(Untold Stories) Chapter Fourteen: Quiet Footsteps

(Featured image sourced from Google)

 

(Long chapter incoming, friends. Please consider yourselves warned. Lol. And I cannot thank you enough for all the words of encouragement and love that you leave behind- whether on this story, or the other one. Truly humbled, and ever so grateful!)

 

**

 

Khushi glanced at her reflection in the mirror and attempted yet again to hook the neck-piece at the back of her neck. It was a simple golden chain with a minimalistic pendant set in the middle – just the kind of jewelry that she liked. Her heavy, ornate, jewelry sets that had been gifted to her in marriage were all locked up in a bank locker somewhere on the other side of Delhi. She was getting dressed for AR’s annual party – a gala she had heard a lot about in office which made her all the more apprehensive about it. In the few months of her marriage, she had come to try and avoid any and all social gatherings and revelries if she could, but the annual gala was unfortunately one of those events which she, as an employee in her first year with the company, couldn’t afford to give a miss. She had worn her hair into a light chignon, was dressed in a simple, midnight blue chiffon saree with light sequin-work lining the pallu, and had put on bare minimum makeup on her face. She assessed herself in the mirror once in a careless, hasty appraisal, and observed with detached indifference that she had developed darkened circles forming crescents underneath her eyes. Unzipping her small makeup pouch, she pulled out a concealer and dabbed it uncaringly over the shadowed evidences of her sleepless nights. Once she was satisfied that they looked relatively less noticeable, she lowered her head again, trying one last time to concentrate on getting the chain hooked at the back of her neck. It was then that she felt cold palms snake over her own. Her hands stilled as she raised her head to look at Shyam’s reflection in the mirror, standing right behind her.

 

 

 

Oddly enough, for the past few days Shyam’s mood had restored to its usual, and the constant overtones of anger had vacated both his speech and actions. Instead, he had a perpetual passive aggressive look on his face, and everytime that he would look into her eyes, she had trouble figuring out if the expression she saw in them was one of resentment, or of mocking amusement. His calm demeanor had raised a hundred red flags inside her head – why was he so casual about the money constraints? More importantly, how had he suddenly managed to go back to his life of partying and alcoholism without any steady source of income? The nagging worry inside her head had lead her to repeatedly check their combined back accounts to see if her father had resumed channeling money into it behind her back, and despite her wishes. There were, however, no evidences of any transfer whatsoever; not ever since her last conversation with her father. Which begged the question- where was he getting the money from?

 

 

 

“Here, let me help you with that,” Shyam said, taking the two ends of the chain from her hands and clasping the hook. His hand hovered near her neck even after he was done, and Khushi found herself feeling nauseous from his proximity. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from asking him to take a step back and away from her.

 

 

 

“A penny for your thoughts?” Shyam asked in a voice that made her skin crawl, his eyes all the while fixed on her face in the mirror as his fingers played with the tendrils at the nape of her neck.

 

 

 

Khushi forced a tight lipped smile and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, “I was just thinking about work.”

 

 

“Are you sure?” Shyam drawled. “Because I feel like you want to ask me something. Don’t you want to ask me something, Khushi?”

 

 

 

Khushi’s heart thudded inside her chest. Something was wrong.

 

 

 

“Nothing, why do you say that?” she asked. “Should I be asking you something?”

 

 

 

Shyam let out a dry laugh. “Like they say my love, ask no questions and you shall hear no lies. Anyway, you look all dressed up. Going for a wedding?”

 

 

 

Here it was, again. An attempt to make her feel self-conscious about the way she looked. However, this time Khushi knew for a fact that in no way was she overdressed. A simple saree, with minimal jewellery and makeup could hardly draw attention in a crowd where people had been planning their wardrobe for months in anticipation of that night’s event.

 

 

 

“No,” she replied. “It’s a work thing. Anyway I think I should get going now. I’ll be late,” she said, trying to shift forward so she could break the contact between her neck and his fingers. However, just as she attempted to do that, his hand slipped down and around her neck, ever so lightly encircling it. She felt him lean down to reach the height of her shoulders.

