Tu Hai Mera, Aadha Sa Hissa Sadaa
Bowed down beneath the guilt of failing her, breaking the promise that he had made to her, making her cry, he was too remorseful to face her but he had to, regardless. He unlocked the door ensuring not make any sound to attract anyone’s attention toward himself. He wasn’t up for having any conversation with anyone except his wife.
Lavanya? With Mrs. Shergill? Though he had no doubt that his wife was very well capable of single-handedly defeating Lavanya, he wasn’t sure if she would be able to do it today in her emotional state of mind and he wouldn’t let Lavanya upset Mrs. Shergill more than she already was. He climbed the stairs the fastest he could where Lavanya and Drishti were standing.
“Mrs. PA. You are too shameless for your own bad, aren’t you?”
His legs froze at Lavanya’s words.
“Rakshit baby wants to divorce you. He doesn’t want you around him and you are still here. Zabardasti ka rishta banane ki koshish me lagi hui ho. Have some self-respect and leave my Rakshit baby alone. He always wanted to marry me. Tum to bas ek galti ho jo ab use realize ho gayi hai aur wo sudharna chahta hai. Listen, you-“
“That’s enough, Lavanya.” He had to step in. He had waited for Drishti to speak up on her own but now when he realized that she had switched on her mute mode, he felt he shouldn’t have waited and shut Lavanya up at her first statement itself.
He was beside his wife in two long strides before he turned to Lavanya. “Who are you?”
“Rakshit, what are-“
“I asked, who are you? Should I put forward a better question? Who do you think you are to utter this nonsense to my wife?“
Drishti’s eyes turned to him, flabbergasted. Now, what has gotten into him suddenly? Was she expecting that? No way on the earth after all that happened between them. She still kept mum, too tired to question her husband who was ready to divorce her hours back, and was now taking a stand for her, showing his right as her husband.
She looked at him, rooted in her place when he locked her fingers within his.
“This woman is my wife. She does not need to make any forced relationship, because we are already tied in a relationship and that is a beautiful relationship. Besides that, even if we hadn’t been in this marriage, she wouldn’t need to put in any effort to pull me toward her. I doubt if she herself is aware of the way her soul warms mine. Galti ye nahi hai. Galti tum thi. Jise mai sudhaar chuka hu or rather I should say, she rectified it. Doesn’t matter how we got into this marriage Lavanya, doesn’t matter. This relationship is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. You have known me for quite a long. Have you heard me say this amount of words in a go ever before?”
By the time he finished, it wasn’t just Lavanya who stared at him as if he had grown another head but also, his wife. The only difference was that his wife did that out of surprise and Lavanya, out of fury, jealousy, and heartache.
“Rakshit, you-“
“Enough, Lavanya. Really. Enough.” He held his palm up in front of her, gesturing her to just stop. Was this woman never going to understand in a nice language?
“I was respecting the fact that we were together once but this is really the last time when I am letting you disrespect my wife and walk away. Stay away? I think you got my point. Good night.” That was the last glance that he spared to her. He got his hand on his wife’s back to get her moving toward their room, away from Lavanya.
She effortlessly stepped away from him, swiftly separating her hand from his. Her eyes began questioning him about whatever he had just done. “What was this? Aapne khud kahi thi divorce ki baat. To Lavanya ne keh diya to itna aur aise kyu affect ho rahe hai aap?”
“Oh so you wanted me to let Lavanya continue with whatever that she was blabbering? I can say anything to you. Nobody else can.” Walking up to the bed, he lay down, slipping his right hand under his head. The headache was increasing, bit by bit.
She was still standing on her spot. Did he really not realize the extent to which he was hurting her? A minute ago, he gave his voice to probably one of the most beautiful confessions regarding their relationship, and a minute later, he was reasoning it with the logic that he could hurt her but wouldn’t tolerate anyone else doing that. Wow. She did not know if she was supposed to smile or cry.
