M A N I K

The sunlight peeking through the blinds compel me to flip another side and doing so, I grab a soft pillow close. My hold on the warm pillow is little too strong unless the pillow hits my face pushing it the other side. But wait... pillows don't hit you, right?

Fluttering my eyes open, I give an ear piercing roar looking at the sleeping woman wrapped in a thick white blanket right next to me. The sooner the pitch of my voice reaches the ceiling, Nandini wakes up startled and falls off the bed wrapped in that clutter in the name of a blanket.

"What the actual fuck?" She winces rubbing her elbow; still on the floor. "Who wakes up somebody like that?"

Fretfully, I peek into my blanket and heave a sigh of relief finding myself clothed underneath. She lifts her head off the carpet with the support of the edge of the bed having no idea what's happening around.

"Ugh my head hurts." She presses her forehead under her messy hair allover her face.

"Why the fuck are you on my bed?" I screech sitting up with a jump.

"First of all, don't shout this loud all right? My head hurts. Ahhh." She cries. "Oh and of course, you don't remember how we got wasted last night and you practically begged me to not leave you alone."

I crease my eyebrows contemplating. "I did that? But didn't we go to McDonalds?" Then it hits me how we went to a bar to celebrate our last night together which was completely her idea.

"Even if that is so, that still doesn't mean you'll crash on another man's bed just like that." I frown.

"Stop acting like a virgin little bitch!" She hisses holding her head and gets up slowly to open the blinds.

"No! Don't open the window yet." My drunken head isn't prepared to welcome the rays yet.

"Why, Damon Salvator you need a daylight ring?" I roll my eyes at her useless remark and as she tries to stomp out of the room, she falls again on my carpet in the jumble of blanket and cries out loud.

"Ouch."

✿ ✿

"Why do we have to bear consequences for everything? Like, why can't we humans have fun?" She groans holding her head on the high stool by my kitchen counter.

"You just have a hangover. Don't make it sound like a global issue." I shake my head making coffee for the two of us.

"Hurry up with brewing that expresso, will you?" She hisses.

"Unless you don't want me to throw the steaming coffee right at your face, keep quiet." And then it hits me.

"By the way, why am I making you coffee in the first place? We are supposed to go splits from this day on." That was why we celebrated last night, isn't it?

"Jesus will punish you if you refuse a morning coffee to a girl having the worst hangover ever, I swear." She partly opens her eyes to threaten during pressing her head with those tiny hands.

Placing the coffee and pancakes on the counter before her for both of us, I take a seat. Before sipping the coffee, she pops in a pill to fight her headache as I'm swirling spoon in my coffee.

"How come are you this okay?" She asks gesturing me as if I'm faking like my head is not killing me.

"You know Nandini, this has to stop right?" I speak in a serious tone.

Her face falls and she nods feebly sipping on her coffee, "But it doesn't need to."

I sigh, "I thought we discussed it well last night."

"Yep" She breaths. "And, I'm not gonna blow this up."

There is a weird silence hanging in the air except the sharp sounds of our knives cutting the pancakes as we eat in silence.

"Do you want me to help you clean these up?" She offers getting down the stool.

"Um my place isn't quite the clean type as you can see. Let it be." I give her a barely there smile.

"I think I'll just clean the dishes. You can always help." She moves towards the sink and after a little awkward thinking, I follow her.

She is cleaning the dishes and passing them onto me as I dry them with a cloth. I try to glance at her several times but that face is always hidden behind those clouds of hairs. Her skin looks as good as ecstasy and I am astonished to find out that there is no evil in her heart. She is pure and .. childish.

"See? A little effort goes a loooong way." She sings seeing the dishes orderly placed in the rack.

I don't know why but there's a weird feeling like my mood is sinking as the time is nearing and she looks at the floor, maybe trying to get the word.

"So.." she rubs her hands together and half-heartedly, I dance one of my brows with a faint smile.

She sighs, "This is it. I..promise to not be pushy and clingy."

"And psychotic." I pinpoint.

"That's your expertise, gentleman." Putting hands on either sides of her waist, she blinks eyes sarcastically.

It feels like something is hammering out of my chest as I smile feebly. "Totally." I take a pause looking around. "I'll get your coat from inside."

Just as she nods, I head inside and intake a massive breath dipping my face in the web of my hands. Why saying goodbye to her is feeling so difficult suddenly? Isn't this what I always wanted? I tread to and fro across the length of my room balling my fists in air having sessions of pep talk with myself to let her go. And finally, dragging a facade of confidence in a breath, I grab her coat walking out the room. Nandini is on my couch wearing her high boots and the moment she raises her head, she smiles.

"Winter this year is quite harsh, huh?" Merrily, she walks up to me and turns around and that is my cue to help her wear her coat which I spontaneously do.

"Thank you." She mouths and I hold the knob opening the door for her.

"Wow. Such a chivalrous act when kicking someone out." Her jokes compels me to give her a fake minimal smile.

She takes a step out and my grip around the knob tightens. The beat of my heart is suddenly too rapid when she rotates looking straight into my eyes.