 

 

 

“You know,” he spoke near her ear, so near that she could smell the alcohol in his breath. “I love how honest you are with me. I ask you a question and you give me the one true answer…because you know how I hate it when people hide things from me. You know, when they go behind my back to get what they want thinking that they’re fooling me in the process. I really….really…don’t appreciate that. But you baby, you would never do that to me, would you?”

 

 

 

Khushi froze. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he could be alluding to. He had clearly found out that the money had stopped flowing from Lucknow at her behest. Not just that, going by the calmness of his demeanor and the resumption of his former extravagant lifestyle, he had also done something about it that she was yet to know of. She gazed at their combined reflection in the mirror in front of her, with his hand around her neck in a not-very-subtle gesture that despite the lightness of his fingers, made her feel like she was actually being strangulated. Gasping, she pulled herself away from him, putting herself out of his reach. Standing on her feet, she ran a hand over her neck, as if to erase the contact of his fingers from them.

 

 

“I’m late, I should leave now,” she said, and brushed past him towards the door.

 

 

“Of course,” a drawl followed her. “It’s rude to keep people waiting after all.”

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

It had been a couple of days since, and Khushi’s restlessness was getting more pronounced with each passing moment. She knew that if she had to get to the bottom of things, she had to act fast, and act alone. There was no point in waiting for help that wasn’t coming, no point in looking for support that did not exist. She needed to find out what exactly was happening, and for that she needed to collect every fiber of courage within herself. One false step, one misjudged move, and she could end up compromising on both her safety and sanity. But first, she needed to be positively sure about her apprehensions. The joint bank account was telling her nothing, a conversation home would be just as futile since there were slim chances of her father coming clean on the matter had he been going behind her back in the first place. There was only one source left for her to have the answer to her questions – and that was Shyam himself.

 

 

 

The bedroom was drowned in darkness with the exception of the soft yellow light coming from the night-lamp on her side of the bed. Shyam lay to her left, his face down-turned on the pillow, hands splayed on either side of it. She could tell by the evenness of his breath, and by the relaxed stance of his body, that he was fast asleep.

 

 

 

Khushi knew he slept with his cellphone placed underneath his pillow. The tricky part was to extract it without waking him up in the process. She leaned down to confirm from the rise and fall of his chest, and from his steady breaths that he was fast asleep, and then, collecting every fiber of courage in herself, slowly slipped a hand under his pillow. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wriggle her hand around and found the phone no sooner had she slipped her palm a few inches forward. With remarkable dexterity, she gripped the device and slipped it out from underneath the weight of Shyam’s head on the pillow.

 

 

 

Once the phone was in her hands, she pressed the power switch on, and a number lock emerged on the screen, almost as if mocking her for having thought that it’d be that easy. She tried feeding his birth-date figures into it, but the man was more shrewd than that. Khushi wanted to scream in frustration. The situation had left her with only one option.

 

 

She glanced at the sleeping figure of her husband, her heartbeat racing inside her chest. As slowly as possible, she brought the cellphone near his hand, and then softly, with an index finger, raised his thumb to the fingerprint scanner on the phone. She paused, to see if it would break his sleep, but he showed no movement. Taking in a quiet, deep breath Khushi swallowed nervously and pressed the thumb to the scanner.

 

 

The phone unlocked in a blink.

 

 

Thanking all divine powers at work, Khushi extracted the phone back into her hands, and Shyam’s thumb fell nimbly on the bed. Placing a finger on the screen to keep it alive, she softly slipped out of the bed onto the cold marbled floor of the bedroom. Walking tip-toed, she crossed the length of the room till she had made her way into the adjoining washroom and only when she was safely within its confines, did she release a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding on to.

 

 

She needed to act fast, lest he woke up and found his phone missing. Clutching her night robe tightly around her, Khushi clicked on the messaging icon on the screen. A quick scroll told her there was nothing to be found there – people rarely used SMS services in 2017. She closed the app, cursing herself for every precious second wasted, and opened WhatsApp instead.