The throbbing headache had given a start to his hand tremors. He forcefully dug them into the bed to keep them stable. He didn’t dare look at her. If he was holding his faith in the emotions he had always seen in her eyes for him, then at the same time every minute was heavy on him knowing the half-truth. How was his wife connected to that one-eyed woman? He wanted to know.
Besides that, he could now sense that his wife was surely in some trouble and the reason was probably – scratch that, surely that one-eyed woman and he would no longer let her deal with her alone but for that, he needed to know things first and he would have to use his own way to make her reveal everything on her own.
“Have your dinner.”
He glanced at the covered plate on the side table. She had brought his food into the room. How thoughtful!
She was forced to shut her eyes for a moment, pressing her lips to suppress her irritation upon seeing the stubborn man refusing to get up and eat. She had seen him clutching the bed sheet in his fists. She knew what was happening. His migraine was back after a long and she wasn’t glad to see the same.
“Eat before the migraine worsens,” she curtly told him and turned around.
“Tumne khaaya?” he asked, getting up slowly.
“Koi farq nahi padta.” Her quivering voice gave it away again. Dammit!
“Mrs. Shergill.”
Why, why was he using that loving tone for her now? She hated him for playing with her that way. His enamored voice was a threat to her self-control. She did not wish for another breakdown in front of him. No. Not happening.
“My head hurts really bad, Mrs. Shergill. I will not eat without you.”
Two mere lines from him and she found herself foolishly sitting on the bed beside him, keeping the plate in front of him. His face acquired a small smile. The smile was neither happy nor sad. It was rather a blend of both. A mere word about his pain and she forgot everything and there he was… who had put her through so much pain.
Afraid of hurting her again, he bit back his lower lip and tried to focus on the food, suppressing the urge to take her in his arms and seek her forgiveness for breaking his promise and making her cry.
Her gaze adored his sleeping figure as she stood at the door after keeping the plate downstairs. Perhaps he wasn’t asleep. How would the migraine let him fall into a slumber so easily! She quickly stepped in, switching off the lights, and leaving the room in absolute darkness. The moonlight coming through the window lit the room up in its faint shade.
It hardly took her a minute to recall the time she had witnessed his migraine attack for the first and last time until today. Back then, she had read almost enough to write a whole thesis on migraine. She had kept all possible triggers in her memory and consciously worked from the very next day to avoid each one of them and she succeeded for he would get headaches, but of less intensity and certainly not the migraines.
Today, quite a few triggers were unavoidable, counting stress and the meals that he skipped. She could do very little about it. Destiny was playing its game and she had started to feel that she might just end up losing the man her heart couldn’t beat without in destiny’s game.
He was lying still in bed without any significant movements. She thought, the headache probably reduced after having the dinner, helping him fall asleep.
Having fought a lot with herself to keep away from him, she couldn’t just do it after a point of time. With slow and steady footsteps, she walked up to the bed and sat beside him and that was it. Before her mind could argue with her heart to get up and move back to the couch, her hand slipped to his forehead. Her tender caresses were there to make sure that his headache would subside if it already hadn’t.
She gasped when out of nowhere he gripped the wrist of her hand that was on his forehead. He was awake. Stupid Drishti. She instantly regretted giving in to her helpless desire of staying close to him and tried taking her hand back but he didn’t allow it. A teardrop that fell from his eyelid only added to her misery.
He was crying.
He was crying.
That was all that her mind could process, forgetting every blame, every accusation, every word that he had uttered to her.
He was crying.
That was all that she could really process and what she heard him say next melted her heart like an ice cube in the scorching sun of May.
“I am sorry, Drishti.”
He brought her hand down from his forehead to his chest, clutching it closer to his heart. Opening his eyes, he looked at her with another teardrop rolling down his cheek.
Her head fell a little as she tried to contain the number of emotions rushing her inside. Perhaps, another reason was to not let her moistened eyes be visible to him.
