[Extremely sorry for the delay. Hope y'all are doing well. Vote and Comment because if you don't, I'd get demotivated and who knows, stop writing? I hope you like the update and feel the snowflakes right when you're reading. Happy reading!]

N A N D I N I

I open my eyes to the steady patter of rain upon my window as cold seeps into my blanket and I cuddle against the soft warm pillow. This sound has always been music, always calling to me in ways I cannot explain. The greyness blankets my still form. I lie as if asleep until my side is painful and I must shift to my back or other side. The long minutes drag into hour but I refuse to find out the time. At last, I glance at the digital clock and realise that I haven't slept a second the entire night and it already is 4 in the morning. Restless, I force myself off the bed wrapping the blanket around and pull the thick curtain aside to see the droplets of water streaking down the glass which makes me rest my forehead against its cold touch and glide my finger against the rolling drop. Everything is the same, only grayer and blurred with softer edges because of the thick fog.

Manik Malhotra isn't that kind of guy I fantasise about but there is something about his addiction for pain that he cares for nothing else now which altogether made him become someone else. I don't know how the old Manik was as Noelle described but I would definitely like to find out. This is not the first case I am dealing with where the patient has given up on every hope but the fact that he tried manipulating me without conscience tentatively rock-ribbed me.

Though I know it's too early yet I grab my coat, knitted cap and gloves because it kind of just seems needful to meet him. Now. For once. He kept on insulting me every time we met and that just triggered my tenacity to heal him all the more and that cannot be wrong. What else he might do now? Insult me more but that's okay because I need to talk about why we made that deal we did. Perrie was right when she said I am beginning to play with fire and there is nothing I would get out of this game other than pieces of ourselves burnt in ashes. I was just being too reckless and there must be some other way to help him out, you know, more like a Doctor than just a game.

Tiptoeing I push open the main door as lightly as I can after grabbing my car keys when I watch a feminine shadow fall ahead of me. Sighing mildly, I squeeze my eyes.

"Have you already fallen for that psycho?" Perrie stands behind sarcastically questioning me. She simply looks worried but she won't admit it thus she must hide it with her annoying frowns.

"I thought about the pretty bad scolding you showered upon me last night." I say, pondering.

"And it effected you so much that you are sneaking out to meet that psycho of a man at 4 in the morning. Wonderful!" I drop my shoes on the floor which I was holding in my hand for a perfect sneak out.

"P, I kind of just have to see him in order to get my brain functioning. We couldn't talk last night because neither he was in that state nor I was using my brain." I pause for a bit. "You were right, I shouldn't be making someone's life a game. I should just behave more like a Doctor than a high school kid." Her worried eyes soften a bit.

"I want nothing but your safety, kiddo. But why not text or call him? Why do you have to step out in this cold? You will fall ill, silly." I grab the umbrella from the corner swinging it before her sight.

"Things like this can't be talked over a call or text. I'll return soon, I promise." I grin popping a thumbs up although I am fighting a war inside my chest.

"If you don't return soon, I will dial 911." She steps forward wrapping her muffler around my neck. "Drive safe, stay warm and at least a thousand meters away from that mad man."

I chuckle gesturing a salute as I open the door only to freeze underneath my warm clothes. It is murderously cold to be going anywhere. My feet feel numb as I am walking towards my car and fingers are shivering too much to insert the key correctly in the hole. I fight and fight dropping and picking up the key until I finally succeed which literally has saved me a hypothermia. Will I ever get tired of crying in my heart that it's too freezing? Nope.

The best part of this entire hassle is only when I turn the heater on and place my head on the steering as a relief which mistakenly blows up a loud horn. The morning is cruelly empty with not a single bird coming in sight as I turn the headlights on to fight the heavy fog. A vast blanket of whiteness swoops in and skirts around the buildings and the trees, like a giant eraser moving indiscriminately to eradicate what was once there into something that's not. The wiper cleaning the raindrops is adding to my suffocation as I try to drive more cautiously at the lowest possible speed.

