Immediately wrapping up his work, he headed home only to be flabbergasted, seeing his wife studying for the first time since they married.
This was interesting.
She was on the ground with her ankles on her knees and her books scattered around her. Her hair was oily and tied up in a loose braid, falling over her shoulder. She was dressed in a loose pullover, matched with a pair of Spongebob shorts.
With his raised brows, amusement swimming in his blue eyes, he carelessly threw his laptop bag on the nearest furniture and squatted to reach her level. Annika twitched under his touch and sighed a breath of relief when she realised it was her roommate and husband.
"You came! Shall I heat the food? You were so late, mummy ji went ahead to sleep after waiting for your arrival." Annika stopped swirling the mechanical pencil between her none casted fingers, looking at him. "Go freshen up."
Annika pushed the books scattered around her in one corner making a path for him to walk towards the bathroom. Shivaay nodded at him and hurried towards the washroom, while he removed his socks in between his walks, to freshen up.
Within a few minutes, Shivaay came back to the living room and settled on the floor cross-legged waiting for the food to be served. He supported Annika when she struggled to hold up the casserole dish with a single hand.
"Enough," Shivaay mumbled as Annika served him two roti, dal, and dahi along with a scope of rice. Annika rested the ladle back to its original crock when the plate was relatively full. She threw a small smile while pouring him a glass of water, as he tore his roti and dipped it into the dal before reaching out to his mouth.
"Did you have your dinner? If not come have with me." He invited.
"Haan. I was trying to make something work out for my exams. It's too hard. Also, that chudail is making with going harder. I lost my place to her in the upcoming moot court competition. I so hate that chudail, first, she eyed my husband and now my place in college. I so hate-"
[Trans- Witch.]
"Who?" Shivaay asked chewing his food. How did she come up with names like this? He wondered.
"Who else? That Dia! She is buttering up the professors and getting free attendance." Annika pouted, complaining about the competition she was facing in college. "Also she is arrogant and I loathe her."
Shivaay chucked at her childish behaviour and continued eating his dinner.
"What's your attendance percentage?" Annika internally facepalmed. Out of everything she told him, he only had grasped her attendance matters. Was only that mattered? She grimaced. "I hope you aren't banking classes similar to what you did months back."
She nervously giggled, trying to wave off what he was talking about.
It looked like Shivaay hadn't brought her defence, so he raised his left brow, asking for implied not to cover up things. "Do you realise that I still have a good connection with the management? I still have conversations with the staff and faculty there. I can anytime ask about your performance."
Not wanting to lie further than she was in process of doing, she decided to speak the truth. "Chill! I got seventy-six per cent in almost all of the subjects. I will clear the criteria for sitting for exams."
Shivaay shook his head in a dismal sense, and without any talks in the middle of having his dinner, he continued to have his food.
"I'm sorry," Annika murmured as Shivaay completed having his light dinner. When he didn't respond to her approach, Annika followed him to the kitchen where he was washing the dishes. "I know I have done something wrong and that's the reason you are giving me cold shoulders since we came back from Vinutha aunty's home."
"It's nothing-" he grumbled, assembling the washed dishes on the countertop.
Seconds after is a pause, and he began. "Would you have a preference for having a light walk with me?"
Annika was shaken by his aloof behaviour.
He was awfully quiet and that wasn't keeping her sane. Having no heart to suppress his offer, she nodded with a subtle smile. Although she was willing to join him, she was tensed somewhere in her strength that they weren't informing her mother-in-law.
However, understanding her plight Shivaay expressed to explain to himself all that he caught up to; if they won't back within a few minutes.
Agreeing with his proposal, she followed Shivaay as he locked the flat door. A cold breeze blew through her quivering body as soon she stepped out of the apartment building. She tugged her publisher so that it cover her exposed neck region, as the cool wind knocked her. Sensing her discomfort in unprepared clothes, Shivaay wanted to smack himself for asking her out even when she was undressed and he didn't allow her to get changed.
Feeling remorse, he clasped his hands with her, allowing the flow of warmth of his body to her. Annika scratched her blunt nose with her casted hand while trying to avoid looking like a lovesick; her reddened face was something to behold.
At Annika's acknowledgement, Shivaay smirked and didn't come back.
As they stepped every step, silence filled in the setting, it was serene and flawless. They had many words of stories to convey to each other yet they couldn't, it was the silence that soothed their aching hearts.
Subsequently, when they were a little far away from their locality, they realised how far they walked. It was as if, they didn't mind each other's presence. They were so engrossed in each other, adapting the silence they had overlooked the surroundings to realize.
