Arjun flung open the door and the surprise he felt made him retrace his feet two steps back. He blinked and his mind took a one twenty degree swirl before guilt overtook him a hundred fold.
“Sam.” He gulped through his parched throat….”It’s you.” He concluded blankly.
His voice to his ears was sandpapery and hoarse. His eyes and heart as if a pull searched for the light that used to be around him always. Irritating him. Grating at his nerves. Reminding him of the inside light he had somewhere submerged in the dark. Making him hate that light. Yet being there as a strong backing to his confidence. Now he couldn’t find it and the hallow emptiness was swallowing him up slowly.
Sam stood there looking at him through new eyes that he did not recognise. It was the look of letting go. There wasn’t ardent emotion behind those brown eyes. She had been extreme like that. Almost blinded by the things she wanted to believe but nonetheless standing by determined for her friends yet this time Arjun had made her belief unseen by his bluff. He compared that to Radhika’s. Her eyes though were always filled with warmth but with a certain swirl of intelligence. That always did cut through his soul and saw him bare with emotions. With emotions that he didn’t know what to do with. Whereas she knew very well how he was dealing with it everyday.
“Arjun, I need to talk to you about something.” Sam said sighing and calmly.
Arjun wasn’t ready for it. Whatever it was. His hands were clenched and he almost broke out from his skin.
“What is it?” He almost bit out, before calming himself and closing his eyes.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes to see Sam smiling ironically.
His eyes narrowed.
“What is it, Sam? I need to be somewhere and….” He started a little annoyed.
Then she chuckled.
“She does that, doesn’t she?” Sam asked knowingly.
Arjun straightened. His jaw hardened. He didn’t need a blithe ex friend of his wife to piss him off by b*t*hing about her. For all Radhika did was save Sam always. At the least Sam could do was leave Radhika alone if not trusting her.
He remained mute and unrelenting.
Sam circled around him and got inside. Which he did not like. She wasn’t invited in his bedroom except his wife who might have crossed out of the city by now and he needed to get her back. Where she should be right now. By his side. The delay to do that was making him angry by the minute.
“Where is she by the way?” Sam asked looking around curiously.
She turned around and smirked.
“Surprising that she is not hounding you now like she always did when I seem to be around you usually.” She drawled sarcastically.
Arjun looked back flatly at her. The constant way Sam referred to Radhika as ‘she’, it was grating. Yet he remained silent but when she did not move from near his bed, Arjun grew restless.
“What is it? Why are you here?” He asked in a low quite tone.
That thoroughly spoke out stay away clearly but Sam wouldn’t care now because she was in a vengeance spree still. How long was she going to be like that he did not know.
She shrugged and smiled across at him.
“I shouldn’t meet you now?” She asked with a smirk again.
Arjun stiffened. Alright. He was done here.
“If you have nothing important to say.” He murmured uncaringly and turned around.
But what she said next stopped him abruptly in his tracks.
“I’m not in love with you anymore. That is what I came here to inform you about.” She said in a low sardonic drawl.
He turned around instantly and frowned throw off the loop suddenly.
“What?” He asked blankly again.
Sam’s face was now cleared off of all the smugness. It was replaced by a determined calmness. The one he saw at his doorstep before she barged in uninvited. Her brown eyes moved all over his face in flat observation. Like she was looking in his face for something. After a second of more doing that she smiled.
“Strange, isn’t it.” She murmured….”I look at you and I’m truly failing to feel anything.” She concluded but again went on after a long punctuated silence….”I was adamant to see it before and now I know. You aren’t the one for me.” She sighed finally, as if in a sad far away realization.
And she wasn’t hurt and humiliated by it anymore. It was surprising.
Arjun absorbed her words and the strain he felt before unknotted in a revelling now.
His eyes narrowed in observation. The clear realization in her eyes and the lines around her mouth. It wasn’t tight anymore with ripped ego. Instead there was chaste acceptance.
“And how do you feel about it?” He asked in a deep drawl, still trying to burrow inside her mind.
She smiled suddenly. With not devotion into his face but truly glowing with something else he couldn’t point out.
“Liberating.” She replied genially.
Arjun smiled now too. Just like how Radhika’s light entered into his soul unrelentingly, the same spark he was seeing now in Sam’s face. Deny all that she could now, Sam was the shadow of Radhika and the latter was hers.
“It is a relief.” He murmured with a sigh.
Her eye brows raised at that and she chuckled again.
“Wow.” She exclaimed quietly….”You speak her words now.”
The sarcasm was quite but sharp. She wasn’t going to forgive nor forget. Arjun drew back a step warily.
“It is a matter patience that I can really hear my wife being talked behind her back so b*t*hily.” He drawled in a sharp bite.
She coloured spectacularly at his snap but a cold defence stiffened her body.
“And it is coming from a reluctant husband of hers who ran behind me later even after marrying her.” She taunted equally fired up.
His jaw settled. A deep shard of resentment and self loathe built up in his heart.
“And trust me it was an awful mistake. I’m going to pay for it for the rest of my life.” He said to himself quietly rather than to her.
She met his eyes with thoughtful observation rather than angry display of frayed emotions.
“You’re repenting already.” She smiled wryly.
He wasn’t repenting. He was in a purgatory of his own sins. The saving Angel of his life turned wary to drag him up to make him a new man. She left him in the midst of realization of his mistakes when he was still in the hell. Now that he looked around, It suffocated him to see the horror of the darkness. It was the brutal of the punishments that she could make him go through. He might be the only unfortunate Phoenix bird still burned to its ashes but not yet had returned to a new life. He felt oddly rattled to his core. Felt not what it was he was losing. A part of his arm or a part of his heart? But the pain was flesh tearing nonetheless.
