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name: Babydoll
word count: 4300 words
published on: 19th January, 2020
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[ Stars was unpublished for a while, which means it has been removed from most of your reading lists. Incase you want to re-add it, please do :)]
[unedited]
M A N I K
"I remember that day way too clearly," I start, "It was exactly two months after you left, and everything was a mess. Mukti was missing, Smaran– that detective wasn't really being able to do his job, and admist all that, my mom–, Nyonika–, step-mom– whatever, she found the reports of Inaaya's pregnancy."
"Aunty didn't know Inaaya is pregnant?" Nandini interrupted, biting on her nails, worry written all over her expression as I leaned a little backward on the car's board, my eyes at the night sky as I avoided looking at her, the day playing in my head for the hundredth time.
"She did," I reply, "But that day, she found the real pregnancy reports."
[ a/n: flashback scene set two weeks before chapter 26. Consequences , i.e two and a half months after Musicana & all the mishap ]
"Manik," My mom caught my arm the second I walked into their house, dragging me into a nearby room. I was tired, so tired. It had been two months since Nandini left, and I hadn't visited our apartment, home, even once.
I just couldn't. I couldn't stand being there without our memories flooding in my head, her voice still echoing, her smile still encrypted, and not to forget the way her scent enveloped me the second I stepped in there, throwing me into an abyss; and at this moment, I couldn't afford being lost.
I had shifted back here, much to my own disappointment, but I barely spent time here. Most of my time was spent at the police station. Mukti was missing, and the detective who was very closely observing the case since the beginning, Smaran, wasn't able to hatch a single egg yet. The time that was remaining from that, I spent in the office, trying to learn my father's business skills before flying to London as soon as Smaran gives me the clear card.
And not to forget, Fab5 disbanded. The more free time I had, the more the guilt conquered me. I abandoned them. They depended on me for their career, on each other, and I just walked in that day and told them I can't be a part of them anymore. It was all justified, their anger, their taunts, everything.
In the past three months, I had lost every single person close to me. I tried occupying my mind as much as I could until I was dead tired to only sleep so that my thoughts don't kept returning to the memories I was trying so hard to suppress.
"What is it, Maa?" I said, freeing my hand from her grip as I sat on the bed. My head spinned.
"What is this, Manik?" She said placing a file in between us and then crossing her arms against her chest.
"Inaaya's pregnancy report?" I said. We had gone through this discussion over and over again, my family and her, of how we wouldn't get married but I'd always play a supportive role in the child's life, emotionally and financially.
"Inaaya's pregnancy report that says that you are not the father of her child," she almost shouted, and a shiver passed down my spine as I bolted straight.
"Mom," I held her hand, "What– what are you saying?"
"Manik, don't lie to me," she said, anger in her eyes, "The child is not yours, is it?"
"Mum, calm down," I said, holding her hand gently. Where did she even find the real reports?
"You knew this," she said, almost accusatory.
"Yes I did," I say quickly, "Hear me out, please?"
"Nothing can explain this, Manik. Why are the two of you lying to everyone?"
"She doesn't know, Mom. She's sleeping in the adjacent room, please don't raise your voice and hear me out once," I beg.
"She doesn't know?" My mom said with wide eyes, "You better have a very good explanation son, orelse you're in trouble."
"Right," I agree, "I found this last week. We had a paternity test done last month, right? The reports said I was not the father, and I've been trying to connect the dots since then with Smaran and last week, we found it was Harshad. The father of the child, he raped her because he probably thought I was in love with Inaaya, and he was seeking revenge. The CCTV footage's and the bartender who drugged us confirmed it was Harshad, drunk and not in his senses, payed a big deal of money for drugging us and then raped Inaaya because he thought.." my voice slightly faded, "he thought she was Nandini."
"What?" My mom's voice was just a whisper and I could sense the goosebumps on my hand as I recalled what I knew.
"Yes," I said, helplessly, "When Harshad molested Nandini, it was in a club and he was drunk, so he didn't remember her face later. But when he saw Inaaya with me in that night club, he assumed that she was the girl, and to take revenge, he raped her."
"Manik...." my mom breathed heavily in panic, "Poor girl. Inaaya.... she, she has a right to know."
"I know Maa. Which is what I have been debating about back and forth. I and Inaaya had spoken about this once, and she told me she'd keep the child no matter who the father was. I really want to tell her, but I don't know how. How can I just go and tell her that she was raped by a criminal slash underworld goon. She's already paying for our mistakes, Maa, and the least I thought I could do was...." my voice faded.
"Was become the father of a child that's not yours?" My sentence was completed but the voice neither belonged to me nor my Mom. We both bolted up from the bed to see Inaaya standing at the door, a hand on her very slightly showing bump and tears staining her eyes.
"Inaaya...." I said, taking a step closer the second I recovered from my shock.