 

 

The first couple of chats were with women whose names Khushi had never heard before. From the chat listings, she could see that the last messages sent to them were of ‘wink’ and ‘heart’ emoticons. However, she neither had the time, nor the inclination to find out about Shyam’s various ongoing hookups which frankly, she couldn’t care less about. She scrolled through the list till she finally came upon the name she had been searching for- ‘Gupta Uncle’

 

 

With a heightened sense of foreboding, Khushi opened the chat thread and scrolled through the most recent messages. Her heartbeat stilled as she saw confirmatory messages of money transfers from her father to Shyam into his personal account. Each transfer would be followed by profuse expressions of gratitude from Shyam, assuring her father that the business was taking up steadily, and that all was wonderful between him and Khushi. Each time her father asked Shyam to “keep the matter between themselves”, since Khushi “did not understand how these things worked” and tended to “unnecessarily worry herself over small things”. Each time Shyam would agree readily to oblige, stating that he “could see anything but worry on Khushi’s face”, and would do everything in his capacity “to keep her happy.”

 

 

Tears obfuscated Khushi’s vision. So this is what deception felt like. This is what heartbreak truly was. She could physically feel the ache of betrayal permeate through her being, and in that moment it hit her how truly alone in the world she really was. She felt numb. Shocked. Unable to grapple with the wound of this fresh stab into her heart, she let out a strangled sob.

 

 

The next few minutes were spent in trying to check the free flow of tears with the back of her hand. Eventually, she dried her eyes with the loose end of her robe. She needed to replace the phone before Shyam could wake up. And then, she needed to figure out her options to get the hell out of their marriage.

 

 

After a few moments of self pep talk, and drying out her eyes, Khushi hit the power button to return the screen back to sleep mode.

 

 

She was about to turn, when she felt a presence behind her. Before she could fully turn around, she heard a voice breathe down her neck –

 

 

“Looking for something, sweetheart?”

 

 

In a gasp, the phone fell from her hands and onto the cold marble floor of the washroom, the door of which, Khushi had forgotten to lock.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

“I cannot believe the trip is over already,” Anjali whined from the backseat of the car. “It feels like I’ve been seeing these hills since forever and still the desire to soak in more of them is insatiable.”

 

 

“I know, I’m going to miss this, man. Every bit of it,” Aakash, who was seated to her left said with a wistful sigh, and then glanced meaningfully at Lavanya who smiled back at him. The group was headed for the airport from where Arnav, Anjali and Aakash were to catch their flight back to Delhi. Khushi and Lavanya, as per their earlier plans, would stay behind for a couple of days more to explore Nainital.

 

 

The mood at the backseat of the car was strikingly different from that at the front. Khushi had insisted on driving and was positioned behind the steering wheel, with Arnav seated on the passenger seat to her left. Her mood was sombre to say the least, courtesy the constant buzzing of her phone which she had placed on the dashboard of the car. Every few minutes the device would noisily vibrate while flashing an unknown number on the screen, and each time Arnav would look pointedly at Khushi only to have her gesture towards him to ignore it. At times, she would tear a hand away from the steering wheel to extend it towards the dashboard and disconnect the call herself. It was clear that the only thing that was stopping her from switching off her phone for good was the fact that she was using the Google Maps app running on it for navigation.

 

 

“I’m sorry, it’s just a spam call I’m guessing,” she finally said to him on the ninth call, when she felt a need to offer something more by way of explanation. Arnav’s gaze alternated between her face and the phone, an unreadable expression writ across his face.

 

 

“Or maybe I can just switch off my phone and use yours for navigation, if you don’t mind,” Khushi said hesitantly, when his eyes remained fixed upon her face. And just as she spoke, the screen of her phone lit up to life once again (for the tenth time) with the same random numbers flashing on it.

 

 

“Can I receive it?” Arnav asked, the calmness in his voice doing an unbelievably fine job of cloaking hidden emotions of anger and annoyance that he had been battling ever since the first call.

 

 

Not sure if she had heard him correctly, Khushi’s forehead creased in confusion. “What?”

 

 

“You said it’s a spam call, right?” he asked. “You’re driving, so let me receive and tell whoever’s at the other end to shut the hell up.”

 

 

Khushi panicked. “Um. No, no. There’s no need for that. I’m sure whoever it is will eventually figure it out for themselves that they’ve got the wrong number and stop calling.”

