The Naive Rebel | ✓

♛| xxx : raging grief |

Her words awaken the pain I had buried myself. I realise how I was hiding behind the veil of being fine when-

Her voice is croaky when she whispers something, resting her face on her knees.

"I don't. I don't want them to lose hope. I don't want to lie and I don't want to fail them. I had started the case wanting to prove myself in front of my parents but now, I want to find the person behind the suicides for those parents. The biggest pain a parent can face is to lose his child."

"And for a child to lose his parents." I complete impetuously.

She suddenly snickers, "then we should not even get into the pain of seeing someone you care about, die in front of you."

"That isn't pain. It's a torment, that person faces for the rest of his life." I add.

Silence envelops the room, as we sit remembering the memories that had once broken us, which still haunts us and will continue scaring us.

"It was my brother. I was thirteen. He cut his veins-r..right in my presence." She quavers.

"I remember that night so clearly, his red eyes, dark broken lips, the silence in the passage, the smell of drugs and cigar. The knife in his shivering hand, the way he stood there, enjoying my frightened face. It looked like he was possessed. He wasn't the elder brother I had grown up with, he was someone else. A new but degraded version. And in a moment he was gone. Slitting his wrist, I saw him lying with the pool of blood. Raging, rancour, rebuffing, rueing red of blood. It's arduous to even think about the feelings I had experienced, then."

"Who better than I could relate. I had lost my father when I was pretty young. But, I had my mother and sister who had been there, always. And then one day, I lost them together. I was there, yet so helpless. I could have saved her. I could have saved them. My sister died because of the drug gang while my Mom, she slipped into trauma. You know what maims more...when I see her laughing with others but once she meets my eyes, I feel the coat of unfamiliarity sheathing her eyes. Who could have thought that a mother would see a day where she will forget her son."

I sense a pair of eyes on me as I repeat the reminiscence, I had hidden deep down.

"What if we aren't able to find the person. I won't be able to forgive myself, ever."

"And neither will I. So, Miss Kapoor stops wasting your tears. I am kind of scared that you have drained your lacrimal glands." I try changing back the topic.

"Yeah..whatever." She rolls her eyes at me when I realised she hasn't even tended to her wounds.

"You are clumsier than a toddler. But then, my dad used to say, Every weakness is a strength. Maybe, after all, there is a reason behind you tripping and falling and slipping and rolling and stumbling-"

"I get the freaking point." She huffs and I stand up towards the shelf.

"I guess the tables have turned." I playfully say raising the first aid kit so that she can see it.

"So lucky." She retorts.

"Finally I can avenge the cruelty you did while you dressed my wounds."

I squat before her, wetting the cotton with the antiseptic liquid, gently pressing it on her forehead's wound.

Remembering her standard dialogue I repeat, "It will burn, huh."