Chapter T w e n t y O n e

~ Déjà vu ~

A thousand nails must have been hammered into my brain because the pain that I feel in my head right now is unbearable. I'm in literal agony. I might as well die of this excruciating pain in my head. My head aches with waves of agonising pain that grows and grows as flashes of moving images slide past my brain.

A man.

A knife.

I twist and turn from side to side, my hands clenching the sheet.

Darkness.

Black. And,

Red.

I feel a hand encircling around my wrist and that is when I break free of the paralysis. Panic shoots through my veins and jerking my hand back to myself I sit up straight. I wrap my arms around myself and open my eyes wide, welcoming hazy figures again.

"Nandini, it's okay.. You're okay now." A familiar voice speaks.

I blink my eyes a couple times before the blurriness subsides and my normal vision returns back to me slowly. The light in the room isn't a lot but whatever there is, it is tormenting. The hammering in my head is constant even now but, I am thankful that at least I can open my eyes.

I take in the view of my surroundings. The familiar white walls, the familiar window, my books spread across the study table right in front of me. The comfortable feeling of my bed, the warmth radiating from my sheets, "I'm. . ." I say as if making sure that what I am seeing is really there in reality.

"You're home, Nandini." My eyes drift to Manik who is standing by my bedside, looking down at me with a mix of so many emotions that I can't decipher right now. Not with someone beating rock and roll drum beats in my head.

"How..." I close my eyes shut, falling back on the bed.

A man.

A knife.

Darkness.

Black. And,

Red.

My eyes fly open as the previous incidents wriggle back into my mind. I put my head in between my hands, bringing my knees up to my chest and folding in on myself. "What.. Manik.. Who-"

"Nandini," I feel his hand on my shoulder and realise that I am shivering.

I look at Manik, "You saved me."

"Hardly." He smiles faintly. "You stabbed him pretty bad."

"He drugged me." I lift my shoulders. "He would have gotten me anyway."

The faint little smile slides off his face and a distant look replaces it. Manik removes his hand from my shoulder and steps away from my bed.

"Um, why are you here?" I ask.

"You were unconscious, someone had to be with you."

"But what about Nav- Oh God. NAVYA?" I stare at him.

"Relax. She doesn't know anything. After I settled you in your bed, I cleaned your kitchen up but before I could get to you, she came back. She went straight for your room but I had tucked you in already, she thought you were sleeping."

"Wait, what time is it?" I hold my head with my hands. The pain starts to subside gradually.

"Here," Manik says and hands me a glass of water and a pill along with it. "Have it. It will help with the head."

I pop the pill in my mouth and swallow it down with water. Manik takes the glass from my hand and sets it on my nightstand.

"It's around midnight, by the way." He says answering my previous question.

I look at him wide eyed. "I was knocked up till that late?"

"That guy did drug you, snow." He says. But something about the way he looks at me right after that sets my heart on another race, one that I do not mind at all.

His eyes fix on me, longingly he watches me before seating himself in front of me on the bed. "I can't help but imagine what would have happened if I never came." His voice, that was always steady as steel, breaks.

I pull myself closer to him and take his hand in mine. "But you came." Like you promised, I add mentally.

He laces his slender fingers through mine and my hand feels so small in his large hand. "I heard you scream."

I blink and frown, forgetting for a second when I did that but memory of a shrilling scream returns to me. "He.. He grabbed me so hard that I-" I lick my lips, "I freaked out, Manik. I don't know. He just.. He was-"

"Hey," I feel Manik's warm palm against my cold cheek and I lean into it feeling at home. "He's gone now, okay? Nothing bad will ever happen to you again. I won't let that world touch you ever again. Okay?" As if automatically, I nod.

Up this close I notice for the first time in the past few minutes, the nasty bruises on Manik's face. His lip is split badly in the corner and something dark sticks to it. He is wearing a plain black T-shirt which is torn at his left shoulder, a red gash visible through the torn part.