 

 

“Well, this is the tenth call, so I am guessing what they need is a little help in reaching that conclusion,” he said, and just like that, reached for the phone resting in front of him.

 

 

“Arnav-!” Khushi exclaimed, her heart wildly hammering inside her chest, her eyes anxiously alternating between the road in front of her and the man seated to her left, who was now holding her phone in his right palm.

 

 

His thumb hovered above the green icon on the screen, a touch away from receiving the call. When she exclaimed his name, it stilled over the icon, and he looked into her eyes.

 

 

“I-I think I know who that is,” rushed words flowed from her mouth, her hands now feeling unsteady on the wheel. “Trust me you don’t want to- I mean, you have no idea-”

 

 

“If you know who it is-” Arnav dropped his voice an octave so that he was inaudible to those seated at the back, “-and if after knowing, this is still the tenth call, then I insist on taking this one.”

 

 

“It always stops after a few calls,” Khushi said hastily, and Arnav widened his eyes in shocked disbelief.

 

 

“Always? It always stops after a few calls? Khushi, I might not know who this is, but this behaviour is harassment. Do you understand that? And if this is not the first time then why is this number not blocked on your phone?”

 

 

“It’s a different number each time. How many numbers am I supposed to have blocked? And I know it is harassment. It’s just that if I receive the call right now, it’ll only get worse,” she replied, her anxiety mirrored in the sudden edge that had crept into her voice.

 

 

“Which is why I’m saying, allow me to receive,” Arnav said resolutely. His thumb hovered nearer to the green ‘call receive’ icon on the screen, and he looked at her expectantly. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, but I would appreciate it if you would trust me on this,” he said, with gentle assurance in his voice.

 

 

The sincerity in his expressions and the coaxing overtones in his voice, left Khushi grappling for words to present to him in further argument. Hands clutching the steering wheel with a force that whitened her knucles, her gaze was fixed on the road as she mercilessly chewed on her bottom lip.

 

 

“This is such a bad idea,” she said finally after a few seconds, shaking her head. “What if he- I can’t believe I’m letting you-”

 

 

That was all the permission Arnav required. In the next instant, his thumb had hit the ‘receive’ icon and the phone was raised to his ear.

 

 

Khushi’s heart felt lodged somewhere near the base of her throat, and when she heard Arnav’s glacial “Yes?”, she felt like it would lurch right upto her mouth.

 

 

There was no response from the other end of the line. Arnav Singh Raizada’s voice had shocked Shyam Manohar Jha into silence.

 

 

“Do you not have a voice, or do you not know how to use it?” Arnav asked sharply, enough for Khushi to flinch.

 

 

“Is- Is this Khushi’s phone?” a man’s gruff voice answered finally.

 

 

Arnav looked at Khushi, and the wild panic he saw in her eyes made him want to somehow physically get through the line and strangle the voice on the other end.

 

 

“Do I sound like a woman to you?” he asked back, his tone frigid.

 

 

There was absolute silence on the other end of the line, and after a few seconds, the call was unceremoniously disconnected.

 

 

Arnav saw red. “Coward fuckn’ asshole,” he swore under his breath, and was about to dial back on the number when he felt a cold palm slide over his own.

 

 

“Arnav. Let it be. Please.”

 

 

His gaze shifted from the slender fingers wrapped over his hand, to the face that was now looking at him with an emotion he couldn’t really give a name to. He looked into her eyes for a few seconds, and the silent plea in them weakened his resolve to persist. He nodded slowly at her, his eyelashes flickering in assurance that he had acknowledged her request. Resisting the strong urge to entwine her slender, cold, fingers into his own, and squeeze the warmth back into them, he leaned forward to place the phone back on the dashboard. Khushi pulled her hand back, and let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding on to. The fingers on her right hand slowly eased their hold on the steering wheel.

 

 

“Guys, is everything fine?” Lavanya’s head emerged in the space between the two front seats. “What happened Khush? You look pale,” she said with concern in her voice.

