My apologies for being almost over a month late to post this chapter, my readers. It has been a very busy month between my finals, convocation and interviews. I decided to write last night and here's the next update for you.
⚠️P.S. let me know if you guys have lost interest and want me to discontinue this story.⚠️
Dedicated to archasa S20RJ9 fullofmusic18 manan0311 KhyatiSharma7 prayasha krishnagindodia urvishah454 urvishah454 Angel_v_96 SrishtiSharma9 Sonipriyanka6582 MounikaGottimukkala ManjMunDa carzy_Manan_fan
Special mention to the ones for leaving a bunch of beautiful inline comments in the chapter __krinall_ syleuven1 Mananhamesha45 JignaPaul IshaRana6 _manan_tales_ Sahi89N its___V AlwaysKunwarrajanee Devi-21 ShefaliKumar1 blue_astergirl mightypanda300 KriyaRhiya darkangel142111
Hugs🤗 and kisses😘 to the ones who voted as well.
✨Lastly, yesterday was KYY's 9 year anniversary so this update is my way of celebrating it. I mean they are the reason my books exist.
God! I feel so old that my favourite show I used to watch as a teenager just turned 9. Anyway... Happy 9 years of MaNan to my dear readers!✨
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The Diwali week for Manik and Nandini was very happening, given that both of their families were visiting them. While they celebrated the functions together, both of them chose to spend the rest of their time individually with their respective families. Overall, their families got along well and they got time to spend with their kids as much as they wanted to as well.
Nandini's family bid their goodbyes on the morning after Diwali and Manik's family did a day later Bhaidooj. Life after those weeks were relatively less chaotic for them but at the cost of getting less time for each other. Manik's venture was very new and required most of his attention and time. Nandini joined work once she was fully recovered and given that her designing work had just piled on, she barely had time to sit and have meals or get a seven-hour sleep.
Weeks passed that way. Cabir was still living at Nandini's place, which did not give them much privacy except when she went to his place. Cabir and Navya had begun their marriage counseling sessions and according to their therapist, it was better for them to keep some space till they work out their issues. Missing each other would make them value each other's presence.
The distance had started to bite them a few days ago when they fought over how the other person wouldn't just budge and come over. Work was tiresome for both of them; at the end of the day, all that they wanted was to lay back and relax for a bit. Visiting each other straight after work drained energy even though they did not live that far from one another. Manik refusing to take a cab to her place and her denying to drive all the way over to his place just exploded their string of patience. That was a bad fight and they spent the next two days stewing in anger withholding their urge to just give in and make up.
Later, when she caved and decided to call him up they fought more over how little time they had for each other. Manik was frustrated because he felt that he had made a lot of compromises when she had a tight schedule but now that he was busy she refused to make any changes to her schedule in any way. Nandini did not understand his anger because she had done nothing new. She was working as much as she did earlier and she was understanding of his busy schedule as well. He did not care for her understanding nature and instead just wanted her to go out of her way to make time for them. She refused to accept that it was just her responsibility. She wanted him to take the blame for their situation as much as she was ready to take.
In that manner, an entire week passed and they did not meet each other even once. Both of them were stressed beyond their endurance levels but work kept them distracted.
When Saturday night rolled, Manik decided that this was enough. They needed to see each other and spend time with each other. That was the only way he could see to lower his stress level. He wrapped up his meetings by 8 pm and finished the rest of the work by 11:30 pm after which he booked a cab straight to her building. Cabir was out of town for that weekend and Manik couldn't thank the stars more for getting that kind of alone time with Nandini.
It was 12:45 in the night when Manik pressed the doorbell to her house only for it to go unanswered. He wondered if she had fallen asleep already. It did not seem likely to happen given that she usually came back home by 12. He pulled out his phone to call her up which his when he heard the ding from the elevator behind him. He turned to catch a glimpse of her walking towards him from there.
He was seeing her after eight days and he expected himself to feel happy at the mere sight of her but all that he could feel was anger. She was dressed in her nightwear which meant that she was probably out to smoke that late in the night no less.