"What was his address?" I fumble opening the dashboard where in a little diary I keep all my informations handy and honestly, ruffling the pages seems to be too dreadful right now. One, because I need to switch my eyes back and forth between the road and diary and two, my fingers are still shuddering.

"It's on the Eighth Avenue. Right..." I throw the diary on the passenger seat pulling my cap tighter over my ears. Perrie was right, why do I have to put myself through this torture when even the stray dogs are peacefully hiding somewhere but there is no staying back when I particularly am seeking answers to many of my questions and Manik is the only one to answer them.

"I think the apartment will be on my left so far as I remember." I mumble turning my emergency blinkers on to park my car but my hands around the steering solidify as I look off into the distance.

I wipe my windscreen from inside which formed vapours and I see a tall man much away in the distance standing by the frozen lake. I squeeze my eyes trying to fight the foggy view but he just seems to be mixed and dissolved into fog; appearing and disappearing. The sight mustn't have startled me this much if I haven't discovered this man's probable intention of jumping off the bridge into the lake. And, to add to my horror, from the look of this man it terrifies me to suppose that it might be the man I have travelled so much to see.

He's stood on the lower stand of the railing leaning towards the bridge without a single warm cloth on his body and I wonder if his plain white shirt and black trousers are able to keep him alive. Clumsy, I unbuckle the seatbelt quickly dashing out of the car not caring to shut the door behind as my sole focus is glued on the man who is a step away from death. I didn't realise when the featherlight raindrops ceased and the flakes of snow began to gather on my shoulders but now, running to get the umbrella is the concept that doesn't even cross my mind as I tread towards the bridge not giving a damn about the worsening climate.

Manik, being so engrossed in whatever he is thinking fails to hear someone's footsteps. I doubt if he even is understanding that it's snowing. I doubt if he is even able to hear his own heartbeats. His wet shirt sticks to his body and messy hair dampen while I, myself shiver thinking how insensately he is standing in the cold; breathing but hardly living. What has that girl done to this man?

"Are you gonna jump and die?" I stand beside him quietly trying to control myself from screaming 'Suicide! Suicide!' at every corner of the street.

He, slowly, steps down from the railing and meets my eyes and I lose my breath. His eyes look so bloodshot yet dead, his body looks soulless and skin cracked at places either because of the sharpness of cold air or wounds he inflicted upon. He doesn't even bother to look around at the snow covering us as he quietly keeps staring at me like he doesn't have a single word left to say in this life.

"It will initially snatch your breath away," I step closer putting my gloved hand on the railing. "and then it would feel like thousands of knives piercing your skin. You won't be able to think or see or breathe for a long span of time and parts of your skin will bleed but you will keep on fighting for a single inhalation of life. It feels raw. It feels like death."

I speak the entire paragraph failing to bring any sort of movement in him. He looks like a dead man standing before my eyes with a beating hear, breathing lungs and batting eyelashes. Manik, without saying a word keeps staring at me with eyes which are numb with sleeplessness, a broken poetry, an elusive and undefined broken soul for which for a fraction of second I feel this inside my heart, I want to make this man the happiest he has ever been.

There is harsh winter making up the thoughts in his head, even though everything around him should have screamed summer at this age with blooming flowers and colours of passion but instead he is dead and ever so shattered. Sighing, I walk closer unwrapping the knitted scarf around my neck and put it around his without any protest from his end. That is when my brain electrifies at our touch because this man's skin been lava this entire time. He is most definitely burning with fever and it gets confirmed when I touch his cheek and forehead but all he does is lifelessly stare.

"My God, you are burning! You need to come inside and..." I freeze. The tall man collapses on the wet road, unconscious getting me rooted to the ground.

