The Fragile Trust
Chapter 9
A/N: Thank you for all your encouraging support! I’ve finally been able to reply to all your comments on time. Well, many of you might be thinking that why did I spoil the fantasy that was going on, but I need to show how complex love is and more importantly, how difficult it is to gain love. Anyway, here’s another new update.
In case if someone missed out on the previous update, here’s the link below:
HAPPY READING!
• • • • •
(TWINKLE)
We’ve been sitting here for the past five hours, contemplating how we have been feeling about each other since the past two weeks, how I told Kunj everything about Tvisha di. Five hours ago, life was good and now we’re a mess.
I brush away my thoughts as I feel a pen tip working on my palm. I open my eyes to have a look at Kunj who’s looking at my palm seriously. He is scribbling something upon it. He leaves my hand after a while allowing me to read what he has written.
‘I wish life would be so perfect just as our laced fingers. I wish we could hold each other’s hands like this, always.’
I smile. His words are so innocent and it feels like he just poured out his heart through these words he’d scribbled on my palm a minute ago. I whimper and feel a tear roll down my cheek.
“Shall I?” He pulls out one of his hands from the grip and lifts up his finger. I’ve put him in such a situation where he was even asking me for wiping away my tear. I close my eyes, let the tears roll down and reply, “Yes.”
He kisses my eyes and I can feel my heart stop for a second. It stopped for him and it could possibly never stop for anyone else. I wish life was so illusionistic, a replica of how we wanted it to be.
“Open your eyes, Twinkle. There’s nothing you need to fear about,” he mumbles. “I will be here, right beside you,” he continues. I slowly open my eyes and find him staring at me. I look into his eyes and I can feel how hurt he is. I feel guilty of myself. I shouldn’t have put him into this situation so early. Why on earth did we even meet in the first place!
___
It has been around ten minutes that we both have been looking at each other, intently. There hasn’t been a single change since these last few minutes except that I feel even more guilty of myself now. I want to run away from him and stay all to myself. Completely isolated.
“Twinkle, can I touch you?” He speaks briefing out his emotions so clearly. I feel as if I’m hurting the most innocent soul on this earth. I nod my head signing him to move on. I don’t want to speak in front of him and show him how much he matters to me. Although, he already knows, but the brevity might entagle the two of us more into this situation wherein I need to make a choice. The toughest choice of selecting between Kunj and my parents. I certainly don’t want to leave any of them, but unfortunately Kunj would be the one who can’t be chosen.
The last ten hours of my life have made me realise how difficult and complex love is! I wish both of us could run away somewhere from here to a completely new and isolated place where we needn’t worry about anything, but ourselves. These crucial ten hours make me realise that loving and being loved back by the same person is something not everyone is fortunate of and I also realise that even if you’re highly privileged to be loved back, you mightn’t be so fortunate to spend your entire life with your beloved.
___
Kunj strokes my cheek and slowly his forefinger trails down my jawline and further down to my neck. He stops for a minute and I feel his weight shift on the sofa again. His legs brush against mine and I exhale a deep breath.
“Are you alright?” I keep quite despite him questioning. I don’t want to answer anything. I sit quitely for around a minute when I feel everything around me coming to a hold. I shot my eyes open to look around when I find Kunj sitting still, staring at me intently and his finger resting upon my neck, at the place where it was a minute ago.
“Are you comfortable?” I slip onto his lap and smile asking him to move ahead. He smiles and his palm touches my back. I adjust myself on his lap as I feel a shiver run down through my spine. He moves closer to me and I could figure out that the next moment he would be kissing me.
I feel his warm breath falling on me. His breath slowly shifts and falls on my right cheek and he whispers, “Your call.”
I whimper softly thinking that on whom I’m missing, but did I really have an option! I didn’t want Kunj to hear me whimpering because he’ll again consider it his own fault. He asks me for kissing now and just a week back, we’d no restrictions.