“I am sorry.” The patience with which he was holding back how repentant he was ended in an intense way resulting in a frightening breakdown.
Pushing himself up, he wrapped his arms around her, continuing to apologize with his quivering voice and stammering words. “I… am sorry. I made a promise to trust you and I… cou… couldn’t keep it when it was tested. Though the deepest corners of my heart… could never accept that you… you could ever deliberately hurt me, I let my anger ruin eve… everything. I am sorry. I am sorry, Drishti.” He squeezed her, pulling her more in the hug pouring all his desperation and longing into it, dipping his head in the crook of her neck.
Her hands stayed on her sides with her eyes welling up. The absence of her touch struck him. He had hurt her to the extent where she was restraining herself from getting closer to him, perhaps fearing that it was temporary and a while later, he would do the same that he did a while ago.
He pulled himself back only to rest his forehead against hers, scooping her cheeks in his large palms. Staring into her eyes that were already seeing him through the thin layer of tears in them, he took in the swirl of emotions he saw in her orbs.
He wiped the tears that had begun escaping her eyes with his thumbs. It was the moment to confess. The need for him to say it verbally to her and the need to let her see, hear and know what his heart held for her, what emotions he felt for her were intensified.
He tucked the locks of her hair behind her ears that flopped over his hands resting on her cheeks. “I love you.”
Her eyes lifted to meet his, only to find adoration filling them. I love you. He said that. He did. He just did. A fresh stream of tears flowed from her eyes.
“Don’t. Please don’t.” He wiped her cheeks dry. “It hurts here,” he murmured, getting her finger to point at his heart, “here, when you cry. To see you silently cry for your parents always does something to me. It makes me angry for being helpless. I cannot bring back your parents though I really wish I could but I cannot. You have been through a rough childhood. I do not wish to even imagine what your Chaachi who had said so much in front of me must have said to you all these years when you were staying with them.”
Reminding her about the painful memories was the last thing he wanted to do, but his confession about his love for her couldn’t just be expressed in a sentence as simple as an I love you. His love for her was much more than that.
He held her both hands in his delicate grip. “I promise you, all these years that you have spent without your parents, yearning for their love, would not return but my love for you will fill the emptiness in your heart. No, I absolutely do not mean my love can replace the love of your parents but my love would occupy your heart so much that there would be no place for misery and sadness.” He pressed his thumb and index finger. “Not even this much.”
Her lips broke into a smile.
“Just like this. I would give up anything and everything to let this smile stay on these lips forever even if it means not asking about the one-eyed woman you.”
She looked at him, taken aback. He nodded, assuring her that she heard him right.
“I’ll wait, until you yourself come and share things with me and I know that day will come very soo-“
His last word stayed incomplete with her leaning over him, falling in his embrace, letting him hold her. He smiled, enveloping her in his secure hold.
“You are my missing piece,” she whispered in his ear, snuggling more in his warmth.
He retracted himself, shaking his head at her. “You are my other half.”
She bobbled her head. The feelings, the emotions were too intense to keep in. The euphoric feeling was indescribable. “Once in this lifetime, you come across someone who despite being a stranger doesn’t feel like a stranger. Someone who sweeps you off your feet without your conscious realization. Someone whom you want to protect from the slightest hurt. Someone who completes you like the other missing half of your soul. You are that someone to me, Mr. Shergill. You are that someone to me.”
He would be lying if he said that didn’t make him emotional. He was a practical man who had mastered a good hold on his emotions but ever since she stepped into his life, the hold was certainly loosening.
His right hand rose to cup her cheek gently. He leaned forward, almost touching her nose with his. Elevating his face a little, he lingered his lips on her forehead, dropping an affectionate kiss. “I love you.”
Payegi Tu Mujhko Na Khud Se Judaa,
Tu Hai Mera Adha Sa Hissa Sadaa!
Drama Name – DivyaDrishti