I take my free hand up to his face and feel Manik stiffen. He closes his eyes for a split second as I run my thumb on his lip, the area where he has a bad cut. He winces.

"I see you had a pretty good fight." I say and feel him sigh, a smile tugging at his lips.

I bring my hand back to my lap. "It wasn't a fight." He shrugs, "Just a few kicks and blows to the abdomen. I took some, gave plenty though."

I smile, unable to stop myself. With much reluctance I pull my hand free from Manik's and throw the sheets off me. I could already feel the filth on me but seeing the messy clothes I was in made me want to take a bubble bath. I was suddenly craving warm water all over my body.

"I better change." I say and step down from my bed, walking towards my closet.

"I'll leave too. You should rest." Manik says and I spin on my heels to face him.

"NO!" I say and feel the heat creeping into my cheeks. "I mean.. Please stay." After a night as horrible as this one I can't imagine being by myself. "I don't want to be alone." I say, almost a whisper.

But maybe he hears it. "Okay. I'll stay." He says.

I turn back around, digging into my closet for my nightwear, but mostly to hide away the crimson red colour that resides on my cheeks. After taking my clothes I disappear into the bathroom.

Quickly I wash off the remnants of that man's blood from my face and my back. I dump my shirt, which is covered in that guy's blood, into the dustbin and change into a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I take out Manik's note from the pocket of my jeans and slip it in the pocket of my shorts. After brushing my teeth and splashing cold water over my face a couple times I finally emerge out of the bathroom only to find Manik not on the bed anymore.

In this moment it feels like someone has jabbed a fist through my heart. I'll stay, he had said. But where is he now?

Suddenly the door of my room swings open, startling me. But the person that walks in through the door fills me with a sense of safety and joy. "Where were you?" I shoot without thinking how it might sound out loud.

He points his thumb to the door, which is now closed, "I needed some ice for these." He holds up his hands and I walk up to him, noticing again for the first time the red blotches on his knuckles. "Punched a face too hard." He chuckles.

I shake my head, "Wait here." I say and run off to the bathroom.

A moment later I return back to the room with a pouch full of cotton and bandages and band aid's and antiseptics. My mother had filled in all the first aid she could find at the last hour, incase I bang myself up somewhere.

Well, I did too. How come our mothers know everything already?

Manik is leaning against my study table, carelessly, his hands crossed over his chest, his eyes staring out the window in an ever so casual way that if those bruises weren't so prominent on his face, no one could ever tell he had just been into a fight. It's like he does this everyday.

I walk up to him, "Stand in front of me." I tell him as I hop onto the study table to level our heads. I'm almost nine inches shorter than he must be and that makes it an impossible task to clean his wounds.

Manik obediently stands in front of me. I set the first aid on the table and pull Manik close, grabbing his hand even before I can realise what I am doing. This sudden move does make my heart flip once but then I tell myself why I had to do this.

"You know it's not a big deal," He says, "All these bruises." I place a light hand on his jaw and move it sideways, dabbing onto the visibly deep cut with antiseptic spread on cotton.

Manik hisses.

"Not a big deal, huh?" I mock.

"Well if you want to kill me then go ahead. I hate these antiseptics. They hurt more than it hurt me to get these." He points at the cuts on his face.

"I know you hate them." I remember, I want to say but I refrain myself.

I move his face to the other side and continue the same treatment, blowing on his bruises everytime he hisses, sticking a band-aid to a cut that is likely to catch infection.

"It doesn't hurt." He says after a few minutes of getting his treatment done in silence.

I look at him and find him looking back at me. "Does anything even hurt you?" I laugh lightly and go back to fixing him up.

I can feel his eyes on my face but I refuse to meet them. I don't want to turn visibly red under his gaze, which I am most likely to do anyway if he keeps looking at me.

After I am done with the various cuts on his face I move onto the long and a little deep gash on his shoulder. It is surrounded in a pool of dried blood and the torn fabric around it has blood all over the edges.

