Hi fam!
I love how so many of you hate Manik with a passion, lol.
Happy Reading! Inline comments are love.
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I have a question for y'all. Do answer this. I'd love to have a conversation about your thoughts on this.
Can you love someone with all your heart,
and still be toxic for them?
Manik
The one thing that I never thought I'd get accustomed to was monthly grocery shopping.
I didn't do that as a bachelor, I didn't do that as a married man, and I sure as hell didn't think I'd do it now, but here I was, on a Friday morning, buying vegetables and cheese and milk and potato wafers for the upcoming month instead of stocking up the alcohol in my house.
Despite doing this every month for three years straight, I still wasn't very fond of lingering in the lanes of the supermarket. An hour inside, and I was annoyed beyond words can explain.
I sighed, plopping the packet of chocolate chip cookies for Mia into an overflowing rolling cart and as a result, the bottle of mayonnaise fell from the adjacent corner. Thank god it was made of plastic.
I bent over to pick that up along with another packet of cookies that fell after that, when my eyes caught an extremely familiar figure in front of me.
All the annoyance turned into a small smile. I whistled to myself, walking to the lady in front of me, dragging my overflowing cart behind me.
"What's up, Miss writer?" I leaned on the closed refrigerator, and she flinched, almost dropping the glass container of some fancy pudding.
And then, she turned towards me with angry eyes.
"What?" I raise my hands in defence.
A smile breaks through her face. "Grocery shopping?"
I nod, leaning aside for her to glance at my cart and her eyes widened at the number of contents in it.
"How many times have I told you, Manik?" She crosses her hand against her chest, "You should forward me the list of what you need. I'll do it for you."
"And how many times have I told you Navya," I mock in the same way, "I can handle this by myself."
She shook her head with a smile. "No office today?"
"I decided to take a one-day break," I tell her with tight lips, "I've to get Mia home today for the weekend, and there was no way I could get past the next two days if her cookies were over. Besides, the grocery shopping was long overdue."
"I can see that," she chuckled, her eyes still fixed at the cart. "And I can also see why you needed a break from work. You look exhausted."
I lift one corner of my mouth in a half-smile, and let her believe the reason to my red eyes was me working overtime. It was better than the truth or how I couldn't stop myself from drinking yesterday, and so I drank from the moment I reached home after dropping Nandini and Mia back, to when I slept. The only idea of having to actually divorce Nandini with her choice this time caused a pain in me that I couldn't deal with, and like a coward, I let alcohol cover my misery.
"What about you?" I ask her.
"Well, my fiancé left for office early today and I can see why," she looks at me briefly, before turning her attention back to reading the ingredients of that yogurt. "So I decided on taking a small grocery shopping trip with your wife."
"My wife?" I repeat, almost in a daze.
"Yes.... Nandini," she gives me an obvious look. "Which is unless you have a few more wives."
I roll my eyes at her. "Very funny."
"She's at the end of the next aisle," Navya smiles again.
A smile makes its way to my quivering lips. "I didn't ask."
"I know," she says, smirking, and then turns to leave, but stops midway. "Oh, and Manik?"
"Hmm?"
"Tell Nandini I'm heading home, will you?" She raised her eyebrows with a smug smile.
"I'm not sure she'll appreciate you leaving her midway through your shopping trip," I tease.
Her smile only grows. "Well, I don't think she'd mind as long as someone better keeps her company."
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From a distance, I looked at Nandini staring at the back cover of a glass jar, probably studying the contents just like Navya was. This was an old habit of her, to make sure what she was buying was healthy enough for her standards.
She hated junk food, and I, on the other hand, had a vowed love to it.
So walking to her, I threw a packet of potato chips into her cart and watched in amusement as she flinched by the sound. Her first reflex, however, was not to look for the person who had don't this, but to stare at the packet of junk that had infiltrated her healthy cart.
And then she rolled her eyes before her eyes found me. "Manik!"
"What?" I say with a smug face, "My cart is full."
Her eyes flutter from me to my cart behind and her eyes widen too before she looked at me crossly. "None of this should be fed to my daughter."
"Our daughter," I correct her politely as she starts walking ahead and I drag my trolley and myself behind her. "And most of it is for her."
She gave me a pointed glare.
"It's America," I shrug, using the same excuse as I used every time since the day I met her. "People live on packaged food. No one cares about healthy as much as you."
