" Saroj, I cannot. Please understand my problem. " I slid and lean at the farthest corner of the bed as I watch his hunched figure slouching on the other side. Our clothes scattered all over the floor, a living proof of our secret rendezvous a while ago. My body, still sweating under his passionate wilderness.

" Why! " I manage to ask. Although I already know the answer, but the sadistic urge to know it from him consumed me whole. Somewhere deep down, my wounded heart still wanted to hold on to that last thin ray of hope that my love would bind us together. My heart knew that he loved me. He did. It was evident in his eyes. The way he would look at me in the privacy of our seclusion. It was evident with the way his hands would hold me to himself, as if he would never let me go. It was evident with the way his hands and mouth would make love to me taking me to the peak of passion again and again and again without a pause. I knew he loved me. Yet, this love is certainly not enough at times. Like now, as I watch him tap the cemented floor with his toes, his frustrating fingers forking through bis own hair, gripping, pulling at them. I watch him fall apart in front of me and it kills me inside. I do not have any idea of tje intensity of his love for me, but my love is intense. It is. So i decide to let him go. Holding him against the tide would be a very stupid idea. He had to hold on to me to survive. How long can i drag this with my own will and desire is a matter of question whose answer is quite evident as well.

" Saroj. Don't make this tough for me. It is already. " He said, a while later, his breath shallow and deep. His face dark with a Shadow of pain and affliction I so wanted to take away. I cannot watch him suffer this way. I cannot.

" Is it. " I laugh out. A sarcastic laugh. Didn't he know this would become tough in the future with me being the outcast!

" Saroj! " His pained voice and I felt a stab of pain right through my chest.

" So you have decided already! " I ask, a little fierce. I deserve this ferocity I feel. After all the love, the insurmountable love I have showered him with, I deserve this ferocity against his decision that involved me yet , I am nowhere around it.

" Saroj.. " I hear his husked voice as I watch him turn towards me.

" We can still be together. Just give this a thought. Our live would be intact. This is just for the society....

" That didn't take a minute to denounce me an outcast.. " I interject not letting him finish.  I watch him flinch with pain at my words and the sudden desire to inflict more pain to his shattering heart for the plot it played with me intensified.

" And for this same society you are ready to trade with our love and keep it as your  dark secret and derogate my love.. Wow. Great you know. " I watch him shudder with the venom my words spewed. I felt a peace inside to watch him go through that. He should know what his decision is doing to me already. Love! What a fool I was to think love would be enough to fight the society and emerge out as winner. What a stupid idiosyncratic fool I was. I was, is and would always be an outcast to the strata of people he came from.

" Saroj.... I.. I love...

" Get out.. Right now. And never ever dare to trudge back! " And with those words, I clamour out of the bed, stark naked, and walk to hide my bruised self inside the bathroom and lock myself up I hear him go taciturn for a while . But just for a while as I hear the shuffling of his figure putting on his clothes and in no time, I hear the cracking noise of the door, announcing that he was gone. It was then that I broke down, howling like a broken soul right there on the floor of the bathroom, letting my pent up grieves flow out in the form of thick flowing tears.

I am an outcast. I would always be an outcast. My insurgence against the age old caste system of the society just about crumbled apart a few minutes ago. Also, my love.

I am and would always remain an outcast.

***

Good enough to continue? Do let me know if I should invest my energy here.

❤❤

Sanu