Blood.

A sudden flash of memory passes through my head where I see myself stabbing a knife into a dark figure's shoulder, blood oozing out from the wound, dripping all around the floor, painting it red. And then hands grab onto my arms and pull me behind, twisting my hand-

I scream.

I feel the warmth around me fade away and reality sets in. I see Manik standing a little farther than before. I can't feel the heat from his body radiating to mine anymore. He is looking at me with that worried expression of his and I realise that I actually screamed. Again.

I start to speak, to explain to him something, anything, but nothing comes out. In the same second the warm feeling sweeps back in as Manik puts his arms around me and I lay my head on his right shoulder, sinking into the familiar smell of him. Soap and cologne and boy, mixed with a bit of sweat but it doesn't bother me.

Tears sting behind my eyelids, wanting to fall off and I let them.

"It's over, snow. It's all over." Manik hushes into my ear while he strokes my back soothingly.

I wrap my hand around him, pulling myself as close to him as I can be. As close to safe as I can be.

"I stabbed him." I say.

"It was self defence, nothing else."

"The things he said, the way he was walking, he was so fast-" I lift my head off his shoulder and look at him, "What did he want from me?" I ask as tears continue to spill down my eyes.

Manik takes a step back and stares down at me. He keeps looking at me without a word. His expressions are undecipherable. I don't know what he is thinking: if he is thinking the question to my answer or if he thinking something else. I don't know.

"This is what hurts me." He says after seconds of silently looking at me.

I knit my brows together in confusion and wipe away my tears. "What do you mean?"

Manik lifts his hand to my face and pushes a strand of hair, which I hadn't noticed, away. "Watching you hurt is what hurts me the most."

I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. There is nothing left for me to say. I don't even know what to say anymore. Before this incident, I had questions ready to be fired like bullets. I had so much to ask him but right now nothing seems worth asking. Nothing seems worth destroying this moment, this peace.

"It kills me snow. Every time you hurt, every time I hurt you, it destroys me." His voice is a whisper.

Then why do you? I think but don't say it out loud. I don't think I want to go down that road right now.

So I reach my hands down to his jeans and pull him closer by looping my fingers around his belt loops. "Stay close." I whisper into the air between us. His face isn't exactly leveled to mine but it's just an inch taller now.

I place my hands on his chest, flattening my palms against it. I feel the rapid rise and fall of his breath, his hot breath which hits my face as he parts his lips. His hand sit lightly over my waist on both sides. I feel his heart racing against my palm, racing exactly like mine does everytime I see him, exactly the way it races when he is close to me like he is right now, the exact same way that it had beat when he kissed me.

"Manik," I say, my voice nothing but a whisper, "Kiss me."

His eyes change colour and his heart continues beating like drums. The brown of his irises turns two shades darker as his pupils dilate. "Nandini, what about the questions you-"

"I don't care."

"What about you hating me?"

"I don't care."

"What about-"

"I don't care." I emphasize each word, speaking it slowly and clearly. "Just kiss me, please."

And that is all it takes for him to lower his head and fit his mouth to mine. Everything inside me explodes, turning into liquid with every kiss. His mouth is soft on mine, soft and languorous and gentle and-

Nothing that I want it to be right now.

I slide my hands up his chest, to his neck and into his hair, curling my fingers around his soft strands and pull myself closer to him. I can taste the blood on his lips, the salty dried up blood. I press my mouth hard against his until he gives up being gentle and soft and kisses me back with the same passion as I have. His fingers dig into my waist and he lifts me off table and wraps my legs around his hips.

A sense of déjà vu sets in me but I don't let it grow.

Pushing away any stray thought I give into everything that I had been holding on. All the questions, the doubts, the insecurities, everything. I want to forget about the past five years I spent worrying, about the days I spent feeling miserable, about how my heart broke when I first met him a month ago.