"Crap!" I kneel down pulling his head over my thighs as the snowflakes grow in intensity blanketing us and I keep patting his cheek and rub his palm. I try to put his head aside to get my phone from the car but his grip around my fingers holds me hostage. Looking around, I find everything whiter as a strong blow of wind drifts the snow to our direction and a helpless whimper escape my lips due to my weak breathing. My vision gets blinded with the ice-white dust poking my eyes and I hold onto his hand tighter.

M A N I K

I blink my eyes several times fighting a blurred vision until it settles on the huge yellow light hanging from the ceiling. Failing to inhale properly, I blink few more times until the inside of my eyelids begin to disappear and my vision adjusts with the yellowish room. Looking around for a clue, I find myself lying down on a huge old-fashioned couch with wooden carvings on it. No, it doesn't appear to be any hospital and the more I gaze around, the more confirmed my suspicions get that I have probably barged into someone's residence whilst I was high on drugs. The walls around are full of intricately handcrafted items and the carpeted floors happen to add a soft touch of warmth to my eyes.

My head starts hurting as I try to get up and recollect what all nuisance I caused during my inebriation. Realisation engulfs me that my clothes are changed into something not my taste with two thick blankets thrown over. Pushing my hurting head a little up, I see the back of some lady adjusting a wooden log in the fireplace. She turns around very very slowly holding me high on impatience; beside the fire of the burning flame Nandini sits quietly anticipating my reaction and staring with closed eyes even, one can say she looks beautiful with the orangish tinge of fire enriching her artistic beauty.

She budges seeing me struggle to get up but does nothing and waits until I sit after a little scuffle with myself. This slight movement runs me breathless and I rest my nape on the couch noticing that she is busy concentrating back on the fire pit. We speak nothing for a long span of time with disguises under our skins except the sound of the burning fire and me, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders. She, at times looks at me only to find me staring at her and immediately those eyes move back to the flames as if she is writing some song without any lyrics and I can see her fighting with her own judgment. Maybe, that fire alone is the moon and the two of us, the night.

"Why can't I connect with you?" I murmur and she glances at me over her shoulder.

"Because you are still searching in everyone that one person who purposefully left you behind." My breath shakes because of her cruel confidence.

"I'm not a puppet and you are not my master so quit acting like you are. Quit acting like you know everything about me because you don't know a fucking fact. You don't know what I have been put through." she turns around holding my gaze but I am too tired to raise my voice. I am too tired to even breathe.

"Stop looking at me the way you are." Though I say, yet it is me staring into her eyes. For some reason, I don't look away.

"Like what?" She asks adamant to melt her eyes in mine. I still don't look away.

"Like you are seeing through me." My mind haunts me for not breaking the gaze, myself.

She lowers her head to sigh having those eyes closed, "Is it wrong for me to want to save you? Is it wrong that I still want us to do this?" Her palms lie flat on her knelt thighs and eyes, fuzzed with questions.

"There's no 'us' in this Nandini. There can never be." I look around for my clothes so that I can leave. I want to argue with her if she has changed my outfits but my body and mind feel too exhausted for anything.

"That's a debate for some other time." I feel her warm palm on my shoulder pushing me back on the couch softly commanding me to not move. Flashes of her standing near me under the snow reflect upon my face and the more vulnerable I start to feel.

Seeing me not make another movement, she smiles faintly removing her hand but holding her wrist as I tug her a little, I see her eyes widen for few initial seconds. "Why didn't you just leave me there and let me die? Why didn't you just back off and let me put an end to all of my miseries? Tell me, do you want me to beg at your feet for my death? D-do you want me to wash you with my tears so that you start to believe that I am hurting inside? Badly. Or, do you want me to rip open my heart to show you that I am not the architect of my own destruction? What can I do to convince you, Doctor? What?"

By the time I finish, I realise our awkward intimacy when she is on my lap with her arms on my shoulders. She glides her thumb by the edge of my eye without me feeling that I had a tear. My hold on her loosens but she still plans on maintaining our proximity. Here, I poured my vulnerability out to her and without faking a sympathy like most other people do, she cups my face with both of her tiny palms intentionally locking our eyes.