Manik hands down hated that she relied on toxic drugs to relieve stress but he never said anything because he felt like he might be overstepping the boundaries. But as time progressed of them being in this relationship, he had begun feeling responsible for her. He had started to feel some rights over her and her wellbeing. She had no one but him to look out for her here and he suspected that he wasn't doing a good job at it.
[⚠️Warning: Smoking is injurious to health and can cause terminal diseases like cancer. The characters portrayed here do not support the use of any type of tobacco products.⚠️]
"So you can walk half a mile back and forth for your filthy little cigarette but you cannot drive for 10 minutes to come and see me?" Manik asked her with a sarcastic smile. The smile that she had on her face after seeing him initially faded away in that instant. So he was here to pick another fight. She dashed past him and went in after she opened the door to her apartment leaving it ajar for him to enter.
"I am not in the mood to fight with you, Manik." Nandini told him as she gulped in a glass of water that she had poured out for herself.
"Very convenient but no... We are going to talk about this now. Come here!" Manik toned down when he stretched his hand out for her. He gestured for her to come towards him and sit with him. He felt it was high time they talked about her smoking habits.
"I don't wanna..." Nandini whined nonetheless placed her hand in his and let him pull her down to sit down on the couch.
"How many cigarettes did you have this week because of our fights?" Manik wanted to lay the groundwork so that she could realize the seriousness of the issue by herself.
"Close to 2 packs." Nandini answered him in a feeble voice. She knew that it was bad without having him lecture her about it. It was not something that she did because she loved it instead it was a cry for help that she sent out to no one in particular.
"By the look on your face, I think it's safe to say that you know it's awful." Manik remarked. If he knew her fully five years ago because she was his best friend then now as his boyfriend he knew her like the back of his hand. He did want her to quit but not without understanding why she does it. She did not have an addiction and that was clear because she did not smoke regularly. But whenever she was under stress, smoking was her go-to move.
"When did you start smoking? And why?" Manik decided to ask the million-dollar question. He was aware that it started somewhere in the span of the five years when they weren't in touch but he did not know when or why did it exactly start.
"Do you really want to get into that?" Nandini wasn't sure if she felt comfortable talking about it but she did not want to keep him in the dark if he genuinely wanted to know.
"I really do... Your life is now kind of attached to mine. If something happens to you then it'll first affect me. I do not want to wait for a moment like that." Manik explained his reason behind wanting to talk about it in the most gentle way possible. He watched her take a deep breath by closing her eyes. It was enough for him to understand that this was difficult for her to talk about yet she was going to do it for him. He smiled a little and pulled her in for a back hug after putting his leg up on the couch. She did not depict a single sign of resistance and simply let him wrap her in his embrace.
"Go on... Tell me why did you smoke for the very first time?" Manik urged her to get going with her story.
"I smoked my first cigarette almost three and a half years ago. It was the night after I quit my job at NTL which was also the same day when Randhir and I got into the worst fight of our lives and broke up for the first time. Mumma and Appa told me off over a phone call for taking the drastic step that evening which I think was the last nail in the coffin. I went to this club with some friends and I got super wasted. Someone offered a cigarette and instead of refusing like I usually did, I accepted it. It did not stop at one. If what I remember is actually correct then I probably smoked five of them." Nandini explained what happened the night of her first cigarette. As she kept talking about it, she felt awful about herself for the kind of weakness she had felt to succumbing to the worst possible coping mechanisms out there.
"Okay... I understand that it was a super bad day for you and if this incident was a one-time slip-up then I could say that it was fine. Why did it become a habit, Nandini?" Manik did not wish to validate her way of dealing with it but could not simply get himself to say that she was fully wrong. It was bad but given that she was younger and everyone in her life had turned their backs on her was a pretty bad situation. Keeping aside the smoking habit she picked up on that night, she had done pretty well in her life and career after hitting rock bottom and he just had to applaud her for her strength.
"You won't look at me the same way if I tell you more, Manik. I... I cannot lose your respect more than what I've already... lost." Nandini mumbled to him in a small voice. He hated the way her voice trembled. He did not want to make her feel weak or helpless because she was far from it.