She continued giving me the sharp glance. I smiled innocently, adding, "Besides, Navya left. You're stuck with me and my unhealthy food."
"She what?"
"Left," I smugly repeat. "Entrusting you with me."
"Ah, I can take care of myself," she rolls her eyes, putting the three items of her cart on the billing counter, and I start emptying my cart behind her.
"What are you doing?" She blinks at me.
"Billing?" I say, confused by her reaction.
She pulls a smile on her face, a very taunting one. "Yes, but you know there's this system when another person can pay after the one before them has completed billing?"
I roll my eyes. "I know that. I'm billing for the both of us, together."
"You don't have to do that," she laughs nervously.
"You've taken like three items," I give her a pointed look, "It's barely going to charge me anything. Now get aside."
Much to my surprise, she actually stays silent and moves aside while I empty my cart and bill all of it. In the end, I was having five bags full of groceries. Dumping the bags back to my cart, I leave the billing queue where Nandini patiently stood for me.
"You gave your car for service?" I ask her.
She nods. "Just dropped it last evening."
"Come on then, I'm driving you back home," I say as we exit the supermarket and move towards the parking lot.
"Manik, I can manage," she insists.
"I never said you can't," I smile at her, "I want to drop you."
She sighs helplessly, giving me back a small smile.
"Besides, can't have Aryamman Khurrana come to your rescue again," I wink, opening the boot of the car to put the grocery bags into it. Luckily, she doesn't snap back. She just laughs to herself, walking to the front seat.
After putting the bags into my car, I take the cart back to the allotted place when I realise I had not unlocked the car. Wow. Way to piss her off.
Leaving the cart quickly, I rush back to my car.
Much to my surprise, Nandini wasn't waiting for me patiently.
I knit my eyebrows, taking a second to breathe. Okay, she could be pissed that I forgot to unlock the car for her to sit in. But she definitely wouldn't be angry enough to just leave.
Or maybe she could be annoyed, with me asking her about the divorce yesterday and being all good today. But she still wouldn't be annoyed enough to just go without saying anything.
I look around the car a little, and it was crazy how my reflex was to look under the car. What the fuck would she be doing underneath it?
But again, that girl was unpredictable.
I look around again. The parking lot was mostly isolated, it being a Friday afternoon, except two more cars.
"Nandini?" I call, a little loudly, hoping she would appear from somewhere and tell me she was talking on the phone.
But when she didn't, fear started to set in. I immediately take my phone out and dial her. Nandini always kept her phone on silent, but I was hoping this one time she wouldn't have.
And she hadn't. I could hear the signature iPhone ringing in the alley way besides the parking lot, and taking a breath of relief, I followed the voice into the isolated lane, wondering what she'd be doing there. We teach Mia not to wander off to estranged places, and here I was, tempting to teach her mother the same thing.
"Nan-" my voice dried in my throat as I looked at the scene a mere hundred meters away.
She was standing leaning on the wall, her hands up in the air in defence. A gun was pointed on her forehead, held by a thug who's face was covered by a scarf, and blonde long hair falling on both his shoulders. He was about as tall as me, and hovering over Nandini, who seemed so petite and afraid in front of him.
It made my blood dry when they both turned towards me.
This was America. Unfortunately, getting mugged was quite common here, especially if you're a person of colour.
And somehow, most of them end up with the trigger of the gun being pulled whether you cooperate or not.
That was the exact thing I was fearing when the thug looked at me. I was his height, and he knew I could easily take on him in a fight, and I was afraid he'd shoot Nandini and try to run away.
So I did what I best could, immediately put my hands up in defence and slowed my pace, taking baby steps.
"Don't," I say, "Don't shoot."
"Stay away!" He shouted back, taking a step behind, his gun swaying from Nandini to me and then back to her.
I halt in my place and remove my wallet. "You can take this," I put it up and ahead, along with my phone, in a way to lure him away from Nandini.
And he does, moving towards me, his gun still positioned at her.
He walks towards me until he was just a few feet away, and then puts the gun on me. "Throw. Now."
I do as he asked, throwing both of them at his feet.
"Watch too," he says, eyeing the silver Rolex on my left wrist.
I sigh, removing it when something catches my eye.
"I can't give you the watch," I say, pleadingly, "Take anything else."