 

 

“It’s fine Lavi,” Khushi whispered, shaking her head and looking ahead at the road as she reassured her friend. “All is good,” she said with a forceful swallow, and a small smile.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

“So I think it needn’t have to be said out loud that we absolutely must be in touch even though this trip is over. I would like to believe I have made some friends here, so don’t you guys give me a cold shoulder once we’re back in Delhi,” Anjali addressed Khushi and Lavanya with a pleasant grin on her face. They had just reached the airport, and now stood in a circle in front of their rented car, in the midst of the hustle and bustle around them.

 

 

“And what makes you think people would like to keep in touch with you unless they absolutely must?” Arnav asked his sister, even as he pulled her duffle bag away from the grip of her hand and took the weight into his own. She narrowed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

 

 

“Not everyone is you, okay Bhai? Some people actually happen to like my company”, she said with a grimace. “Aakash, Khushi, Lavanya, this is where you guys jump in and tell my brother how awesome I am.”

 

 

Aakash, who knew Anjali since several years now and enjoyed riling her up just as much as her brother did, shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know yaar, do I have to lie?” he asked, and winked at Arnav who let out a dry chuckle in response.

 

 

A small smile tugged at the corner of Khushi’s lips as she witnessed the exchange. Impulsively, she took a step forward, and wrapped her left arm around Anjali in a small sideward hug. “Nonsense,” she said, warmly. “You are the reason we could have this much fun on the trip, Anjali. The whole thing about grouping together was your idea after all. It’s been a pleasure having you join in.”

 

 

“Hah!” Anjali exclaimed loudly, enveloping Khushi back into such a tight embrace that the latter let out a small gasp. Khushi saw Arnav mouth an inaudible “Easy!” as she struggled to keep her balance against the sudden weight of Anjali’s forceful embrace.

 

 

“I knew I liked you the moment I saw you, Khushi. See Bhai?” Anjali said victoriously. “Learn something from Khushi here, will you? You need an entire crash course from her in being nice to people.”

 

 

Arnav’s gaze quietly shifted from Khushi, to his sister, and then back to Khushi, who happened to be looking right into his eyes, even as she stood suffocated in the circle  of Anjali’s embrace. The flush on her cheeks was pronounced, and as they stood there looking at each other, something seemed to quickly shift in the air surrounding them. Their gazes lingered on one another for just a moment too long, enough for Lavanya to sweep a glance slyly in their direction.

 

 

“Also, Khushi,” Anjali’s loud voice broke the momentary trance, and Khushi all but startled at the sound of her voice. “Lavanya has told me all about your aloo and cheese paranthas. Don’t be surprised if I randomly turn up at your apartment one morning demanding them. I’ll also drag Bhai along.”

 

 

Khushi laughed, and before she could check herself, the words were out of her mouth – “Isn’t Arnav allergic to cheese though?”

 

 

Anjali’s grip across her shoulders loosened momentarily, and she looked at Khushi with surprise. “He is. You know that?”

 

 

Khushi stood stunned at her own casual slip of the tongue. Hastily, her gaze darted towards Arnav, and she saw him looking intently at her, his eyes mirroring the surprise in Anjali’s.

 

 

“Er. Yes,” she said with a small, self-counscious, laugh. “I offered him…pizza once, and he told me…so…of course, you know it. You’re his sister, you don’t need me tell you. It just randomly came to my mind when you said cheese parantha. But of course you can come, anytime. I’ll make them for you. And of course Arnav, you too…can come…for chee- I mean aloo parantha. You’re not allergic to potatoes I’m sure?”

 

 

The recepient of the question meanwhile, was steadfastly not being looked at, and Khushi’s eyes remained obstinately fixed somewhere in the air almost a foot away from Arnav, even as she addressed him. Lavanya first widened her surprised eyes in the direction of her friend, then looked at the floor and scratched her nose, trying to hide the smile that tugged at the corners of her lips.

 

 

“No,” Arnav replied, with a small smirk on his face, his gaze refusing to acknowledge anyone in the group but Khushi, while she continued to acknowledge everyone in the entire airport, but him. “Potatoes are fine.”