He gently pushed her chin upwards to look him in the eye before speaking "I despise smoking and I do want you to stop it, that is all. How I look at you or how I feel about you does not depend on it. It is because I love you so much that I care and need you to quit this deadly habit. Stop worrying about me losing respect or how I'd look at you. I want you to be one hundred percent real. If you don't do that only then there is a chance of me looking at you differently, understand?" Manik chided her softly but also reassured her. She nodded at him meekly and turned slightly to maintain eye contact when she spoke further.
"I... This is going to sound so bad. God! Huff... When you left and after I stopped talking to you fully, it was like I lost my human diary. For a very long time, I kept telling myself that I do not need anyone to lean on. That I do not need someone to talk to about everything that goes on with me. Eventually, I realized that I was fooling no one. I could not open up to friends so I tried it with Randhir but he made it clear that he will never be able to be that for me. And it is kind of fair if you ask me. We should not put that kind of pressure on one person. It's not fair to them. I respected that he did not sugarcoat what he felt about this." Nandini did not know if she was making sense to him but she kept blabbering everything that came to her mind. Manik was a little taken aback by the level of open-mindedness these two had and also by the level of blunt transparency they used to share.
Manik was a bit traditional when it came down to being a boyfriend. He liked having his woman depending on him for at least some of the things. He had the endurance to have another person depend on him for emotional needs. He had been bluntly honest with her about that as well. And to hear from the woman he loved that she was comfortable in a relationship where she did not need to depend on her partner for things he considered bare minimum was a little concerning for him. She was nothing like that with him. Did she actually change or was she making compromises as per his needs?
"I seriously cannot get enough of hearing how super compatible you and Randhir were so please keep going." Manik rolled his eyes as he made that sarcastic comment. She chuckled slightly at his expression and leaned in a little to drop a kiss near his chin.
"I did not say that I liked that arrangement. It was just one of the compromises that needed to be made on my end for the sake of our relationship. Also, believe me, you'd realize how much this arrangement affected me when I tell you more about it." Nandini told him with a smile as she caressed his two-day-old stubble gently.
"Continue with your story..." Manik said acknowledging her attempt to make him feel better by taking her hand in his.
"Yeah... So that left me with no one significant to lean on even if it was just for a bit. Whenever things got bad, I was almost forced to succumb to either drinking, smoking or sometimes both. It kept getting worse until I started at ROB and the culinary school. After that I stopped drinking regularly but when I needed an out, I smoked occasionally. It kind of stopped when I met Jeanette and we moved in together because there was someone constantly around me. I started again when Randhir and I dated again. I am not really addicted to the drug, Manik. Quiet frankly, I hate the smell and feeling every time I take a puff. It is more about the two minutes that I smoke, everything ceases to exist. In my head, I mean. That two minutes of numbness and peace is enough for me to regain my strength and composure." Nandini finished explaining with a sigh. Manik although did not support her choices when it came down to picking alcohol and tobacco as coping mechanisms but he also could not help from feeling bad for what pushed her into making such choices.
"The worst part about it is that nothing is so bad that I can even justify why I do it. But the feeling when I actually decide to smoke up a cigarette is something I cannot explain in words. Earlier I had no one to tell things and now I've grown into being unable to open up when I'm in the moment. It's absolutely one hundred percent on me. I don't really know what to do about it either." Nandini continued when Manik didn't say anything for a few minutes. To her, his silence only meant one thing and that was that date probably lost all of his respect for her. She was sure that he will never be able to see her in the same light as before because whatever she had confessed made her sound like the weakest person on earth.
"I... God, Nandini! I wanted to hear some lame ass reason behind this filthy habit of yours so that I could tell you off and make you quit. But this is all too real and I cannot make you do that for me. If I ask you to quit for me, I know that you will do it but it won't be the right way. It's too much to..." Manik felt a little frustrated by the helplessness of his situation. He couldn't finish his sentence because she cut him off in the middle.
"To put on you... I know it Manik. It's not fair for you or anybody for that matter. I cannot just spring such heavy stuff on you or anyone else. This is all me and I have to bear the weight of it." Nandini finished his sentence and said what she felt. He tightened his grip on her hand when he sensed that she was putting her walls back up.