"A sympathy case," she laughed while tears flew down her eyes, "Is that what I am to you, Manik? A sympathy case?"
"No that's not true..." I took another step towards her.
"So what, you were not planning to tell me this ever? That I and this unwanted child are the reason the girl who love left you? What were you planning to do, suffer all your life in silence?" She screamed.
I don't think she had anything except the last part. She knew she was raped, but she didn't know why.
"Listen to me, Inaaya, nothing has changed," I said as firmly as I could, "The child will still grow up with me as the father."
"Everything has changed, Manik," she cried, "In last two months, Nandini left and Fab5 disbanded and all of it, it's all my fault. I spoiled your life, can you not see? We... we grew so close in the past few weeks that I could actually see a future for the two of us, that maybe someday, we'd be happy together... even if just as co-parents or maybe just two bestfriends raising a child... but all this while, I was nothing but a charity case to you?"
"Inaaya, listen to me..." I said, walking towards her but she took steps backward, probably running away from me, and as I sped towards her, she turned behind and ran.
"Inaaya," I said helplessly as I ran behind her, trying to stop her. My room was just close to the door, and so she ran right out of the house and stopped near the gate.
"I am sorry, Manik," she cried, "For everything."
"That's not the truth, just listen to me once," I try, panting as I take a step ahead and she takes a step behind again.
"I heard what I had to, Manik," she held the gate handles for support, "I am sorry, I should probably just go," she said, turning and taking a step behind again.
"Inaaya, just sta–," I say but my voice faded and turned into a scream as blood splashed across my face.
I stand there, my eyes wide and my feet frozen, my breath short for a brief moment before I run out, wiping the blood from my face, and then run to cradle her bleeding body.
The truck that had ran over her raced away, and I held her broke body bleeding in my arms, I could see the tire marks imprinted on her middle and neck, almost smashing over the regions.
I could barely comprehend anything of how fast it happened, the accident, her bleeding out in arms, my mother's horror stricken scream, the ambulance's sirens. I comprehended nothing as I kept staring at the way her hand that was holding mine tightly slowly left, her breath slowed before stopping altogether and she slowly bled out in my arms, me watching traumatised and helpless and as I watched the second person die in front of my eyes because of me.
I kept staring up at the night sky for long after I was done, trying to remove the visuals of that horrid day out of my head. Everytime I think about it, and trust me I try not to, I feel suffocated and filled up with guilt.
Nandini had been silent throughout, as she was now, but I get it. Death was difficult to grasp. I remained equally silent for ten full minutes when I got to know of Abhimanyu's demise.
It was difficult to think about it.
We were just kids, trying to live a little carelessly, and this was the price we paid.
"I'm sorry," she finally said, and I pulled a very small half smile on my face.
"I got really tired of hearing that, that's another reason I wanted to shift here as fast as I could," I sigh.
"No, but....," she gulps, "I'm not saying sorry just because she died. I'm saying it because... the partial reason, or actual the entire reason, she died was because of me. What happened to her was meant for me, right?"
I give her the state of disbelief. "I thought we were over the conversation where I told you not to try to take the blame of things that are not your mistakes?"
"Yes Manik, but...," she says quickly, "I can't push off that feeling, that heaviness. Harshad meant to rape me. That was supposed to be my fate, and Inaaya snatched it away from me."
My imagination takes a quick run to a what-if, what if it was actually Nandini with me, and Harshad had raped her instead, what if it was Nandini in that accident and I had to witness her bleed out and die in my arms instead of Inaaya?
Losing Inaaya hurt. Hell, it probably scarred me in a permanent way. But the only thought of imagining Nandini in place of Inaaya made me jitter in a way that made my senses go crazy. For a second, I could only see red before understanding how neutral it was, for Nandini to feel it's her fault in this situation and in a way, this was supposed to be her fate, had it been her in place of Inaaya that night, and in more ways than one, Inaaya saved both of us from a lot of further pain.
"That's not true," I say, firmly.
And not to forget, ever since I'd met Nandini again, she's been different. I've been trying to connect the dots as much as I could, and Abhi's death's revelation just helped me put two and two together.
She's suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder– the disorder that makes you relive a frightening situation over and over again, sometimes though nightmares and other times through intrusive thoughts; and not to forget the anxiety, and depression that comes along with it. Different people have different ways of reacting to this, one of them is being defensive and making a wall around yourself, and trying to protect it by anger, which I think was Nandini's. And also the side effects, like the way she shutters often, or felt claustrophobic in the lift the other day, and the way she keeps blaming herself even for things that aren't her fault. The biggest effect of the disorder was to imagine and relive situations of the incident in ways that make you feel guilty and take the blame.