"I won't let you die even if you rip your heart out of your chest and bleed out. I will still keep you alive." She holds my face steady and secured.

"Why are you so cruel?" I breathe out, defeated; our faces a little apart.

She curls up her lip pensively, "Do you want coffee? Or, anything to eat?"

I take a breath of relief as she moves out of my lap to stand on her feet, "I'll prefer leaving."

Not finding my clothes nearby, I decide to leave without wasting time any further, "I..don't know whose clothes these are umm but I'll wash and return them soon. I just have to go." I get up feeling a little dizzy yet continue slowly walking. "I'd rather courier them. We don't need to see each other again." I stop for a second to inform.

"So what was last night all about?" This is what I didn't want her to mention. For so long, smoothly, I have been absconding whatever happened last night and here she goes. I freeze having my back at her looking at the fire.

Fire and Nandini.

Fire is the most beautiful weapon of them all. It shines with all its glory; maybe that's why I'm so attracted to it? The warmth along with the welcoming feel it gives but as one slowly approaches, it snarls and bites. Everything one loves could be gone in minutes due to a single nip. That's why she's like fire. So warm, so beautiful, so welcoming. The human embodiment of fire. I turn my gaze for a minute and everything I love is gone. All I have. Her.

"I hope you were intelligent enough to not take an intoxicated man seriously last night." I lie. It is true that I wanted her to take my mind off Kiara, the only lady I love but it is also true that I can't use her as a pawn or toy with her heart. She is a woman who deserves to be loved by a man who has the spine to accept her and not by a douche like me who is using her to stop thinking about another woman. I try walking past the fireplace and stop by the door for a another moment. When I turn back, she still is there where I left her minutes ago hopefully staring my way.

"Don't you feel sorry for me?" I ask but when she nods a no, I doubt why isn't she like others.

She gulps before speaking, "I would have felt sorry only if you were a better human being." I smirk sadly. "I must have felt sorry had I seen that you are trying, hard but life is refusing you. That, everyday you try to fight it but in reality, all you do is show your back and try escaping. When you said last night you wanted to move on from her, I thought you meant it because you wanted to give life a second chance. But right now, before my eyes is standing a man who is absolutely an imbecile. A loser who accepts his defeat without even fighting and wants everyone to feel sorry for him. You know what," she steps closer crossing arms across her chest and stops two inches away from me. "people like you do? You live your life like a trash because that's what you start to believe you are just because one awful person has made you feel that way. You create your own world; frustrate yourself and then die blaming it all on the world whereas in reality, the world has nothing to do with your misery."

"So, it's all my fault now? I loved her, that's my fault. I trusted her, that's my fault. I made her my life but that's my fault. I worshipped her, that's my fault. She left me, broke me, killed me, ch-cheated on me and it's all my fault." My voice trails off.

"Manik Malhotra, stop self pitying yourself. There are other people who are living lives worse than yours but you know what, all they are doing is fight. You have had a bad relationship. Only. A bad relationship never means a bad whole life but you are letting that cheater of a person define and control you. She left. She is happy somewhere and you are not! If you believe you are not at fault then why think of dying? Were you born to love her? No, right? Then why would you die loving her?" She breathes heavily.

I keep gazing at her, "What else is there in life without her?"

"Your life cannot be all about that one woman. If you want to have answers to the question you just now asked me, you have to see many more sunrises and sunsets." She pauses to observe me better. "There's thick snow out there and you won't be able to go unless they clean it tomorrow morning. Stay the night?"

•*•

Swirling the brandy in the glass, I hear the liquid chinking against its body, breathing in the fragrance that already starts to fade away my reality in exchange of a fantasy. She brings two plates full of pasta to the table I am sitting by and takes a sip from her glass.

"I thought some food would be necessary...for me." She smiles gesturing me to join her.