Pushing me against a wall, Manik pressed his lips to my neck, sending shivers and bolts of electricity up and down my spine. If I had been on my feet right now, I would have become a puddle already. My hands reach the waistband of his jeans and I move my hands up his shirt, feeling the tight muscles of his back, the hard stomach with abs and dents. I hear him suck a sharp breath in as my hands spread all over his hard body. My breath had already been knocked out the moment Manik's lips reached the spot on my neck which pushed my insides to the pit of my stomach.

The sense of a déjà vu returns to me and my mind drifts back to the dreams that I had started having when Manik had vanished for two weeks. The dreams where we used to be merged into each other just like we are right now, inseparable. The dreams where I didn't care about any questions, any truth, nothing. The dreams that had me waking up in the night, sweating all over, the moment I realised this wasn't real.

But this felt real. This felt so damn real. In my veins. In my bones. In my blood.

"Nandini," Manik breathes near my mouth, our foreheads touching. "I can't.. stop me now." He says and brushes his mouth against mine.

I shudder.

"Stop me before it gets too late, snow." He says, breathlessly.

I don't want him to stop either.

For a second I consider not stopping at all. Doing what our hearts desire, doing all that our bodies desire but a little voice inside my head says the other thing. It is telling me to stop, though I don't know why.

Why would any part of me want to stop when I'm the happiest I've been? I've never felt more alive than I do right now.

But I compulsively listen to the other part of me.

As Manik moves his mouth off mine, I slide my fingers between our lips. "Manik, stop." I say breathlessly. "Stop."

My throat feels so dry that I find it hard to even swallow.

Manik brings me back to the table and puts me down. He rests his forehead on mine, his hands still gripping my hips, merging me into him. My fingers lightly touch his lips and I feel his hot breath against them. I let my fingers fall back down. He breathes unevenly, his breath smells like my toothpaste now. A small smile tugs on my lips.

Manik cages me in between his arms on my both sides and leans in, "I don't ever want to let you go again." His vulnerability bounces off his face.

"You keep saying that." A sharp pang in my heart takes me back to that day in the car. "Every time you say that, you leave."

His eyes meet mine, "I mean it this time."

"You know," I smile forms at my lips, "I do care about the questions."

He laughs a small laugh. "So you lied too?"

"Just that part."

"And what about the part where the word 'hate' comes?"

"Do you think if I hated you I'd do what I just did?" I raise a brow up.

He grins, "Could be. I am attractive and irresistable."

I lightly hit him on his arm, "That's a little too much to say, don't you think?"

"Can't help it."

"What's wrong with modesty?"

"Modesty is for ugly people." He says and I laugh.

"I'm sorry, snow." Manik says a second later. I meet his eyes to find the mischief gone from them. "For everything." His eyes hold the same emotion they held a few minutes before.

I lick my lips that are dry like a desert, "I don't hate you, Manik. I can't hate you. No matter what you do, I know nothing you would do will make me hate you. Even after all these years."

"You don't know that." He says.

"I know that. Nothing you do to make me hate you will make me hate you, so if that's what you're playing at, I suggest you stop. The only thing that could happen is I could hate the person you are now but never will I ever hate the person that I grew up along because I know who he is. So are you still the same Manik?"

He drops his eyes down. His long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks in the dim light of the room. "I am not the same person, Nandini. But when it comes to you, I want to be. I am that person when I am with you."

I place my palm on his cheek, "Then please don't hide from me. Please."

Manik lifts his eyes and I see a spark in them that wasn't there before. "I won't. I won't go away this time. No more hiding."

"How do I know you are telling me truth?" I ask, bitting on my lip.

"I will tell you." He says, "I will tell you the truth. Everything I know, everything that is mine to tell."

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Tada! Paparapaparararara :p

Now I cannot say when I will be uploading the next chapter because I am going to get busy with college and stuff now but I will to write a little bit everytime I get free.

Please like and comment your views!

Ignore the typos!

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