I know it because I've been there. All my childhood, I kept having nightmares of my mother dying, and a lot of times, it was changed to her telling me that if I hadn't wandered off the shore in the first place, she wouldn't have died. It was either her or me that day, and that she sacrificed her life to save mine. I blamed myself for most part of me growing up, which had made me think that people around me, like my Dad, also blamed me.
It was hell and it took me so many years to figure out that this was a disorder and I had to let go of my Mom to be free of the guilt that didn't belong to me. And even then, there are days where it comes back.
And I was afraid Nandini was going through the same, and my fear just increased when I saw her rubbing her arms silently, probably overthinking every word I had told her.
"Listen to me, Nandini," I say, "It is not your fault. What had to happen is done. Inaaya and Abhimanyu are both gone. And we have to let them go."
"But how do you let go of something when your heart still wants to hold on?" She says instantly, looking at me with her doe eyes that once twinkled and we're now empty.
I wasn't sure what we were talking about anymore. Inaaya, Abhimanyu, or Us?
When she didn't get any answer from me, she took a deep breath, slowly wrapping her hands around my arm and keeping her head on my shoulder.
"Do you think they're happy up there?" She asks, looking up at the stars.
"I'm sure they are," I reply, "And I'm even surer that they wish for us to be happy and go on in our lives, always keeping them in our hearts."
"As we always will," she agrees. We stare up at the stars for a moment, me pondering over the question she just asked. I hope they're happy up there, I really did.
"Manik," she suddenly calls, lifting her head off my shoulder and turning to me, "Do you– Do you remember the day after Harshad tried molesting me in the club? You were playing the café and I visited you, and while walking back, we decided to stop by at the beach and spoke about how we should rise in love instead of fall in it?"
"I remember it all like it was yesterday," I smile.
She smiles back, tears glistening in her eyes, "I remember you trying to make me jealous by taking Inaaya's name. And then we spoke about how both Abhi and Inaaya will always occupy a space in our hearts because they were whom we loved first, even before we knew what love actually means?"
"Mhmm," I nod, not sure where she was going from there.
"Isn't it weird to think, we spoke about how they'd always have a small but special space in our hearts... and now, that's just what they both became? They have no existence anymore except in that small corner of the heart that we had kept reserved for them." Tears glistened in her eyes and the empty feeling in my chest rose again as I smiled sadly.
"I think what's weirder is that all of it, all those college days, the clubbing, the fights, the laughter, the hangouts, the music, the friendship... it all just feels like yesterday. And although it feels like yesterday, we have nothing today," I say, and somehow, the empty feeling just rises more.
"Even if I have nothing Manik, I'm glad I still have you," she says, nothing but sincerity in her eyes as I wrap my arm around her shoulder, taking a deep breath and a smile lingering softly on my lips, "'Me too, Nandini. I'm glad you're here and that I found you again."
"And now," I say, "I'm happy to be able to say that the worst is finally over. We've hit the rock bottom. There's only rising up from here."
"Do you mean that the best is yet to come?" She smiles ear to ear, trying to push the sadness away.
"Absolutely," I say, slipping my arm to her waist as I pull her in front of me. She hesitantly keeps her hand on my chest as I smile, tucking a hair strand behind the ear.
I had missed her.
I didn't except that to myself much over the years, but seeing her in front of me this way felt like a distant dream. As if I'd touch her and she'd vanish, or as if the moment is meant to be spoilt by the alarm clock.
I felt like I wanted to hold her for a long time until I could believe she was back and that I was able to accept her in my life without feeling the betrayal or the anger.
Want it or not, we were both victims.
She did make a wrong choice, but it was justified; atleast to me, because the both times I lost someone– my Mom and Inaaya, I wanted to leave to place to bury the memories and start new, and I did do that, both times, and by the time I realised how wrong it was... it was too late.
And Nandini, she's been through much more than me– lost her parents and grandmother and bestfriend. The world had given her much more than anyone should receive.
"Do you know I'm proud of you?" I say, smiling, "I am proud because despite everything that happened, you're in front of me, fighting strongly and managing to smile."
"I try," she smiles, a sad glint in her eyes, "And believe me, I am strong most of the times. I just– when I met you suddenly, everything that I was running away from came back to me and I kind of lost myself in the moment. I'm fine otherwise, I've learnt a way to live with it, I swear. Some days are harder than the others, yes, but I'm sure it'll be better one day. I can never stop loving Abhi the way I do, but perhaps, someday I'd be able to remember him with just a smile and not the hollowness– for who he was, and not for what I lost with him."
"I'm sure you'd get there. But until you keep running away, you can't. Sometimes, you have to embrace your fears to forget them. Embrace the past, Nandini, and maybe it'll stop haunting you." I say, and she nods.
"I'll try," she smiled.
"I know you will," I say, "And I'd be with you on this journey if acceptance and self-healing."
"You will?" Her eyes slightly widen.