___
After two minutes, I rest my mouth against his forgetting everything that was happening around me, in my mind and heart. My hands move upto his hair slowly ruffling it up while he rests one of his hands on my back and the other one holds my face. The same feeling, the same passion, everything is the same except our imperfect lives.
I reluctantly move away from him and the two of us smile at each other through all the pain we’d been going through currently. “Hold onto me tighter, Twinkle,” he mutters. “I wish I’d an option,” I reply resting my forehead against his.
Kunj’s hands travel up my back into my hair, stroking it while my eyes fall upon the photo frame kept beside us. I shoot a smouldering gaze at the picture remembering Shaurya Mehra and instantly push Kunj away from me. “What happened?” He reaches out for my hand, but I step back quickly and look down at the floor.
‘How could I trust anyone so easily after everything that happened to di?’ I rush to the basin in the hall and scrub the words scribbled on my hand. I rub my face with the back of my palm as the tears roll down my cheeks.
___
I hear footsteps approaching me and I’m afraid to face Kunj. It makes me feel guilty everytime I look at him. I might end up giving him hopes which would never be fulfilled.
I find it so difficult to comprehend for what I should reach out to, Kunj or maa and papa! If I contemplate both the options, my heart breaks apart into two pieces with a little fibre that joins them.
I lie in that little fibre which joins the two halves of my heart. I’d reach out for anyone and the one who pulls me with a stronger force, I’ll be there forever worrying about nothing.
I turn around instantly as Kunj places his hand on my shoulder. He looks at me guiltily and before I could say something, he mutters an apology. “Wait Kunj,” I say and splash water on my face and hands washing away the soap.
___
I hold his face between my hands and say, “What are you sorry for?” He stays quiet and that’s the least I wish for, at the moment. I look at him, trying to take in the emotions that he’s going through.
“Twinkle, don’t force yourself to trust me just because I want to prove it,” he says and I look up at him, guiltily. “Kunj, I trust you. But everytime di comes into my mind, I remember Shaurya. I remember how he cheated her and it forces me not to believe you, even though I want to, so hard,” I pause for a second.
“My heart clenches at the thought that what if you change in the future and start liking someone else considering me to be your liability!” I sit down on the floor against the wall and pull my legs upto my chest. I cover my face with my palms and all I can do is nothing, but cry.
___
He delicately picks me up from the floor and walks towards my bedroom. He makes me sit on the bed gently and he, himself slowly climbs. He reaches out for his shirt and removes it. “Kunj, s*x isn’t going to help us anyway,” I say as he moves closer to me.
He sits against the headboard placing a pillow behind him. I turn around and look at him, blankly wondering about his actions. “Listen to me,” he says and I nod my head trying to listen what he wants to say removing his shirt. “Come here,” he says parting his legs and giving me space to sit in between.
I crawl upto him and sit there like a small baby would do. He places his hand on the back of my head and pulls me towards himself. He makes my head rest against his chest and strokes my hair. I listen to his heartbeat and it perfectly matches mine while his other hand travels down to my waist and wraps it around me. He presses his lips hard into my hair making me feel blessed.
‘Perfection in Imperfection,’ I wonder and he slowly pulls the blanket over us.
___
I wake up in the morning to find myself laying down on the bed comfortably, but alone. My eyes frantically search around for him and I realise that he has left. I whimper and how I wish that this night never got over. I sit up on the bed, resting against the headboard.
My hands move towards the bedside table for a glass of water. I pick it up and gulp the entire of it. I stare at the ceiling for ten long minutes wishing life to be liberal to us, but it I know the wish won’t count.
I shift my gaze towards the bedside to put the glass back when my eyes fall upon a note. I pick it up instantly and reading what’s written makes me want to cry.
“I’ll be waiting for you to say yes and trust me if even it means staying away from you for a month, a year or an entire lifetime.” I hold the note tightly in my palm and pull my legs upto my chest. I hide my face in between my legs and I cry.