"No! In an ideal world and relationship what you're saying stands. It is some heavy stuff to put on someone. But, honestly, we are far from it. We both have flaws and the other one makes up for it by being the anchor when needed. I can take this and so much more if it means you'll never smoke again or resort to alcohol and drugs for your sanity, trust me. Although I feel that it won't end for you. This will be a strong but momentary solution but at the end of the day if we fight or have problems, you'll go back to it again in a heartbeat. And from what we know, our fights can get pretty nasty and long. I don't want that. I do need you to quit but for yourself. You have to realise how necessary it is for you to quit for yourself. I can support you in all the ways that you need me to but it has to be you who makes the choice. I cannot make that for you. Are you understanding what I'm trying to say?" Manik dismissed her analogy and explained his perspective as delicately as possible. She nodded at him meekly.
"Did no one ever stop you from doing it ever?" Manik asked her with a small sigh. He could see that she was upset and retracting into a shell and he needed the opposite of that. He wanted to talk about it as much as possible and make her come to the decision that he wanted her to take.
"No one knows..." Nandini whispered. She felt like crying but the damned tears refused to spill. She was afraid to let herself go.
"How? You've never told anyone? Randhir, Jeanette or at least Dhruv?" Manik asked her back in shock.
"Nope. They never saw me doing it and I did not bother mentioning it either. You were an exception because it's a little hard to hide things from you. Especially because we could barely keep our hands to each other." Nandini frowned as she told him that. It was true. The first time he got to know what she smoked was when he kissed her tight after their first fight.
"Good for me!" Manik shrugged feeling grateful for being in the loop.
"Hypothetically, if you were to quit, what else can you see yourself doing instead to help you cool your nerves?" Manik asked her after a short moment.
"I really don't know... If I had known then I would have already done it." Nandini replied earnestly.
"I want you to be around here as much I am going to be... That isn't possible if you get lung disease or cancer because of your coping mechanism. So tell me what should I do?" Manik asked as he kissed her nose.
He wanted to offer her the free pass to reach out to him at any moment she felt like smoking but he did not do that for reasons he already told her. He loved her and thus he understood the importance of the independence she needed in this situation. He'd obviously agree to help in a heartbeat if she asks him but he also wanted her to be self sufficient enough to refuse a cigarette on her own when she needed it. That will be only possible if she figures out other ways to cope with her stress and anxiety.
"You don't need this kind of pressure on you but if I promise you something then I'll stick to it. I just know it. So, without you asking for anything from me, I promise you today that I won't touch a cigarette." Nandini could physically feel his worry for her and his helplessness to make her quit. She did not want him to go through it because of her and distance was not an option. Quitting smoking was a small price to pay to keep him in her life even though he made no such condition.
"What would you do instead?" Manik asked her after pecking her lips slightly.
"I don't know... I might need your help in figuring out what all I can do instead of that." Nandini told him softly.
"I'll be happy to... God, I love you, baby. I'm so proud of you and thankful to you because you have decided to do something big. We can figure out other things as and when we need to... We're gonna be okay, I promise you that much. Okay?" Manik pulled her in close because she had decided to cross a bridge she'd never imagined before. It was a promise she made to him but it was for her own sake. Even though she made the choice for herself, he could not help but feel like the happiest man alive in that moment.
"My brave sweetheart!" Manik commented and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead at which she simply closed her eyes. She just nestled in his chest blocking out the thoughts about how would she even do this. She decided to not overthink it and just cross the bridge when it came down to it. She was sure about herself that if she had made a promise to him then she'll never go back on it or break it. He meant a lot to her and this was something she was doing for herself. She was just glad to have someone like him who cared so much for her and would always support her in the way she'd need him to do.
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Rate the chapter between 1-10.
My heart goes out to people struggling with addiction issues and if there are any among you guys, I hope life gives you a way to get out of it. We can only be hopeful.
The rest of you can share some postive anecdotes to help others restore their belief in positivity.
Do you think Nandini will be able to keep her promise to Manik?
What's the reason behind the worst fight you've had with your significant other? (Mine was about him telling me not to stress about work because I don't have the necessity to work and he could take care of us)