I nod. "You asked me a question before we came here– everything or nothing at all," I say and she nods, hope twinkling in her eyes.
"I say, how about something. I know you said you can't just be a something to me because that's not who we are, but how about you be a something that means so much to me that I'd give up the world to be with you. As much as I'd like to jump into being your everything, I don't think that's the right thing at this moment. At this moment, I think you need someone to hold your hand while you heal and learn to trust and live again, and I'd be just that someone you can hold and count on. Like a new beginning, you and me again, on a new journey but together." I say? Looking at her intently and studying her expression with each word.
She finally smiled, "I'd like that. And what am I supposed to be to you?"
"You're supposed to be the someone I missed over the years, my friend before anything, my coworker, my go to person, and if everything goes right, I was wondering if I get another date with the beautiful lady to tell her a lot of unspoken things," I say huskily , making her blush.
"I'd like that too," she says, "but, I have a condition."
"Anything," I reply
"'Manik, whenever I am sad or upset, I always come to you, but you can't keep all your problems to yourself. Only if you agree to share your side of feelings with me,..." she let's her voice fade, letting the threat hang openly.
I sigh smile, "I promise."
"So, it's a deal then?"
"Mh-hmm," I nod, "a deal with no conditions."
"I mean," I tease her, "I would have given a blank promise instead, but I can't take a chance after last time so..."
She laughs, playfully hitting me.
"So friend..." she mocks and I raise an eyebrow, "I really am sleepy. Should we head to my house now?"
I grin, "As the lady wishes."
I keep my hand on her shoulder intact as we cross the road to her house. I never really got a chance to look–
"I know it's late, but would like to have a look at my house?" She asks, looking at me as if she just read my mind.
"Not today," I smile, "Tomorrow. Catch some sleep. I'd meet you with breakfast?"
"Sounds like a plan," she smiled back as she opened the door to her house. It was two storey, making me wonder how she managed to live alone without feeling lonely in such a huge space. I had actually ditched my villa here to stay in an apartment for the same reason.
"Goodnight then," I say gently and she smiles, nodding, her teeth biting her lips.
She was about to shut the door when I called her, "Nandini."
"Yeah?" She asks, surprised to look at a helpless expression on my face. I didn't exactly know why I called her too. I had been without her for so long that everytime she left, it felt like she'd never come back, or that the dream would end.
I held her arms firmly as I leaned ahead and softly placed my lips on her forehead, and she shivered in my hold, making me wonder if it was the cold or me.
"Nothing," I smile, teasing, "There's just this unspoken thing between us."
"I'd call it love," she teased back and I laugh.
"Go to sleep, you crazy girl," I say, turning behind as she closed the door and come out, smiling like a maniac.
As I scratch my head with my fingers, smiling, I couldn't help but wonder how just five days of being with her was enough to forget five years of all the pent up feelings.
I had barely taken a step ahead when a scream stopped me.
"MANIK!" It was definitely Nandini. My eyes widened and my senses froze only for a millisecond before I ran towards the door.
"Nandini?" I asked, banging and ringing the bell.
"Nandini?" I called, somehow trying to break the door down, desperate to open it when the door opened and she stood, her face numb and terror stricken.
"Nan–," I barely said, shocked when her hand held my tee and she almost pulled me, hugging me with all her life.
I noticed a cut on her forehead which was bleeding and some shattered window glass with a big rock, almost making me freeze too.
"Stop here," I said, hustling her away as I ran outside to check by the window and the moment I reached the broken window in the lawn to check, there was nobody. The person had perhaps left, but there were a few rocks here and there.
I sighed in helplessness as I went back to see her sitting on the couch, curled up, scared above her senses.
I shut the door behind me and leaned in front of her, delicately taking her hand in mine, "What happened?"
"I– I– don't know," Tears glazed her eyes, "I was shutting the window and suddenly a rock hit it, shattering sound– the glass broke and a piece hit me. Thank– thank god you were still here." She said in a single breath as I enveloped her in my arms.
"Change your clothes and go to sleep," I instructed her.
"What?" She asked, confused.
"I'm staying," I reply, "No one was inside the house right?"
She nods negatively, "Outside."
I nod firmly, "Go change."
She gives me a confused look but nods nonetheless as she gets up and walks into her room while I go and check the rocks and the shattered glass pieces, taking a helpless deep breath when a paper catches my sight, attached to one of the bigger rocks, a printed note.
I know you missed me. I'll be coming soon.
Soon, babydoll, soon.
Love as always,
Abhimanyu.
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[ I was wondering if you'd like to read something else by me, not like a story, just a book full of short poems and my thoughts that you guys usually find in the chapters and love. I have been requested for a long time to make a separate book for a collection of all stuff 'deep' things, you know what I mean? So let me know if you'd like to read something like that :)]
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Love,
Heer.