We dive into the past in this chapter.
I really wanted to write this to add more history and depth to their characters; I also believe it'll help you understand their decisions in the next update (divorce conversation) better.
Please don't forget to like, comment... and most importantly, enjoy.
~
Manik
I had all
and then most of you,
Some and now
none of you;
Take me back to
the night we met
I think there's something quite melodious in the way droplets of water tap on the ground when it is only beginning to rain. It makes a feeble sound, yet you can hear it even when you're tucked away in a blanket in your room. It fills the air with the scent of raw mud that is intoxicating in a way that makes me want to forget everything I'm worried about and stare outside my window as the slight drizzles turn into devastating storms.
Even as a kid, I was always fascinated by rains. I was never the kind of child to hide in a closet when thunder boomed across the sky. I was the kind of crazy to sit outside with a camera in my hand, trying to capture the way lightnings strikes. It enchanted me, how such a small streak of light in the sky had the power to create such a tremendous impact, breeding fear in the minds of so many.
I think I was always twisted that way, being bewitched by fires and thunders and storms and all things that I was warned to stay away from. I had a bone for adventure in me, a knack to rebel, to do everything opposite of what I was told to.
It was only one such night when I stood in the art gallery, owned by my father's friend. I was sixteen then, in a crowd of all adults, there for an inauguration of the artist's new collection, a set of shitty paintings inspired by the idea of soulmates.
I was always a lover of art, appreciative towards other's handwork, but the set of paintings in front of my eyes were nothing but a dull combination of colours that my father's friend so proudly called masterpieces, and trust me when I say so, there was nothing interesting about any of it.
I was dragged there by my father but I would rather have been home, hanging out with my friends, doing band practice and discussing the keys to our first official album them lurk here in the wearisome display of crap that they called art.
So it was only fair that I didn't get myself involved in he mainstreams and hung out alone behind, watching through the glass walls of the art gallery at how it was raining outside.
And it was only fairer to a sixteen year old teenager's mind, to slip out at the first chance he got.
I had carefully looked over my shoulder to make sure my beast of a father was preoccupied in his fake smiles with the fake people he called friends, and left the gallery, but the minute I was about to step out, I heard something.
"Sneaking out?"
The voice was foreign, making me jump as I turned back to face its owner.
It was a young girl, shorter to me, her long black hair flying away by the air, her hazel eyes staring at me with a smile lingering on her lips.
Her face seemed familiar, I didn't know why, but still unrecognisable.
She was beautiful. She wasn't the kind of beautiful that would make your face turn for a second look of her, and she didn't have the kind of face that would make her hard to forget, but she was beautiful in the way her wide eyes looked at me, and you could just smell innocence all over her even when she hadn't spoken a word to me.
My eyebrows knit together and an embarrassed smile made its way to my lips. "You saw that, didn't you?"
With a smug smile on her face, she feebly nodded, shrugging effortlessly. "But I won't tell anyone, you can run."
"I wasn't running," I lie, "I was just going out in the rain. I love getting wet when it drizzles."
"Me too," her eyes widened in a sudden enthusiasm, making me believe she had much more love for rains than anyone else I had ever seen.
She chuckled under her breath. "I swear I'm not the kind of crazy to dance in the middle of the street when it's raining," she said, "I just love getting wet in the rains too much. My Dad and I used to love playing soccer in the rains back in India when I was a kid."
A smile passed through her lips again, as if the memory was playing right in front of her eyes.
I just blinked my eyes at her. It wasn't very often that someone's one sentence sent me into a loophole, but with what she just said, I found myself wondering if I had any memories with my own father to think about this way, and in heart wrenching way, my head answered no. There was no good in our relation, never has been.
"I'm sorry," she shut her eyes for a brief moment, shaking her head, "Too much information, right? I'm just nervous, and I blabber too much when I'm nervous; although my Mom used to say I talk too much anyways, I talk even more when I'm nervous– I'm doing it again, ain't I? Blabbering?"
I chuckle under my breath, slightly nodding.
"You know what?" She says, more to herself, "I'm just gonna go. You do your thing. Sneak out."
"What? No, wait!" I called after her and she stopped, turning behind.
I shut the door of the gallery behind me.
"So, are you here with them? Your parents?"
"No," she replied, her face emotionless. "I'm here with my Uncle and Aunt."
Then she quickly added, "What about you?"
"I'm here with my Dad," I reply.
"Ah," she clicks her tongue. "So you're here for the inauguration?"
"Yup," I nod. "What about you?"
"Oh no, I... I had come around with some work. And my Chachi, being so fond of paintings, insisted we stop here to have a look at those.
"And do you like them?" I found myself asking.
"Honestly?" She squeezes her brows together. And then sheepishly shakes her head negatively.
I chuckle under my breath. "I don't either."
"Wow," she mutters under her breath, as we turn towards a painting. The right side was all black and the left was all white while the middle was full of strokes between the two colours and wherever they intercepted, a natural grey was formed. The painting still seemed wet, for I could see the shine on the black colour, almost watery.
"To be honest, I don't get the whole concept of soulmates at all. And even if I did somehow understand and believe in it, I'd still never see how blending two different colours together so many times is relevant to it. Or how it is pretty," I shrug.
