"Go back to sleep Madhulika, you're overreacting."

Ignoring him, Madhu gently placed the glass of lemonade on his bedside table. She bent over to check his temperature only for Nakul to shift out of her reach, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, I'm not feverish."

"Then why are you still clammy?" she said, referring to the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead.

He didn't respond, didn't hear her in the first place as he stared fixedly at the faded block patterns of the bedspread. The aid lying abandoned on the pillow. Madhu hated that she couldn't communicate with him, that it was so easy for him to block her out when he needed to.

He dictated when he would listen to her. When he would acknowledge her words.

As soon as that thought entered her mind, she wanted to punch herself. Did she seriously resent him for being deaf? No. The truth was she resented herself. For not being able to bridge the gap.

She grabbed the newspaper and pen lying on the bedside table, scribbling a desperate plea.

"Talk to me."

At first, he barely moved his head to read it. When he did, a sigh escaped him.

"Like I said, I'm okay. It was just a bad dream which affected me more than it should've." His voice was hard, forceful.

Her heart sank. Madhu felt as if she had been reprimanded. His detached attitude was affecting her more than it should have. Why was she so concerned anyway? She had never been the kind of person to pester others for answers. She didn't even bother her father when he asked to be alone. Then why was she reluctant to leave?

"Do you want to talk abou—?"

Reading her half-written sentence upside down, Nakul snapped. "Why can't you learn to mind your business for once? I don't want to talk about a goddamn dream. You're not a fucking therapist and it's midnight. Go to bed."

Stung, Madhu finally did what he said. Leaving the room, she made sure to slam shut the door as hard as possible, deriving petty satisfaction from the act even though he probably didn't notice.

Light shower was still falling in the open courtyard, making the stone floor of the hallway encircling it feel ice-cold beneath her bare feet. She went around the hallway and into her own room, curling into a cocoon of her blanket, and trying to shut her mind.

It was hard to flush the echoes of his harsh voice from her mind. Madhu was more surprised than hurt. And a tiny part of her heart still twisted, remembering the look on his face when she had found him in the kitchen.

His hands had been shaking and skin looked ashen. But what had terrified Madhu the most was the empty, almost dead look in his eyes. They hadn't warmed or crinkled or softened like they usually did when around her. Instead, they remained cold. Staring unseeingly as she rushed towards him, asking repeatedly if he was alright, squeezing a half-cut lemon into water as he wordlessly returned to his room.

Pulling the blanket tightly around her, she allowed the distant patter of rain to lull her into restless slumber.

Madhulika was conscious to avoid Nakul the following morning. It was more difficult than she had expected but she managed. They were both trapped inside the house, for it still hadn't stopped pouring. If anything, the downpour had only grown in intensity over the course of the night. The same farmers who must have rejoiced earlier would have started worrying now, given that flooding was quite literally a possibility.

The weather was too unfavourable for her to visit the temple. Another weight settled on her shoulders as Madhu thought about the wasted day of practice and schooling.

Skipping breakfast yet again, she decided to work on the murtis. The separate bases of the two idols were almost complete and Madhu began carving the finer details of Goddess Laxmi's lotus throne. Instead of the more popular depiction of Ma Laxmi, where she was usually sitting down on the throne, Madhu chose to create an upright figure of the Goddess, standing on the lotus which also carried her vehicle of choice, the owl.

She carefully moulded the clay into distinct yet overlapping folds of the deity's sari, having envisioned a more Kumartuliesque style for the idols. That was her favourite sculpting technique. Even the personal teacher Mahima Thakur had appointed for her teenage daughter to learn clay modelling came from a long line of Kumartuli sculptors.

She had been apprehensive about sculpting deities at first. But as the murti slowly started coming to life before her, Madhu felt more confident about her work. She was almost finished with the sari when a knock sounded through the studio. She turned around on her stool to see Nakul.

"Brunch." He was holding a plate of two misshapen aloo-paranthas. "Shall I leave it here?"

When Madhu didn't react, he slowly walked inside, placing the plate on the empty stool next to the one she was sitting on. "Champa didn't come in today, because of the rain I guess."

She trained her eyes on his expression, searching for the closed off wall he had become the night before. It was nowhere to be found; he looked the same as usual. "I could've made something on my own, you didn't have to trouble yourself."

"I know." He shrugged, sitting down on the stool after Madhu picked up the plate. "I just wanted to apologise for acting like a jerk last night."

She faced him fully, noticing that he was wearing the aid again. He did that often around Madhu, even though he hated the device.

He didn't need to around Sunanda though.

She quickly pushed the thought from her head.

"You didn't make anything for yourself, did you?"

His hesitation spoke volumes. Rolling one of the paranthas, she handed it to him. After they had eaten quietly together, Madhu resumed her work, ignoring his presence right next to her. He cleared his throat to gain her attention. She continued sculpting. Or at least pretended to.

"There was a huge avalanche, none of us saw it coming," he began, knowing that Madhu was listening. "A slab came thundering down and buried a whole section of our troop. The only reason I didn't come under it was because a part of our team had gone to collect ice to melt. About half a kilometre away from camp."

"When was this?" she whispered, now facing him.

"February 1997." He avoided looking at her, staring at her unfinished idols instead. "When a slab avalanche falls on a person, he has fifteen minutes before CO2 poisoning gets him, but it took us over forty minutes to dig the bodies out. Seven men, including two commissioned officers. Ved was one of them."

Madhu had an inkling about who Ved might be and didn't need to ask after him. "Was that what you dreamt of last night?"

"Not exactly. It was him screaming, even though when it happened, he didn't scream at all. It's just imagination on my part, and I can't escape that ever. No other sound would distract me, not even with this." Nakul pointed at the device in his left ear. "So yeah last night it was just his voice, most of it being my imagination, echoing inside my head and I didn't know what to do. Which ended up with me snapping at you. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologise." The response was automatic and Madhu meant it. "If anything, I shouldn't have nagged."

"Nah, I'm glad you did, my therapist said I needed to talk to people about this more."

"Wait so are these dreams a common occurrence?"

"No, I don't have PTSD if that's what you're asking. This just happens sometimes. Anyway," he said, getting up. "I should get some work done. Do you mind if I use the study?"

"No of course not."

Left alone, she resumed sculpting. If staring at the unfinished murtis could be called sculpting. It wasn't surprising, even to Madhu, that her mind was yet again on Nakul. Something which her mind loved to do these days. She knew what it was like to lose a best friend, but in his case, Ved was snatched away from him, even when he had done his best to save him. Whereas Madhu had pushed Shikha away by betraying her.

Similar outcomes. Different actions. Yet another way which made him better than her.