How many of y'all actually fell for it? ;)
I apologise. Just a harmless prank.
Here's the chapter. Your votes, comments, and feedbacks matter most. Enjoy.
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Manik
The universal interpretation for the colour red, I think, will always be rage.
While I watched the sky blush into a crimson with freckles of yellow and orange when the sun long crossed its peak above head, vails of the ambulance faded in the distance, I puffed some air from my mouth. My eyes fixed at the bright sky no matter how much it stung to look directly into sunlight; I was blinded by the tints of red.
But red has never been the colour of rage to me. Red, to me, will always only stand for passion. That passion could be anything– passionate love, passionate rage, passionate mischief, just passion.
I looked down and back at my wife, who stood in the centre of sunlight, staring nonchalantly at the ground, leaning on my car, and it hurt my heart to think that she wouldn't stand in the shade instead because going into shade would mean her walking closer to me and at this minute, it seemed like she'd do anything but scoop closer.
Nandini reminded me of the colour red. She was my passion. I always thought music to be that, but it didn't take me long to realise that while music would always be my hobby, my passion was always just Nandini. Maybe that is the reason why the thought of completely cutting her off my life still terrifies me, because I know, just how a man without passion is lifeless, I'd be that without her. Alive but still lifeless.
But, there is a lot of difference between knowing that, and being able to accept it.
While a part of me knew I was empty without her, the other part of me also knew that I couldn't accept it, I couldn't let my heart overpower my head.
Stretching my hand which was now covered in white bandaids, I turn towards her. Nandini's eyes were distant and even while looking at me, they looked like they were far away.
A hundred thoughts ran in my head and while I tried voicing even one, nothing came out except two bland words. "Let's go?"
"I– I cant do this."
My feet, which had only turned towards the car abruptly halted and although I was scared to even ask her what that means, my head was quick to snap in her direction. "What?"
"I– I feel suffocated." She gulped, running her hands through her hair and putting some tresses behind her ear, her eyes everywhere but at me, something she often did when she was nervous.
I took a deep breath. "Then let's not go in the car. Would you like to walk instead?"
"Yeah," she pulled a small smile on her face, obviously fake. "Let's walk back."
I nodded, and locking my car again, we started walking in silence until we'd left the supermarket.
Not having anything else to say, I make small conversation. "Mia?"
"Chachi picked her up a few hours ago from school. I texted her to. I kind of figured we wouldn't be done with your nursing until sun down."
I try to not let my eyes flicker back to the setting sun. "You should have gone. I could've managed."
She passed me a side glance. "And I should've left you alone?"
I don't reply, and let her words ring in my ears again and again.
'I should've left you alone?'
"Isn't that what I did?" I ask, after quite the moment.
"What?" She asks, and I realise it had been a minute. She probably didn't remember what she'd just spoken.
"Left you alone, I mean? Isn't that what I did?" I look at her but not being able to do that without feeling remorse, I keep alternating between looking at her and the footpath again, as my hands dig deeper into my pockets.
"Manik," she says, in a firm voice. "It's been three years. Can we not..?"
"Can we not what, Nandini?" I ask.
"Talk about the past." She says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Is that what you want?" I ask.
She was quick to retaliate. "Isn't that what I just said?"
I clear my throat. "But in my life, I've realised, there's a lot of difference between what people say and what they actually want."
She doesn't say anything in return. We walk in silence and I realise we had reached a bridge. It was a small bridge, one similar to what you find in Mia's you sets, built over a small man-made lake which has one of the clearest waters in all of America.
While it's known for it's beauty and the way the water clearly reflects the sky, making an illusion of a mirror, the reason why I was fond of it was except that it lies geographically in the middle of mine and Nandini's houses, this was also the place where we'd come for our first date, as seventeen year old teenagers on a canoe ride through this lake, determined to play this world together someday, not knowing it would be the world who'd play us instead.
My hands lazily trailed on the metal railings which were hot on this sunny afternoon despite the fact that the sun was almost below the horizon, and flashes of our first date played in the back of my head.