She laughs. "I think the artist drew inspiration from the idea of how two people, so different and opposite from each other, can meet midway to make things work... because they fit in together, like soulmates do," she replied.
"You know you have quite the deep thinking for a child, right?" I tease.
"I'm fifteen!" She pouts. "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," I smirk.
"See, almost as old as you," She shrugs.
"Still not old enough," I say, playfully. "Someday you'd see, this whole idea of soulmates? That's all fairytale shit. In real life, if two people are as different as the colours this insane man has chosen, that relationship is doomed to fail. Because believe it or not, only love isn't enough to keep two people together."
She was quick to counteract. "My parents were opposite poles. They still managed to make their relationship work, and so beautifully. They were the epitome of love for me."
I was quick to catch on. "Were?"
"They're dead," she replied in an emotionless whisper, drawing out a deep breath. "It's actually my fathers birthday today. So I was visiting him in the graveyard with my uncle and aunt."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I instantly say, and then go silent. Just talking about death causes a hole in my heart. I had lost my mother a few years ago, and still, the wound seemed pretty fresh. And then there she was, having lost both her parents and still finding the courage to smile when she thinks about them.
I thought she was different from me, but maybe not so much. Maybe we had similar stories, laced with the death of loved ones. Only the outcome was so different.
My trauma made me tainted and broken in a way that is irreparable. It has inflicted wounds so deep that someday even if I want to, I wouldn't be able to look past them. It was too much to think about at sixteen, but I knew love wasn't made for me. When you grow up like I did, in a toxic household of abuse, love scares you. Stability scares you. Because you know that everything has consequences. There is a price to be paid for everything. Even happiness.
And then there was her. I didn't know her, not even her name really, but when you look at the way her eyes are shining in this dark evening, as if making up for the absence of stars, you can just see through her soul in her eyes. You can see her innocence and you can see that all the trauma that she went through somehow made her only kinder. You can see that she has hope in her heart, and it made me want to protect that all costs.
"Do you look at the way these black and white meet–" she said, pointing at the painting but accidentally, she touches the colour, displacing the painting as it falls.
We both flinch. The noise it made was enough to attract the attention of everyone, including my dad and his friends.
The man in the tux we had handed the bouquet of flowers to, I assumed the artist, came forward, and my dad followed.
My dad's voice was kind and soft. "What happened, son?"
I could feel the girl next to me shudder, and that was when I realised that I hadn't even asked her her name, or told her mine.
"I dropped it accidentally," I say, covering up. His eyes widened at me as the artist went forward to pick up the painting, and I was right. The undried black colour had spread all over the white. I turn to him, and say, "I'm sorry."
I could see the shorty's wide eyes and she opened her mouth to say something, probably the truth, but I pinched her and showed her my eyes, making her go quiet.
The artist laughed. "It's okay, Manik. This was spare anyway."
I breathed in relief. I could see another man step ahead, towards my stranger, whom I assumed was her uncle, telling her it was time to home.
She looks back at me silently, her eyes saying more than any combination of words could.
"Until we meet again?" She whispers, her eyes bearing a look I couldn't decipher.
I wasn't a person who smiled a lot, but everytime I looked at hers, the ghost of a smile kept lingered on my lips. "If we meet again."
With that, she turns and walks away, and I let her. I don't ask her what her name was or exchange numbers, because I think I knew why some stories were better left incomplete.
When, I stepped inside my house with my father after returning from my gallery hours later, the first thing he had done was slap me across my face. Turns out, he wasn't very happy about the accident that happened, and either he was too annoyed of my rebel behaviour, or it was all the wine he had drank with his friends, or maybe because of both. I never cared to find out.
I still remember his words to me that night, they still ring in my ears, clear as day night: 'There could be a valley of sunshine and rainbows, and somehow, only a mere touch from you is enough to turn into a pit of thunderstorms, Manik. You can turn any colour into a plain black, destructive and embarrassing. Just like you.'
That was also the first night I stood up to my father. The first time that I didn't let him abuse me. He hit me like he did, but I didn't just take it like I used to.
I hit back.
His cheek was swollen for days, and he learnt to never hit me again.
The next day, as I sat on the last bench of a classroom, sitting alone because there were benches of two and my four friends were already sitting in pairs, there was a role call like everyday.
Except this time, I saw the familiar face from last night walk up when the teacher called out her name, and when she walked back, she didn't sit in her seat. She sat next to me.
"Told you we'd meet again," She winked at me, before passing a generous smile and her hand. "I'm Nandini."
"Manik," I took her hand, "Manik Malhotra."
Now that I look back at the old days, maybe that night was when our story should have begun, and that should've been just when it ended.
She was enchantingly beautiful, dangerous for my world, and like every other thing I was told to stay away from, I was drawn to her innocence like a moth to fire.
And in the end, my father was right.
I took away her valley of sunshine and rainbows with a mere touch of my presence and turned it into a lifetime of miseries.
And with every passing second, my heart will beat with only love for her but the regret of making her love me back will always be stronger.
~
We gear up for the much awaited divorce conversation in the next chapter.
Would you like it in Nandini's PoV or Manik's?
Just a friendly reminder, it takes a few minutes to read a chapters but it takes day to plan and hours to write one.
Any support is approached so much.
Love,
H.