 

 

If Anjali noticed the sudden awkwardness in the atmosphere, she didn’t let it show on her face. “It’s done then,” she said chirpily, “an aloo parantha date has been officially confirmed, you guys. I’m going to hold you to it in once all of us are back in Delhi. Okay, now you guys wait here while I quickly get a trolly for all this luggage we have here,” she said, pulling her arm away from Khushi’s shoulders.

 

 

“Anjali you wait, I’ll-” Arnav stepped forward, but his sister waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Chill Bhai. I can get a trolly by myself. Stop babying me. I also need to ask the staff at the counter about something.You wait here,” she said, and then not giving him a chance to respond, turned on her heel and skipped away in the direction of the trolly stands outside the airport.

 

 

---

 

 

 

Khushi could feel his eyes on her every now and then, in quick stolen glances that had been too frequent to miss. Lavanya and Aakash had moved farther away from them and were engaged in some sort of conversation, that Khushi was positively sure she didn’t want to intrude upon. Arnav stood nearer to her, and had been seemingly busy on his phone, but every now and then his eyes would find her, and in the next breath would look away. He seemed to be biting his tongue from saying something to her, changing his mind each time just as he looked in her direction. It confused her, but more than that, it made her extremely aware of him, and of the space between them.

 

 

The next time their eyes met, he held her gaze. She looked at him hesitantly, unsure of what she was supposed to say.

 

 

“Khushi can I have a word with you?” he asked finally, with what she was sure sounded like a resigned sigh. He buried his phone into the pocket of his trouser as he took a step forward, closer to her.

 

 

“Yes..sure,” she said softly, her heartbeat suddenly picking up for no apparent reason.

 

 

He stood facing her now, a foot’s distance separating them. “Can you note down a number quickly?” he asked her.

 

 

She looked at him, confusion creasing her forehead, and mumbled “sure…” in response to his request. Assuming that it could be work related, she pulled out her phone from her sling bag that hung down from her right shoulder, and unlocking it, looked back at Arnav expectantly. He began to list a sequence of numbers and she punched them obediently into her contact list as he did. When the numbers were fed, she looked up at him questioningly. “Who should I save it as?” she asked, “is it someone from HR?”

 

 

He shook his head. “No.” he said, “-that’s my personal cellphone number. I only have it shared with Nani, Anjali and a couple of close friends, so I’m available 24/7 on it unlike on my office number. Save it. ”

 

 

Shocked eyes darted towards his own, as Khushi stared dumbfounded at him. When he offered no further explanation, she found her voice.

 

 

“What? I mean, why-”

 

 

“If you get that call again-” he interrupted her, “-the incessant calls you were getting in the car, if he…whoever that is, calls again, I want you to consider informing me on this number. Or you can also redirect the call.”

 

 

Khushi’s hands froze on the phone. She continued to stare at him in disbelief, refusing to acknowledge what he was saying, refusing to acknowledge the concern in his voice. Was he scared for her? Had she come off as that weak and vulnerable to him?

 

 

“Arnav,” she said, her voice now steadier than before, a defensive edge now creeping into her stance. “This..this won’t be necessary. I know all those calls…I mean I know what that must look like, but I swear it’s nothing I haven’t seen or dealt with before. I’m perfectly capable of- I mean I know how to-”

 

 

“I know you do.”

 

 

“And I can-”

 

 

“I know you can.”

 

 

“But then why are you-”

 

 

“Khushi,” he spoke her name softly, his voice no longer veiling the concern behind his words. “I’m asking you to just keep the number. Whoever it was on the call, is now under the impression that the number is mine. So it’s only sensible that you know where to get in touch with should it create trouble for you. I’m just giving you the number. Doing, or not doing anything is up to you.”

 

 

She blinked at him, hesitantly, cautiously, curiously. His face gave nothing away, and yet there was a distinct flicker in his eyes – of concern? of uneasy fear? of…she struggled to find a name for what she saw in them.

 

 

“Arnav!” Aakash called from behind them, breaking their interwoven gazes. “Bro I think we should get going now, it’s getting late.” Anjali had also returned, and stood next to Aakash with her hands gripping the handles of a trolley.

 

 

Arnav nodded in their direction, and returned his eyes back to Khushi’s face.

