Everything was fine until I felt my heart skip a beat, I felt someone familiar beside me and got the same old fear again. I moved my eyes to the other side of me to see if it’s really my music teacher Pundit Trilok Chaurasiya or am I just hallucinating, but it was really him. I turned to Manik to make sure he’s with me and whispered,” Mani, sir is here beside me, he has come again”, I said getting scared.
He bent backward to see him by hiding. “Don’t worry, let’s change our seats”, he suggested and stood up and I sat on his place while he sat on mine. I was still scared and he kept his hand on my hand and I kept my other hand on his and he did the same.
We were sitting hand in hand when I felt something move towards Manik, I bent a little to have a clear view, it was sir’s hand, he put his arm around Manik’s waist assuming him as me, Manik turned to him leaving my hand. “What?”, he asked angrily. “Oh its you, where’s my s*xy bride, my brilliant student?”, sir asked bending forward to look at me but Manik hid me behind him. “How dare you even look at her? At my Nandini?”, he said and punched sir and the fight took place. They started beating each other and I tried to separate them. “Stop it”, I said shouting trying to stop them. “She’s mine damn it, I made her wear the ring”, said sir. “No you did it but I didn’t, leave him”, I said digging my nails in his hand and kept trying to stop them but ended up getting hurt, Manik pushed him coming to me.
He took me out and we sat in the car and started cleaning my wound, though it was a small wound, he cared as if its really big. “Its a small cut, I m OK”, I said. “Let me do my work”, he said and cleaned it with antiseptic and it burnt a lot, I hissed and hugged him digging my nails in his back, he didn’t said anything, his one arm was around me and one on my hand. As I hugged him, I felt a relief, an unknown relief which I never felt before, but why did he say MY Nandini? Does he love me? No no, no one accepts a girl who was raped.
He bandaged my wound and I parted away from him and we drove off to his house, we reached and went to his room, “Nandu I want to say something”, he said. “Say”, I said allowing him and the thing he said, shocked me to the core. “I love you Nandu”, he said cupping my cheeks while I looked at him shockingly.