JHEEL

His face, and everything starts to resurface. The stained tears were deluged again, the handprints started to feel again on my body, and the begging and screaming grew loud and audible in my ears.

His eyes, a resting mixture of blue and black, catch my face with the coldness.
Coldness so similar to what he had shown me every time his and my paths were crossed. And yet there is something warm about him. 
How he was the one who saved me from the assaults and yet the one who dragged me to the bedroom to get molested.

He who left me to run.
And yet I got caught, because I was born not a daughter of the motherland, but an enemy. That's why the closest friend of the motherland, my fate, always found ways to reduce me to utter torture.

I still have it, his shirt that he gave me when I was stripped naked in the dungeon.

The dungeon of bricks and mud walls, the chill yet the sweating warmth, everything was combined in it, he was leaning by the door, while Manyata was perched beside me, lost, pained yet determined that she would not give them the satisfaction of believeing she is hurt. 

The lingering eyes of the two man who were there to guard us, after they had asked me to strip myself out of my clothes because their master wants it to be saved by hands of reason we were there in first place.

One of the guard man stood me from the ground, he had gripped my wrist, undid the saree palu from my shoulder and brought it outside from the cavity of the tied hand.

I was stripped, my upper body bare open, and his eyes lingered, a grinning passing before he continued. He wrapped his arm around my body, his fingers inserting in my shape wear while he extracted the tugged edges of the saree. I shut my eyes tightly, feeling disgusting and filthy.

"Dur se nahi kar sakta kya?" The man who tried to save me, not once but thrice grunted from his end. Eventually the luring man stopped, and he handed the saree to the people asking for it thorough the window.

I was pushed down to sit. My flesh burnt under their gaze. And he had noticed it, he had walked upto me.

The colour of his eyes, I noticed for the first time, when he leaned forward to wrap the shirt around my body.
My underskirt still present with my bra, he had covered it carefully over my shoulders from front, while I sat tied on the ground.

His eyes didn't loom on my skin, didn't rest on the open cleavage or the bare waist. Even when he kept the shirt, he didn't even touch my shoulder. He had stepped back without enjoying what others found appealing.

He saved me from rape thrice by them, and he never looked like he was saving me to violate me himself.

He is nothing to fear. He is one part of my past, the one face who dragged me out of my every nightmare. 
Now he stands before me, and my past floods back with every single memory before my eyes.
I couldn't control my tears, my scooting legs, pushing me backwards in the alley.

His lips part, his hand jerks forward, and he wants to step toward me, but his screeching boot halts. He waits for me to say something, but the words choke my throat. 

The evening is filled with despair and wounds. And his blue eyes on them felt like a remedy. Like every time. 

"I think everything is done now. What do you want from me?" My question comes out shaky, his lips part to speak something, but he lowers his head before returning his gaze towards me. 

"My intentions don't lie in making you relive those mortifications! I wasn't expecting you to be here, but when I heard your name. My steps involuntarily brought me here. I am not sure what my real intentions are of being here, but surely it is not to hurt you."

How can I trust him?

Him, whose name is not even anchored in my memory, when the man who ensnared me was someone I thought I knew everything about.
He is someone I hold no information about.

"I think, I know. You are here to take what you couldn't twice before." I shout my rage. Does he deserve it, though? 

"Jheel," he says, my name like he has known me for ages. "The only thing I want from you is forgiveness. Can you grant me that?" Is he the one who should apologise? Didn't the man who owed me a sorry die long ago, leaving me with the feeling of unfinished business?

"No," I say bitterly, his face stays neutral, never changing. "Okay." He replies, and his step screeches forward half an inch, "Your dress is getting dirty; you should stand up. I promise, I am not here to harm you." I look down. Water—engine condensation, maybe—has leaked from the car beside me, and I’m sitting in it. Panic cripples me.

No! I have to return to the party! I can't go back looking like a mess. My parents! They are betting their everything on this night. I shouldn't have run outside the party in the first place. I knew people would name-call me. How can I be stupid enough to run outside and waste a minute of my parents' wounded pride effort?

I should be finding a man, if not royalty. Any, with the title,  to save my parents' humiliation.
"Jheel?" A slow voice recalls me, my eyes from my wet hand and dirty clothes redirect to the source.

A palm is stretched out toward me. "You should use the bathroom! I will lead you."  He says softly. His fingers are frayed, like he has done manual labour all his life.

