Drummmmmrollllllllll!

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Nandini

Dripping wet from head to toe from their evil plans – specifically his – to drench me, I squeezed my hands together, bringing some warmth to them. I went up the stairs and into Mukti's room.

Met by his rigid frame that leaned on the woodwork in her room, a glass beside his thigh as his back met me, I stopped in my steps.

"Go from here, Nandini," he ordered without turning back, his tone a little distinct.

How did he even know it was me? That was besides the point.

"As far as I know, this toh is Mukti's room. Don't you have your own?"

He turned around, his frustration evident on his countenance that violently twitched. "This is my house!" he retorted, flaring his nostrils against his will.

"And this room belongs to my friend! She permitted me to—"

"Belonged, past tense." He took a lazy sip of the drink in his hand, which I registered was a golden liquid, as he stumbled in my direction.

Since the time I had arrived, he had downed two green bottles before my eyes. There were two more of those on the pool island bar, and counting this glass, he at least had five drinks. "Waise bhi," he lifted the glass to emphasise his point, "who the hell is she to allow anything?"

I joined my eyebrows together. "Why? Only you have the authority to control everything?" He was moving towards me in an attempt to intimidate me, test me. So I bravely stepped closer, defying him. "I am not going anywhere," I uttered while caging myself in my arms, preserving some warmth for my writhing body as water beads chilled down on me.

With a sudden burst of palatable irritation, Manik slammed his empty fist into the ajar wardrobe door, snapping in shut in one swift move. The sound reverberated through the room, forcing me to palm my ears shut. "Why," From the depths of someplace deep, his masculine voice floated, "why why?! Why can't you just let me be?!" His voice cracked, and agitated, the drink was emptied in one go.

I jumped back at the raw sight of his unfiltered emotions out of which anger was the most distinct. Of course it was, he was Manik Malhotra. Anger was his middle name, no no, part of his middle name – danger.

Let me be?! Had he forgotten all the things he had done to me, not just in the past few hours but since the beginning of time? If I began to keep count and tallied them, those instances would run into the hundreds, if not thousands.

"I can't believe this." I scoffed, "You still think this is all about you." How incredibly self-obsessed did someone have to be to reach such a level of delusion?

"What was it that you said to me earlier tonight? Haan..." He mocked, semi-laughing to himself as he began to encircle me, "...that you don't want a relationship, that being around me would be the hardest thing you've ever done. Right?" Drilling those words with a particular effect, which he got, he distastefully stared at me while maintaining momentum.

Concious of being watched, I shifted my focus from the one side he was approaching to the other. With every passing moment, a puddle was growing by my feet.

"If you really didn't want to be here, why the hell are you still in my house?"

I gulped, formulating that I was there because Mukti needed me. She couldn't muster the courage to face Manik, let alone him in front of their whole group – which triggered ugly flashbacks and painful nostalgia for her too. And no friend would leave her friend in the midst of so many internal battles to fend for herself.

What would Manik know about friendship? I iced that thought just as it formed, reminded by the 17 year old version of him who could do absolutely anything for that bunch assembled in his mansion.

"I'll tell you why," Manik pressed on, interpreting my prolonged shivering silence as defeat. "When it comes to Dhruv, all those angsty lyrical phrases go flying out the window. You've always had a soft corner for him, and now you're acting on it in front of me so you can prove your point."

What point, that I didn't want a relationship? Or that I didn't want a relationship with Manik?

And what did he mean by acting on it? What did I do wrong? In fact, if anything I owed Dhruv my life for saving mine, while Manik disappeared the minute I dipped in.

He gripped my damp elbow and hauled me, our faces inches apart as his nose touched my cool forehead. The contrasting temperatures and our ragged breaths mingled as he held me in place. "Get one thing straight, Nandini Murthy: if this is all part of your plan to make me beg for you, be rest assured... it's never going to happen."

I nearly laughed at his empty threat but what came out was a hasty grumbling sigh.

Tightening a muscle in his jaw, he brutally snapped, "Besides... what's so special about him, anyway?"

Still processing his previous remark, my eyes flashed with indignation as I responded in a tone mirroring his, "Even you know I don't play such cheap games. But you're so caught up in yourself na, that you don't even see beyond it..." I struggled with all my bodyweight, resisting his hold as he effortlessly pinned me to my spot with the grip of a single hand.

"Right," Manik rolled his eyes, indifferent to the tussles that were warming me up.

Water droplets cascaded over his enclosed hand. My fingers pried some of his off, only for them to encircle the area again further up, where the joint did not give me an unfair advantage. "...do you even know how many others you have dragged down because of you and your ego?"

