard in the stomach 

Meera kept rubbing the back of Samar's hand that was resting on her lap the whole time Nandini was talking, she could feel Samar's distress every time he exhaled deeply while listening to his mother... Wow... "His Mother!!" that sounded weird, even for her, anyone in his place would be traumatized by this, she couldn't imagine what would it feels like being in his shoes, to know that the wife of your father's alleged murderer is actually, your mother!!

What concerned her the most was the way he's taking all this in, he wasn't showing any kind of emotions, the expression on his face was nonexistent, it was as if every word that came out of Nandini's mouth vibrated in thin air before reaching Samar's ears, none of what she said seemed to affect him in any way and that freaked her out

At that thought, she could feel the guilt creeping into her, Why did she jumped and told Samar that Nandini is his mother?! why didn't she wait for Nandini to do it herself?! as if it wasn't enough that she was the reason he got shot, now he's dealing with all this because of her big mouth, She just hoped that there was a glimpse of a light at the end of that tunnel, a silver lining in Nandini's come-back in Samar's life despite all the hideous things she'd done 

Suddenly she felt Samar's hands gently squeezing hers

She leaned closer to his ear "Are you ok?!" She said underneath her breath  

Samar responded with a simple nod without looking her way, 

He took her hand and placed it in his lap, rubbing it nervously with both thumbs, he was about to reach his breaking point and needed Meera to give him the strength to not fall apart right now