I feel extremely ashamed for some reason and eating with her would mean exchanging zero conversation which seems like a better option that mutely staring at one another. I inhale the aroma closing my eyes not realising she is noticing my each movement well. I don't want to scare her away pretending to be a mindless; it's just that it's been days since I last ate a proper meal. I don't even remember the last meal I had. It has always been some substandard leftovers which I gulped together with my drinks to survive for the namesake but last few days, it's only been drugs in my veins thus neither did I feel the hunger for food nor it fancied me.

I gulp, shamefully. "It just..smells good. Don't think that I haven't eaten since a long time." I steal my eyes.

"I don't think much when I have a plate full of food before my eyes. C'mon, dig in." She starts slurping and munching in no time saving me the embarrassment.

Just as I take the first bite, I close my eyes feeling the taste melt and dance on every single bud of my tongue. It feels like I forgot what food tastes like anymore and there's no denying that she cooks pretty well.

"God, I cook so good." She praises closing her eyes slowly munching on her food. "My mum will be so proud if I cook her this."

Thereafter, we hear no one else talking other than the sound of our forks and spoons; glasses and us, eating. I try my best but my mind still loiters around the times when I used to teach Kiara cooking pasta and she would end up bathing me in flour and run away stealing my car keys. The car that I sold later to buy her favourite earrings. The earrings that she threw away when I stopped her go clubbing with other men.

Nandini pours me some more brandy and I sip it in a go.

"I have to go." I get up abruptly leaving her baffled.

"Hey but you can't go. The road is blocked and you are just now recovering from the frostbite." But her voice already starts fading away as I am stepping outside her door.

Bending over against the cold wind, I start walking but the skin piercing wind keeps howling. As I glance up at the sky, snowflakes fall on my face - colorless confetti. Yet I am not rejoicing these snowflakes; I am sulking underneath, alone. Kiara, you left with many of yours ghosts inside my soul and now, I don't know how to function without you.

Hearing footsteps behind, I rush but it's difficult walking when you have to plough your leg inches up and down the snow.

"Manik, stop!" I hear her scream from behind. Why doesn't she leave me alone? Why does she have to make me feel small like my pain is nothing? Leaving her pleas unheard, I keep walking ahead.

"You should get back in." I shout not turning back.

"Not without you." My body feels weak and teeth chatter.

"Look, I understand that you are a very caring doctor. But just this once, let me be. Please." I am starting to break down inch by inch and before she sees me anymore devastated, I want to vanish from her sight. Hell, I want to vanish from my own sight too. "My heart and this world don't fit each other and it...it gets lot worse at nights like this." I whimper biting my lower lip whilst my steps slow down by the weight of my thoughts.

"Things are going to get better. There is still hope for you. I will help you outlast these difficult periods." she begs running after me.

"Words are just words." The coldness clogs my throat and I am not able to contemplate for how long will I be able to walk but I refuse to give up. The yellow streetlights silently witness the snow falling as if they were in search of some beautiful story in the dark of the night

I feel my weak body sharply turned as five tiny fingers interlace with mine and the little warmth her touch provides me reminds me of the sunlight of a summer morning. Her wet long strands sticking to her face are like winter fire having my soul burn there too. Little do those eyes can know that my lung is taken, all of my promises are broken, my heart is filled to the brim with empty swimming pools. Little does she know, I have seen crystal-eyes like hers in past too and they have turned out to be razor blades shredding my life to pieces.

"Why? Why do you care?" I question and her eyes flicker.

"Because I want to know what Kiara felt like. I want to feel the feeling of being loved by a crazy lover like you." she looks away to turn and tugs me after her. I stay there glue having my feet under the snow.

"Lies. You are lying, Nandini Murthy." She halts letting our hands stay entwined.

"Yes, I am." she murmurs.

A little shriek escapes her swollen lips as I rotate her in my arms leaving her no room to run away from me.

"Then what is the truth?" I question more vulnerably than I imagined to be.

Her eyes meet mine and there is a different sort of confidence in them, the one that would make any man go insane.

"Because you deserve to get your heart broken by a lady like me and not Kiara."