It was crazy to think how it was only a few years ago, and we were so madly in love, so excited to be together, just too afraid to accept it, and today, despite accepting it and still being in love, we stood in this same place as only strangers with memories.
I think I could have lived in flashes of my past all the way back to Nandini's house, had she not broken my reverie.
"What do you want from me, Manik?" She said, her voice slightly cracking.
I looked at her, and realised she had slowed walking.
"I want you to tell me what you want." I slowed walking too, to match her pace.
"No," She gulped. "You don't want me to tell you what you want. You want to hear something specific. Just tell me what you want to hear so I can say it and we can get done with this."
"Why would you think that?" I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Because this is who you are," she says, nonchalantly. "You always know what you want. And you are determined until you get that done. That is the first thing I have known about you, and even admired so much at once. And I'm pretty sure there is something in particular that you want to talk about even now. So why not talk about it and get it done with."
I scoff. "I don't believe you, Nandini. You're mad at me?"
As when she had just begun opening up, she covers it with a facade, hiding everything on her face with a neutral, straight face. "I'm sorry I snapped. I'm just having a headache."
I shake my head. "This is what you do, you see? You never tell me what you want. You just accept what I want and go on with life and make everything difficult. If only for once, you could accept what you want!"
We were now on the highest point of the isolated bridge, standing face-to-face.
"You want me to accept what I want?" She looks at me.
"Yes!" I whisper-shout.
"I am mad at you, Manik. Happy?" She looks at me pointedly. "I am mad at you for so many reasons that I can't even begin counting."
"Yeah?" I mock. "How about you try?"
She pushed me behind in annoyance. "There are so many reasons Manik, one evening will be too short a time. But above everything else, I am mad at you for being a coward. I am mad at you for leaving everything the second things began getting tougher. And I'm mad at you for being an excellent father but never a good husband."
"Then leave me!" I shout.
"I can't." She shouts back, almost immediately. Silence spreads between us for a few brief seconds and the only thing that could be heard was the mismatched duet of our heartbeats.
"I have tried!" She looks at me, and I could see faint tears appearing in her eyes. "You think I've not looked at every other man and thought, why couldn't I have fallen in love with him instead? You think I haven't reconsidered every single moment I have had with you only to think how I could have done things differently?"
I blink my eyes at her.
"But you know what's the worst part?" Her voice was almost accusatory.
I could barely find my voice to reply her. "What?"
"The worst part is I lied!" Her nostrils flared in a mixture of anger and hurt and I couldn't even begin to fathom what was going on in that head of hers. "I lied when I told you that I wouldn't fall in love with you again if I had the chance to do it again, Manik. Truth is, I wouldn't change any single second I had with you for the world. I wouldn't change anything about our story despite knowing it ends in tragedy. And I hate myself for how weak that makes me Manik, I hate myself."
I just stare at her, at the way she looks at me with her wide oval eyes now full of accusation and so many emotions fill my heart. Guilt. Dejection. Remorse. Anxiousness. But mostly guilt. So much guilt. "Nandini...."
"Don't," she shakes her head. "Three years ago, you and I stood at a crossroad. And now, we're standing at another crossroad, again. You're putting me in a situation where my head and heart are at a war, again; where I have to keep my self-respect aside because of my love for you, again; where I have to choose between holding on to what is left of us and letting go completely, again; where I have to find a way to alter my thoughts and convince myself of your innocence so that so that I don't hate you. Again."
"Hate me!" I replied, with all the voice I could find within me. "Hate me because I broke your heart. Hate me because I broke every single promise I made to you. Hate me because I broke our humesha. Hate me, Nandini, because I broke you."
As I stared at her, vulnerable, it was for the first time I realised how selfish I had been while trying to be selfless and how much wrong I had done to her while trying to do the right thing.
"You think I haven't tried?" Her voice was defeated. "The deepest emotion that my heart has ever known is to be in love with you. And, if I hate you Manik, what is even left in me then except hatred?"
We stand there in utter silence, just staring, but our eyes were distant for we weren't looking at each other anymore, we were looking at the remains of what was left between us from the teenage couple that we started as with hearts full of love and hope and now all we were was tainted and twisted and broken and played by the unfair ways this universe works in.