Scrutinizing the ice cream vendor at the corner of the street, Shivaay unclasped his hands with Annika and tried walking to reach the stall.
"What flavour would you prefer?"
"I could love black current, but please don't divert me, talk to me." Annika got hold of his arms as he was about to move out. "Are you sad about my attendance issue or is it about other things? Tell me what I have wronged. I will rectify them. Please."
I Shivaay contemplated for a long time.
His accidental and spontaneous meeting with someone from his former days made him anxious. This life, that he was leading, was the result of the poorest and worst decisions he had taken back in days. And now reminiscing about those horrible memories gave him chills. It brought back the pain, anguish and discomfort he had faced. It was something he had buried, locked and never wanted to revisit even if it held precious and special memories.
And after years he needed someone to hear out his pain and comfort him. So deciding on opening up with the tangibility, he started.
"It's just-" Shivaay's words faded away and he gulped the chunk formed in his throat. "I can't tell deceptions more."
"It's okay if you don't want to tell me. I understand." Annika smiled assuring him that it was fine if he didn't want to share with her.
Just like her.
Like she ran away from home to get married only to get dumped at the end.
"No. I want to. I have been concealing this from everyone and that includes my parents too. I'm not as perfect as they think of me. I'm embedded in deformities. I don't look what I am. I'm-" Annika was surprisedly heeding his trembling voice. His body shook, and sweat pooled at his cups of palms.
As a comforting effort, she pressed his hands with hers.
"Young me was very depressed when my parents looked after my brother with little extra care because of his mentality dysfunction. I lived out of home, most of the time, in boarding schools and then college hostels. Attention. Affection. And compassion. Those were all I needed. As a student, I was closed off, I was more like a dork being more interested in my studies and my business." He chuckled. "That was when I came across a girl named Kritika, she was from my class. Initially, we walked about books and then gradually within some months she boldly asked me out. Surprisingly, all my closest friends were positive about this and pushed me to accept her."
"Did you like her? Or was it more of an attraction?"
"Ohh, no. I believe, back then it was more of a secure and safe emotion that I felt. I was deprived of acceptance from my family since they had left me for myself. She loved me and gave me safe and comfortable vibes."
"Ohh."
"As you know, I came, and still do, from a middle-class family and she came from a wealthy family. We would go for long drives in her car every weekend without going to meet my parents. Everyone said that I was leeching her, trying to stabilise my life and career using her. But it was the other way
round, she was awfully possessive and always wanted to stay by me. In that process, I lost many close ones since she fought with everyone close to me. Frankly, saying leeching or using her wasn't my intention, I was only trying like her, to love her. Later in our dating days, her parents got to know about us. It was a horrible time, they were totally against us being together but at the same time, Kritika had her plans set up for the future. She had already been seeing me as her perspective to be husband. Though I had never thought of the future, I was sure that I would have her side and lead a nice life. With his internal contacts, her father Mritunjay made the management have me cautioned and suspended me for three months with false intentions."
"That bastard!" Annika cussed out aloud, kicking the pebble that was near her foot.
"That he is." Shivaay laughed forgetting his pinning history. "And that period was our sixth semester. To oppose her father, Kritika tried her best. Sometimes she looked obsessed with me but otherwise, I adored her. I was even okay with her obsession as long as she stayed by me. She was intellectual, and witty with her sarcastic notes and composed together. And that was the period when my academic performance declined. One unfortunate day, when her parents were out she called me to her house to talk to her parents. Thinking it was a wonderful opportunity, I went there. Laughing, talking and getting cosier we didn't realise when got involved physically or more sexually. When it came to light, it was a dreadful experience. Seniors raged at me, my professors were like puppets of her father. Life was hard, at least to attend college. I began running away from problems, and smoking and drinking automatically became my solace. It distracted me, and I was okay. My parents were outraged when the college issued a revocation of my admission with the power of her father. Maa and Baba didn't know anything or I disclosed it. They waited until I said but it never happened. My years were wasted, I was stuck with my half-graduation degree. In no time, she was pulled out of the course and was married off to a son of an affluent politician. I couldn't do anything. When my father somehow found this out, he made sure I was with them. I was at home for almost a year searching for other colleges. That was my first experience staying with them apart from the summer vacation or breaks."
To be continued.
Do vote and comment on this, so that I can feel motivated and update the chapter sooner. Peek into Shivaay and his life. Hope you all anticipate the next chapter.
Do tell me what you think about his first love and its tragic end. Wish this isn't cliche, if it is, then it's for dramatic effects.
The next chapter would be on next Monday.