"You really want this, right?" I clear my throat before my voice betrays me but I still keep my lips tightly pressed.

"It's for the best." I gulp hard.

"Okay," she takes a step closer and I wonder if this is the last time I'm seeing her from this close. "I wanted to tell you two things. Consider it a spontaneous drama-free speech." She inhales deeply. "First, don't stop painting. I have seen it in your eyes how alive you are when you paint."

"Even if it means painting her?" My voice is suddenly growing too dry.

She takes a little time before nodding, "Yeah. Even if it means painting her because painting is something which keeps you going." She presses her lips. "And the second thing, Manik, don't think of doing anything stupid ever. Life has given you a chance and it's your turn to give a chance back. Don't think it is a garbage. Utilise it in the way you want and I really hope to someday cross paths with you again, maybe in the next twenty years when we will, I want to see you as the man who hasn't given up on life even though it has given him a bucket of reasons to. Be an example. Be extraordinary."

She inches up on her toe wrapping arms around me and I hold her closer than I did before hiding my face into her shoulder. Her arms make me feel safe and the parts inside me send a message to my brain to not let her slip away. I can't make her understand. Hell, I can't make anyone understand what's happening inside me because I still am getting flashes of her laughing in that daffodil field whenever my eyes close and that is why I need to let her go.

We part when children of the upper flat snicker running around the stairs and Nandini puckers her lips at them.

"I have something to tell you too." I mutter.

"Yeah?" She curls her lips in astonishment.

"Don't stop laughing ever because it makes you look lunatic." She waives her hand in dismissal.

No, because it makes you look beautiful.

"Never. So I'll see you-" She widens her eyes realising that this is the last time we are seeing each other. "Never mind. This really was the simplest goodbye in the history ever, huh?" She chuckles nervously.

I smile mutely and her face drops. Her fingers are fidgeting with her bracelet and mine are hard on the knob behind the door. It isn't a regular something.

"Manik, you know very well why you are getting rid of me. You know that I am the only good and happy thing happening in your life currently. You know, I am the beaming light in the darkest paradise of your heart and that is why you are dropping me like I am nothing because..because you are scared." I avert my eyes behind her.

"Wonder why would I be that?" I try to lighten up the situation but my lungs feel how difficult it is to breathe right now.

"Because you are scared of letting people in. You know, the more people you will let in your life, the many will walk out leaving you devastated." Her childishness has long  been replaced by this matured lady.

In this moment, I am drowning. I am drowning in the way she wears her soft smile with stars on a brown sky in her eyes. I am drowning in her gentle, soothing voice that fills every void. I am drowning in everything that even has nothing to do with her.

I want to scream it to her that Nandini, I don't want to use you. If I be selfish then I'll hold you close to me forever but you are just too good of a person to be carrying all my weight because I figured, you have your own weight to carry and that's a lot for your tiny shoulders. You are born as a beautiful person with a whole heart, Nandini and let's just not make you be that person who pours and fills empty cups of the world. You always can't take away what's aching. You always can't be a healer because you are a flesh and blooded human being who needs someone to do all these things for her too. You cannot always be someone's replacement and fight to make a place in someone's life because people should be blind to not do that for you. I can for sure say these things to her out loud but I won't because I'm a coward so I'll just say what will make her leave.

I step ahead and hold the side of her face with my palm like she is the softest thing ever even though my heart is even scared to lay a finger on her. Our faces are weirdly close and the tips of our noses brush. She is too gorgeous to tear my eyes away. The chaos that collides with my bones can never be taken away even by the strongest love. She wishes to save me but I only wish to be left alone.

"Nandini, because.." I hold both of our hands brushing my thumbs over her knuckles closer to our chests. "I will always be in some kind of love with Kiara."

Nodding feebly, she frees her hands from mine and instantly my fingers crave the warmth of brushing against her tips. It feels like the Sun is setting and the earth is turning cold.

"Goodbye." She forces a smile.

Just as Nandini turns her face jogging down the stairs, I lean on the railing to see her stepping away. Each stair is taking her away and I can't help but helplessly witness. When Kiara left, she took all colours away from my life leaving me with nothing but darkness and now, when this irritating, psychotic, pain in the ass of a Doctor is leaving, it feels like she's taking the blackness away too leaving me with nothing but hollowness.

As she vanishes from my sight, I run to the window in my bedroom to see her open her car and it hurts me to not shout at her to stop, plastering some lame excuse, of course. She's leaving and I'm witnessing because that's the choice I made and I'll make it again for the next thousand lives if I get. And just like that, she is gone taking away all those laughters along with her. It's ten in the morning but I pull my curtains colouring my room pitch black because I stopped forcing pieces that don't fit.

I am letting her go not because she's incapable or I don't care for her. I'm starting to and that's what scares me the most. I need her to leave before I ruin everything, before she cuts herself trying to fix my broken piece; I sabotage everything. It's an awful feeling not keeping where you stand with someone. And, what does it make me? Since I was the one who made her promise me that she's going to help yet I am the one to throw her out of my life. Only if she knew how it is to see and avoid her through my eyes.

It's all right even if she's without me.