"I'm sorry...." my throat was dry and my voice was a mere broken whisper.
"And a sorry is supposed to do what, Manik?" She questions, as if genuinely curious. "What is this sorry even for?"
I take a step closer to her cautiously. "I am sorry that I broke your heart when all I ever wanted to do was protect it."
When she replies nothing, I take another step closer. "I am sorry that I am the one because of whom you cried yourself to sleep when all I have ever intended to do was make sure you smile your brightest smile."
My trembling hands reach her arms and grip them firmly. "I am sorry that I failed to keep so many promises despite wanting to keep all of them."
Traitor tears fall from her face and my hands trace from her arm to her cheek. "I am sorry that you fell in love with a man as complicated as me, who gave you his heart not knowing that all of his darkness would come along."
Her eyes were focused on the ground and she was hyperventilating, clearing trying to hold in the sobs. "And above everything else, I am sorry that I couldn't love you the way you deserved to be loved."
Still trembling, my thumb wiped the tear trails from her face and without caring for the consequences, her face held in my hands, I hover over and place a lingering kiss on her forehead.
She shudders under my touch and I shut my eyes to drink away the appearing tears and in queue to not let her see it, I place my forehead over hers, tasting what tranquility actually feels like again after three full years.
"I'd like to think that another world exists," I take a deep breath, pulling away from her. I observe as she slowly opens her eyes, as if in daze, and how pain flickers in them when they meet mine. "I'd like to think another world exists where my mother didn't die, and I didn't have a life full of darkness and when I'd have met you, it would have been the right place and the right time and I would have held your hand and loved you the way I only promised to do in this one."
A sad smile adorned her lips. "I'd like to think a parallel universe exists too, Manik. And I sincerely hope we get our happily ever after there."
"I don't know if we'd get any ending in this world," I bite my lower lip. "But I want you to know. In any universe, any world, even this one, I love you."
I painfully watch as she scrunches her nose and eyes together, a fresh set of tears arising in her eyes but she sobs, drinking them away and looking away, shaking her head to herself before looking at me.
"I love you too, Manik, I love you too..." she sobs. "But sometimes, love just isn't enough."
I nod.
She looks up at me. "Is this the end to our story, Manik?"
"As long as we have Mia, we will always be the characters of the same book," I tell her. "But I think this is that point where our names would stop being written on the same page."
She nods, sniffing. "Call me when the divorce papers are ready."
I feel much more than a pinch in my heart, as if it was actually pulled out and torn to shreds and a part of me knows this is how I deserve to feel because this is exactly how Nandini must've felt the night she actually found divorce papers in my wardrobe, when I actually didn't even want them.
"I'll– I'll you walk home," I say, pursing my lips, trying to hide the wars I was waging inside my heart.
She shakes her head negatively, the ghost of a small sad smile still lingering on the lips I was once addicted to kiss. "I think it's high time I learn how to walk myself back home, Manik."
I watch as she turns back and I watch as her figure disappears from my eyes. And then, frustrated as I could be, I turn my head to the waters from the tale of the bridge, and that is when my eyes fall on the watch I was wearing.
The watch that I had just nearly risked my life for by taking a bullet instead of having to give it away.
The watch that was Nandini's gift to me on our first anniversary, her last gift ever to me before we parted.
With shivering hands, I remove the watch and stare at the the words engraved behind the metal dial of the customised Rolex watch.
Humesha,
MaNan.
I scoff under my breath and without giving it all a second thought, I throw it into the shallow lake with all the force I could find inside me.
I watch it sinking in the clear water until it disappears from my eyes and probably touched the water bed, just the way I had watched Nandini disappear from my eyes only minutes ago and it felt like she was disappearing from my life, not my vision.
As I turn behind and walk in the opposite direction towards my house under the sky that was no longer a beautiful crimson but now painted in shades of pink and purple, I realise that just like the sky, I too had lost my Red.
The end.
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.
.
Nah.
Just pranking you. Again.
Did you fall for this one? ;)