He gulped hard. He had not a word to return. He had only words for his wife. If she ever felt back the same thing as he was now in the middle of it.
She gave him a frown before turning around abruptly.
“It is pathetic. Does she know that you are looped around her little finger?” She asked distastefully.
He had enough of her drama now.
“I thought you aren’t in love with me anymore.” He said dryly.
She turned to the side to give him a pointed look.
“I don’t.” She said back flatly….”Is that a surprise?” She asked mockingly.
Arjun sighed finally.
“What’s surprising is the loyalty of your friendship. You make an enemy out of them pretty easily, don’t you.” He said in narrowed observation.
He saw her flinch but only a little before the colour of realized betrayal covered her face and she gulped the convulse.
“I don’t know anymore who was the enemy.” She looked at him suspiciously and then slid her eyes around….”And who is a friend now.” Sam completed the thought sadly.
Her eyes searched for the one friend but finding none she drew back and turned around to leave.
“Do you regret ever meeting her?” Arjun asked her before she could the room.
He needed to know the length of her friendship with Radhika. Was it strong? Was it weak? Even when she was surrounded still in the belief of her friend betraying her, would she still have someplace in her heart to want Radhika in her life.
Sam turned her face sadly to his and smiled ruefully.
“I regret not meeting her earlier.” She said quietly…..”She is keeper, Arjun. You don’t let her go easily.” She concluded without a grudge, and moved out of the room after shrugging.
That was what he needed. If he wanted his wife back then he had to bring her back in Sam’s life before. If at all she agreed to see him that it. All he needed was a confirmation from Sam that the friendship with Radhika she signed upto really was into her heart or it was just one of her whims. Because later he did not want bad blood between the two even after him proving his wife’s innocence. He knew it would hurt Radhika immensely that Sam hated her for taking him away. Which was what she was in a thought his wife before she left him. What she needed now is to believe him.
He looked down at his clenched hand. And he threw the ball of the paper across the wall.
She wasn’t going to stop him with the words and the paltry excuse of the letter. If at all he learned about her anything, Arjun knew one thing for sure that she ran fast and hard not because of him and Sam but suddenly frightened of her feelings for him. He knew that too she was guilty of such thoughts when her friend was involved with him before. There was never a claim of her on him since the start. She knew that. He knew that. Now he was going to make amends.
He needed to solve this jigsaw puzzle of their incomplete lives. Hers. His. Sam’s. And of course Neil’s too. They were stuck in a quagmire of the mess he created. It was going to take a lot cleaning to do since now that he was trailing into the path of light. Which had gone ashtray because of his adamant revenge plan. If she was ready to accept his hateful side then she surely must get to know him and what he thought about her now. As his wife………
************
To be contd..
***********
Yeah I know this is short. But I just was really busy this weekend. Couldn’t write a thing nor a sentence. Well, is this the right title coz it’s been like wow long ago I wrote any part of this u know the continuation of the serial. I cannot compete though. U know its my way of thought on the ‘serial continuation’. It ain’t that good. I know but it is just that I wanted to write it anyhow. Well, it is upto u my dear friends. Should I continue or that I shouldn’t?!?!? Pls do tell. It ain’t my say anymore.
*********
I don’t know why but I have this like an inbred thing. I don’t like people telling me what to do. As in telling me how to do this or that. Making me learn. It really really makes me immediately flushed. Even when I like a little kid I used to retort immediate. ( I don’t simper or boil inside but I need to get it out if im angry. Passive angry that is). I would be like this going all red and inflated in the face and defensive and my retort line snap it comes…..”I know what to do?”
I dunno maybe it comes out rude but whenever someone says that I feel they are patronising me. Which I dislike. Immensely. I hate the tone too. I can identify it. If u want to piss me off then hahaha u can say this to me I would be like calm for a second before I snap not like freaking out or anything but in a way rather quietly. My neighbour aunty used to pinch my cheeks when I was a kid for it. If did retort at her. “Awww so cute when u get angry” She used to coo sweetly. Like how people adore little kids. Trust me kids don’t like that at all. My niece doesn’t like that but she is small and she is coming around to talking still. She doesn’t retort but glare. Well, where was I? Yeah it used to make me feel even more red in the face. I was like “what the hell woman don’t come near me” inside my mind not out loud. Even then a few people deliberately wants to impart there immense intelligence and they feel like certain people must be told what to do. I have seen some elders do it. Like u know rather old aunties. They hv all the TIME in the world to impart wisdom to their lesser capable and poorly brain developed descendants. But I can’t retort coz I have to respect the age. Or else my mom would come scolding me for being blunt or for sounding rather shocking. But really why would they start a sentence addressing me like…..”These kids nowadays….” So distastefully that too. Even if im just passing by. Lol it is funny. I just have to put a sock my mouth. What else can I do to stop the verbal diarrhoea. Any utter word can shock the elegance and refinery out of their years lol. So I just have to zip it.
For heavens sake im not a kid right. I have grown up mind least they can do is treat me like one. Alright whatever. They are from the stone ages. They know better don’t they lol. Hahaha feels good to rant.
Well, oh shucks, said alot. See. I blabber. Blather. Blubber. Blah blah. U can move past it u know. Never mind knowing into my life. It is rather boring.
Alright, till next time then.
Happy Sunday ?
************
Credit to: Blue