 

 

“I’ll see you in office, then?” he asked her rhetorically. She noticed how he chose to say he’d see her again, instead of saying goodbye. How he chose not to specify whether he was asking for her response to his earlier offer on withdrawing the resignation, or just making a casual reference to her upcoming notice period.

 

 

Unsure of which question she was expected to respond to, Khushi took a few seconds to answer. But when she did, she nodded her head, and said softly – “I’ll see you in office.”

 

 

His lips stretched into a small smile, and he nodded back at her. He realized he was glad to not know which of his questions had just been answered. It was too soon. Too soon to expect a reply from her, and though he refused with remarkable determination to admit it to himself, it was also too soon for him to make peace with her reply. He didn’t want to know, not yet.

 

 

Slowly and reluctantly, he took a step away from her, was about to turn around and leave when his gaze fell on something and he stopped. When she saw him look back at her, she raised puzzled eyebrows at him. As a silent answer to her question, he pointed his index finger somewhere towards her right. Khushi’s gaze followed his finger to where the edge of the long muffler tied around her neck was stuck in the car door behind her. She had opened the car door a little while back to retrieve some of her belongings after Anjali had left to get a trolley, and probably gotten the muffler stuck in the door while closing it shut behind her. She hadn’t noticed it yet, but had she taken even a couple of steps forward she would have felt the folds around her neck choke her from the pull.

 

 

“Oh, how did- …thanks,” she muttered. Turning around, she tried to (futilely) pull the stuck edges of the muffler out from the clutches of the closed car door. 

 

 

She felt him right behind her, even before she saw his hand reach towards the car handle and pull the door open. The previously stuck edges of the muffler, swung back towards her and celebrated their freedom joyously near her knees. Before Arnav could take a step back and away from her, Khushi spun around to face him, and suddenly, they found themselves at a little more than a breath’s distance from each other. So close, that she could smell the woody fragrance of his cologne, and notice (for the first time) the bronze in his eyes. So close, that he made a swift, passing observation that she really had the most beautiful, doe-shaped eyes, paired with almost ridiculously long eyelashes that swept her cheeks every time that she blinked. And just as that thought passed his mind, she blinked, and his gaze fell to her cheek. And from her cheek to her neck. Her neck. Right. Right.

 

 

With a sharp intake of breath, that was audible even to her, Arnav took a step back. Khushi’s eyes fluttered in dazed confusion. What had just happened?

 

 

“Careful,” he said to her, his voice sounding coarse and thicker than usual. “You could have…hurt your neck.”

 

 

She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps point out that a pull on her muffler could hardly have asphyxiated her to death, but the usually quick retorts on her lips failed to find a voice at the moment and all she managed was a slow nod of the head.

 

 

“Bhai, you coming?” it was Anjali calling him this time, from a little distance away. He gestured with his hand that he was coming, and with one last look at Khushi’s face, turned around to leave. And with every step that he took away from her, Arnav felt invisible strings tighten their hold on his heart and squeeze it- unnerving him in ways he refused to acknowledge.

 

 

No he was not ready to hear her reply, not yet.

 

 

***

 

 

“Khush? You okay?” Khushi startled at the touch of Lavanya’s hand on her shoulder. She had been absentmindedly running a hand over her neck, right above the folds of her muffler.

 

 

“Huh?” she muttered, “Yes. I’m fine,” and stretched her lips into an almost nervous smile.

 

 

Lavanya stared and sighed at the retreating backs of the three people who were now walking at a distance from them, heading towards the gates. “If you think about it,” she said to Khushi, “we have hardly spent a few days with them. Yet somehow, it seems longer than that? Doesn’t it?”

 

 

Khushi swallowed forcefully, unable to comprehend the sinking disappointment in her chest and the sudden gloom in the air around her. Why was she suddenly feeling so alone? This had never even been part of the plan, it was always meant to be just Lavanya and her on the trip. And yet, now, something felt missing. A sudden void seemed to have yawned to life inside her heart, refusing to be shortchanged even with the beauty of picturesque hills and a tantalizingly snow clad Nainital waiting for them.

 

 

“You’re right,” she whispered back to Lavanya. “It seems longer than that.”

 

 

 

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