I push my palms at the cars beside me and stand on my feet, ignoring his hand.
Reminding myself that this is not for me. I need to be out there, catering myself to eligible men, so I can have a home and my parents their dignity back.

He notices that I avoided, slips it into his pockets.
He is wearing jeans, usual as the last time and his shirt last time was printed, but this time it is a plain, button-down brown shirt.

"Do you want me to guide you? Or you want to find your way?" He speaks like he knows this place. Like he knows what I’m feeling.

My eyes drift to the Agnivanshi Haveli. I don’t reply, not even to deny. My first step fumbles, and I pause for a long time.
He understands and steps away from the cars at a distance.

"The first corridor to the left and right, then you will enter a longer corridor in which the fourth wing will have the washroom."
What? My eyes again halt at the open door of Haveli.

My thudding heart soothes now; his presence was it?  Why is he here and not in Gujarat? How does he know the Agnivanshi?

I step toward the entrance, and since his question earlier was replied to with silence, he didn't follow me. I look back. He stands there, hands in his pocket and waiting for me to disappear. I should be scared, dreadful, wondering why he is waiting? But I don't. 

 I’m at the foyer of the Agnivanshis' house. I remember his words,
But my lack of conscious comprehension, and just in the first turn, I forget, he said Right turn first or left turn first? I know the fourth wing, but from which side?

I turn right, then I walk down the long, unending corridor; there are no options to turn left. It’s just a pathway, until I see doors and doors, and this time the turn led me towards a part of the garden where there’s an underground flower garden.

This is the wrong route, so I turn around and reverse my steps back towards the main corridor, where I take the right turn. But entering the long main corridor, which is unending before.
I’m confused because now there are three ways?
When does this pathway become three ways? I came from this one, no. This one! I point towards an identical chandelier hung corridors.

I enter inside, following my gut instincts, and halfway through the long corridor, I freeze on my steps because there are more than three pathways again to take.
What is this house?
Where am I stuck?

This Haveli is so huge, they might not even find me for the next two days. I turn around, and then I start to return. Are there again two turns?
How the hell, the turns and corridors increasing every time I take a step?
, frantic eyes start to turn left and right, tears welling in my eyes, and I do not understand what to do.

I start to run towards one end, but this is not the garden exit. I turn towards the next end, but it isn't either. I return and again in two ways.

I start to cry. How the hell— I fall on the floor again.
My back slithering from the wall to the floor.
Whatever is going on inside me that I’m trying to ignore. I’m trying to mute.
It is winning me because I’m losing my mind.

This time, I couldn't just let the tears slide down my face; I started to wail. I cover my face with my hands and howl with broken tears. My whimpers are so loud, this haunted haveli would have scars.
My sobs break through my neck, my breath hitching and hiccups following me next.

I stop, wipe my tears. My face is now more mess than my dress.
When I raise my head, he is again here!

Is he real, or am I imagining him? Because he keeps showing up. When I am alone. Too alone. Lonely and in pain. 
He is sitting on the other side of the corridor.
His knees are high, and his hand is on either of them.
"You took the wrong turn," He says. "The left side of the haveli is the front. It's not very complicated. The right side it's the back. And it was designed like a labyrinth. Many whorls, confusing because it seems like the spirals wouldn't end."

I wipe my face again and stare down at my crossed leg and hand in between my laps. Ashamed. "I saw you taking the wrong turn and knew you would panic." He explains again why he is present here.

Two years of struggle, tons of dishonour, belittlements and pure sufferings. I can't entertain someone with my foolishness because the degradation I have gone through has made me deranged.

Because he saw me in between cars, crying? Or losing my pathway like an idiot.

It doesn't mean he can find his entertainment in my mishaps. And sit here to view it for amusement. Which side of him is what I truly feel about him? The side where he saves me, the side where he might hurt me or the side about him finding happiness is my misery? 

What I speak of him is truly my conviction for him, or the wounds of my own. 

I raise my head towards him. "They aren't scratches that would heal in time. What happened in Gujarat has made me an amputee. And I am sorry, but with my incompetence. I won't be able to entertain you. Please convey. Why and what are you here for? What is it that you couldn't look at in Gujarat that you are trying to find now? Or my abasement is funny?" I grope him with my words of rage. The one I don't feel for him, but myself. 

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I am liking where the story is going... So much to feel.

Next Update tomorrow.