He points the gun back to Nandini. "Watch. Or her head. Now."
"Manik!" Nandini shrieks from behind, "Just give it to him. Please."
"This one's precious," I eye at him, while removing my watch.
"More precious than the girlfriend?" He laughs underneath the black scarf covering his face.
I nod negatively, holding the watch in my hand. "If I throw, it will break."
He sighs in annoyance, taking a step ahead, his gun positioned at me now, putting his hand ahead for the watch.
I spread my arm as well, but instead of placing the watch in his hand, I pull him towards me. He shoots, but I duck to my left in time. In one striking motion, I turn him, my hand holding his neck, choking his breath and from the other hand, I pull away the gun.
Nandini was staring at me with horrified eyes.
"Call 911. Now." I shout at her and she fumbled to find her phone in her pocket, dialling the numbers.
"That girl," I tell the man, "She's my wife."
"And this watch?" I tell him, holding his own gun to his forehead, "It was her last gift to me."
"You're gonna regret this, mate," The man replied. "Should have just given it to me and left. Love will be your destruction, quite literally."
"From how I see it," I tell him, pressing his neck a little more, and he coughs, "Love will always be my strength."
Nandini runs towards the both of us, and looks at me with wide eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Are you okay? Can't stay out of trouble, can you?" I smirk.
"Shut up!" She shouts at me, and I see the slight tears filling into her eyes.
"Nandini-" I start but she cuts me off.
"Don't," she says, "Please just hold on. The ambulance and the police are both on their way."
"The ambulance?" I ask her, horrified. "Are you hurt?"
"Am I hurt?" She almost laughs. "You're hurt!"
"I?" I repeat, confused, and then in a moment, feel the extricating pain in my left arm. Maybe I hadn't ducked enough when he had pulled the trigger. But for a fact, I knew I didn't have the bullet in me. I wouldn't have been standing on meet otherwise.
"You're lucky that the bullet only touched you," she shouted, her eyes fixed at my left arm, where the white fabric had turned red. "If you would have actually got shot Manik, I swear to God I would have killed you!"
"This," the mugger says, "This is why I don't do marriage." He struggled to get out of my grip as I push the gun's edge further onto his forehead and he stops moving.
"Shut up," I and Nandini tell him, both at the same time.
Faint sound of sirens fill in the air around us.
Nandini looks back at me, her eyes still glistening with tears that I thought she would have long hidden. "You should have just given away the watch."
"You gifted it to me," I say, staring back at her. The sirens become more prominent. "I promised to never lose it."
A single tear drop trickles down her face. "We have broken so many promises, Manik. Breaking one more wouldn't have hurt us anymore than you already did."
Her one sentence made me freeze at my place. I didn't care about anything anymore. I didn't care about the mugger trying to break lose or the policemen as they took the thug from my grip. I didn't care about the blood oozing out of my arms or the ambulance parking in the distance. I didn't care about the scorching sun or the way I began dropping in my knees as my head suddenly spun, probably due to blood loss.
All I cared about was her, her widened eyes, and her shocked expression, as if she had never meant for those words to come out of her mouth.
All I cared about how she overcame her shock when she saw me dropping due to the weakness and immediately took a step ahead to hold me, but stopped midway.
All I cared was about how much she wanted to run into my arms and how much I wanted to hold her in mine, but truth being said, our worlds didn't fit into each other's anymore. Her world was full of colours and sunshine, and mine was black gloomy storms and grey ashes and everyone knows the consequence of adding black over any other colour: only black prevails.
Despite knowing the consequence, I had once let my black flow freely through her colours and in the end, I had to pull away the black of my world before it takes away all the colour of hers and makes it like mine.
But what I also knew was that someday, our worlds will collide again. She'd be colourful and I would still be pitch black but on that day, her world would acknowledge that black was a colour too.
Maybe someday I'd be able to hold her in my arms again and she'd belong to my world just as much as I would belong to hers.
But as I looked at her watching me with pain in her eyes, it hurt my heart to know that that someday was not today.
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Fav part?
Divorce conversation coming in next update. What do you think will happen?
Do you want me to include the therapy sessions (with Aryamman) or would you like me to skip them?
I felt like I could include a small glimpse in every few chapters but therapy about love could get repetitive sometimes, and I didn't want to bore y'all.
Let me know what you think.
Thank you for reading.
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Love,
Heer.