Bringing me in again, my wet locks slapped the thin fabric on my back from the pull. He whispered roughly over my forehead, "Listen, you..."

Without paying heed to it, I rambled. "Do you have any idea how much effort your friends put into tonight, into making you feel better? Or how badly Mukti just wants to talk to you, and is putting up with all those friends just for your sake? Have you even thought about how hard it is for her? No, how could you... when all your energy went into sulking about me rejecting you, and trying to get even with me!"

The unexplainably deadly look he passed had me panting for quick short bursts of oxygen, before he could snap them out of my lungs with just one word – a word he never took for an answer. "NO..." He said sharply though his expressions gave nothing away. "No, I didn't think about anyone else," My eyes became golfballs in size, meeting his which were narrowed into ignorant slits.

Was that really Manik Malhotra, admitting to something he did?

"Maan liya. I only thought about myself..." Unsure of what to do with the blatant admission, that was completely unexpected, I swallowed and looked away. The last thing I wanted was to cave into his beautiful eyes. He shook the hand that held me, drawing me back to him. "But did you think about me?" His accusatory gaze intensified as a whirlwind of soft aching emotions pooled in them.

"Nahi," he answered on my behalf before I even began thinking of an explanation. "Because in your eyes, I'm a monster. Main kabhi acchha ho hi nahi sakta. The epitome of goodness is just... Dhruv!" His voice was low, and his words distantly familiar but the disappointment and the angst in them conveyed what language remained a barrier to.

The hand that bound me set me free. I bobbed my head mindlessly as he took a step back, eyeing his hand and the area he made contact with, as if wondering how he had the guts to do so. That moment passed just as quickly as it came, when Manik walked around me.

Vaguely registering that earlier in the evening, while on SPACE College's terrace, he had asked for an opportunity to voice the things in his mind, I let him take the main stage. I had said everything I wanted to. He, on the other hand, was interrupted by my long monologue of self-deprecating comments that justified my decision while shouldering all the blame.

For a relationship we were both a part of.

He dabbed his left pec, as he followed the circular path he veered on earlier. "Touch your heart and tell me: did it cross your mind, even for a moment, that maybe... just maybe... visiting a SPACE institute without my group by my side, seeing my sister again – who abandoned me seven long years ago – and constant reminders of a delightful relationship with the girl I dated as a volatile teenager... was all a little too much for me to handle in a day?" The last part came entirely as a murmur which I would have missed if I wasn't a breath away from him.

My breath hitched in my throat as I painfully gazed at his scalding figure that regarded me with horrendous detest.

I had... nothing to say about it. Completely blindsided by my own regrets, I did not have enough left in me to extend compassion to him. And how could I be blamed for it, when he stripped me of it as he hurled the entirety of our relationship failures at me like it was a weapon?

He pressed his lips into a line and shook his head, studying the ceiling for answers as he hopelessly twisted a hand at it. Clearing his throat, he urged once again, "Bolo Nandini." That was my last chance to say something.

I couldn't.

Like a switch that flipped, the pain on his face recklessly transformed into insatiable fury. "Go," He commanded in disdain. "Go from here." Running his fingers through his hair, he moved towards Mukti's bed. Away from me.

"Dhruv..." He cut into the emerging silence, seemingly out of nowhere, "Your saviour na. He must be waiting for you downstairs, so go... be with him. He will make you try a drink even though he knows you don't have alcohol, but don't worry. He will be better for you in every other way. That's what everyone has always thought, so do that. Just leave me alone." Setting his glass on the wooden flooring, he plopped by the edge of the bed and slowly reclined, closing his eyes with a bent arm across his face.

Numb at the series of sentences he spoke, I remained rooted in my spot. Then, several moments later, the jumbled words rearranged themselves in my brain.

"What drink are you talking about?" I asked blankly, lacking the energy to make any deductions of my own. "Two weeks ago, Dhruv just said he would take me –"

"I'm not talking about now." From his reclined position, he retracted his arm, rotated his neck and slowly blinked, as if in a trance. Then his voice grew softer as he said, "Diwali night, 2010... The night we fought, because I screamed at you." The mention of it was like a bandaid being ripped off a fresh, unhealed wound. It pulled off a scab that was just beginning to form along with it.

Manik looked away. "Cabir and Dhruv... they were lying to you. That glass had alcohol, not just cranberry juice. They wanted you to drink it... to prove a point. A dare."

Amongst the multitude of thoughts and feelings surging through me, one prominent feeling that surfaced was betrayal. Tears emerged at my waterline. All that while, I thought Dhruv genuinely wanted to include me, that Cabir truly valued my company. To know it was all just another attempt at making me someone's pawn brought a new element of gut-wrenching sorrow with it.

