This was never supposed to happen. I craved capturing the dilation of her pupils and the parting of her heart-shaped lips. She was so goddamn beautiful that her beauty blocked my thinking process in every way possible. Not society's visionary of beauty. There was something about the way I felt looking at her which was beautiful. I hadn't seen her in ages but I still remember watching her around me, the way she moved and the way she talked, the softness of her fingertips as they ran over my burning back.

My fingers were numb and black, nothing being said for the page in front of me. I couldn't help the vivid images of her that flooded through my mind. It cut off my air supply and filled me with nothing new, but I guess I was forgetting to breathe anyway. The charcoal was dark and rich around her, a naked body covered in silver sheets. She was the light of my memories. Her skin was pure and white, untouched and untainted and I had to depict that. My eyes were pasted to the page, though they burnt from lack of sleep. My entire body burnt in fact.

I almost growled out when my thoughts fled from me and my hand slipped. I cursed out dropping it from the page completely and scrunched the paper in between my fist to toss it against the wall and it hit the floor joining fifty other rejected papers, she was too perfect to be caged in the white sheet. I sighed realising the charcoal could never capture her image that was dug at the deepest core of my existence.

"Manik" I could hear a soft whisper peeking through my door and it didn't take me long to realise who that lean frame belonged to. Noelle. The only one I could call my friend. The only one who'd still stick to me in spite of me a douche to her all the time.

"Get out" I yelled placing a fresh blank sheet on the canvas. Without caring for a nod from my end, her place changed from the door to beside me.

"I want to take you somewhere. You have locked yourself in this damned smoky dark room since past eight days without coming out even for once. Jesus, have you even removed your curtains to let the sunlight in for a nanosecond? I almost thought you died or something because clearly you wouldn't pick up any of my calls." she sighed while I was busy brushing my charcoal entwined fingertips on the white sheet forming her thick wavy hair which I missed inhaling like it was the only oxygen to me. "Are you never going to come out of this, Manik?"

"You know I don't step out before 12." I answered without paying attention. I felt the shiver in my hands and so the sketch ruined. Damn it. I pulled out a pack of cheap cigarettes and fished one out to light it up. The smoke was thicker than usual in the cold, but the first drag seemed fresher. I sighed in content staring at my ruined sketch.

"Manik, you are going to kill yourself this way and I'm not here to watch grabbing a bucket of popcorn." she hissed and I glued my eyes to the busy streets of New York underneath my large window.

"Then leave forever." I knew my words pained her as her face dropped and like usual I felt nothing. She was the only one who I knew would have my back till the end yet I couldn't help being the meanest jerk to her.

Life was different back then. I wasn't who I am now. I wasn't the careless, quick-tempered bastard who no one will ever want to be near with. It was because I had her and I only wanted her. She was the only one who actually gave two shits about me.

She wasn't perfect though, she too was a little broken. She was too wild, the life of the party. She found me when I was in my darkest place and gave those little taste of life even though it wasn't the best ways. It was hard to keep up with her because everybody wanted her. But only God knew why she kept up with me anyway. Kiara.

Until she left. And I blamed myself for every second ever since. She knew she could have done better. I was already broken before I met her but this was the worst. The one who made me whole was the one who tore me into pieces.

"Manik, are you even listening?" Noelle's words snapped me out of my jar of lonely thoughts.

"You are still here?" I snapped making her roll her eyes.

"Fine. I'm leaving but this time I'm giving you a serious warning, Manik." She tossed a beige card on the ground which I didn't bother to look at. "Go and help yourself because clearly you are not letting me do that and I have had enough of your tantrums. So either you visit the goddamned place tomorrow at 10:30am sharp or lose me forever and I mean it." Something about the way she glared screamed that she really could give up this time.

Since beginning of my life I have had people leaving me behind all alone. I was at that point of time where it even stopped bothering me anymore but I also knew Noelle's giving up on me would really put a full stop to all the source of light in my life. She threatened me since we were seven years old playing in the old park but never the way she did this time with all those disappointment in her eyes mixed with a tint of redness. Slamming the door on my face, she stormed out of the room realising I still wouldn't say much. I didn't know what to. People left and I didn't want to stop.

Before the fire of the cigarette nearing its bud burnt my finger like my burnt heart, I crushed it into the ashtray which didn't have the tiniest place to shove in a new cigarette. I never bothered to get cleaned. Some of the ashes escaped the tray filled to it neck and fell on my carpet which yet wasn't a concern. If I would die right at that moment, death would be easier because that would get no remaining attachment or illusion. This entire world is nothing but a fallacy indeed.

It was breaking and shredding every piece of my sanity because I knew I'll never taste the feeling of being in Kiara's arms. I was trapped inside a whirlwind of chaos that only she could pull me out. She was almost mine and this is the word that breaks my heart till now... "almost".

Running hands on my face and the back of my neck, my eyes landed on the abandoned card near my feet which kept facing the carpet under it. It seemed like some visiting card. Picking it up from the floor, I sighed before turning to read it.

Nandini...