"Why – why didn't you tell me then?"

Sitting up, Manik pressed the sides of his temple. Something must have been very fascinating with the wooden flooring, because he was actively trying to focus on something on it.

"How does it matter? Nothing would have changed." He paused, not meeting my eye. "Understanding someone does not make their actions hurt any less; you were the one who taught me that, remember?" For a fleeting moment, he glanced in my direction, but I quickly shut my eyes, motivated to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill.

If he knew and understood that, then why did he make me get into the pool?

Unless... he was trying to prove a point... that he could be my saviour?

Manik swiftly moved toward the bathroom, disrupting the thought.

It was only when the trickling of the shower began that I snapped back to my senses and waddled my way into the walk-in shower. Manik was adjusting the temperature of the water, feeling it between his fingers and then placing a wet hand across his cheek.

As I stood by the threshold, I deeply contemplated what transpired between us within the last few minutes. It was nothing short of a huge breakthrough. Crossing over, I made my way to the sprinkler head, pausing just before it. On one side of the induced rain was I, on the other was Manik.

"I'll... um... get a towel," he mumbled a pathetic excuse as he went around me, heading towards the door.

My hand stretched to my side, meeting his forearm. It forfeited his mission to sneak out and avoid a breakdown before me.

I spun him around as my eyes fell on a glimmering cheek. Softening my eyes at the sight, one of my hands hovered in the air. Manik twitched, "It's just water," but failed miserably as a new drop left his eyes against his will.

The area was tenderly swiped with the pad of my thumb. Unfiltered affection oozed through the action involuntarily. As my focus remained clearing the salted trail it left behind, my scattered gaze examined his stubbly cheek that no longer had any sparse sprouts.

His sharp cheekbones framed his face beautifully.

The wet corner of his eye lifted onto his long eyelashes.

Dense yet neatly trimmed eyebrows and his damp hair, still wet from his swim earlier, magnified his appeal. Swollen and clumped together, they carpetted a major part of his forehead, at least from my angle. I remembered Mukti's complaints on how he would never let anyone else touch his hair.

Gently, I stroked the spot, pushing his hair upwards and styling it in a seemingly practiced motion. A hiccup resonated in the vicinity, and when I looked back at his face as a whole, strained creases were sculpted into his handsomely crafted frame. I chillingly registered the action I had performed on him... something I – and only I – was allowed to do, when we were dating.

Unfathomable pain bestowed on him, and it was as if the only outlet was snapped shut when my unexpectedly caring gesture had tipped the little bit of balance he was desperately holding together. He burst into tears, which melted into the previously created lines, cementing them into vivid scars.

I knew so, because an organ in my chest resonated with the same splitting pain.

Instinctively, I let my hands greedily trail down his biceps, clutching them as I pulled him closer... mystified as I watched him disintegrate in my arms. No words could explain the hammering pain in my heart at the sight of it, as his big hands swiped those cheeks clean as quickly as humanely possible.

Taking one step forward as I trailed one step back, we centred ourselves underneath the warm sprinkler completely clad, but sharing a shower as the water washed away our tears and our pains. Repeating my action of wiping his cheek slowly and softly, I took in the time to experience the kind of closeness I yearned for all those years.

Streams of water doused his hair, trailed down his nose and met the middle of my forehead, trickling across the perimeter of my face in thin lines.

The outside world faded into nothingness as our eyes twinkled at each other. Druggedly, he scanned my face in a manner similar to mine, letting his fingers linger over the perimeter of my face. Just like he did seven years ago – in fact, in that split-second, those years apart didn't feel that long ago after all.

Driven by nostalgia, my eyes raced with his touch – new, exciting, the kind that could make a sober person giddy.

As his hand continually stroked my cheek, erasing my brimming tears, and mine embraced his sculpted biceps that represented an anchoring force for my soul-snatching sorrows, we remained clasped to one another, relishing each other's warmth.

Those feelings transcended time: seven years, seven decades... it didn't matter.

He was right when he said there were some things only we knew about each other. Nothing else could explain the way my body instantly found its safe space in his proximity. Like a void in me only he could fill, I clung to him.

At the familiar drop of his attention to somewhere below my nose, I became acutely aware of his breathlessness and swallowed hard. The bob of my throat seemingly caught his attention and he shifted to my hooded eyes. "I – um – I think I should –"

"– Stay," came an unrecognisable order from somewhere deep within me.

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Only my Instagram friends know how much I sobbed while writing this!!!

I CANNOT with them.

I NEED THERAPY.