JHEEL

My destitution accepts not to further another moment except my own demise.
My father's state of worry, and his behaviour towards my mother, this house and the servant. I am unable to grasp it, I am unable to accept it because I am the reason for everything.

And my mother's worry, apology, and still holding onto hope?
I know it leads forward towards nothing because nobody wants to accept a tarnished and bruised leftover like me.

When I receive a call from Manyata, it feels strange, because I never believed she would reach out to me after what I have done.

But when she actually shows up, while I sit in the Bandhani Cafe, believing she will never appear, she walks inside.
 Her sitting across from me, and of course, it becomes my need to speak first.

"How are you?" Her question hangs in the air.

"Soiled in grime through my Karma?" I speak. I think, now that she has shown up, she would speak the bitter words to me, but no. Her hands reach out to me every time I say something. Her eyes hold me in my place like I am a book she is focused on understanding every single word.

The way she replies, it feels nothing like pity, yet everything like sympathy.

Her eyes, her words.
They are daggering me. Not because she says something wrong or works on something bitter. But because she is kind.
She is nice.

She is so good to me. To me? After everything I have done to her, she is still good to me? My parents aren't even kind to me anymore, and she chooses otherwise. That day, I left the dungeon with my lover and never even informed her family about it. I basically left her to be tortured at the hands of that merciless man?
And she still forgave me.

How can I?
How can I be such a fool to hurt someone who deserved the least of it?

My one action. One deed. And now, how many lives are shaken upside down because of it? My father is unable to live his life, and my mother is unable to live hers with him. And the practical ruin of a girl who was the kindest soul, all because of my actions that have derailed my own life.

These many lives are on the line and disrupted. Everything. Because of me, I can't live with this. I can't live with my father being miserable because he can't give me the life he wanted to give me. I can't do this to my mother, who spent all her life catering for me, and now she will have to continue doing it because nobody is going to accept me, and on top handle the wrath of my father.

I can't do this to myself.
I can't continue to live being rejected, being stranded and being thrown and talked over like I am a sullied dirt.

I hold the blade in my hand while I sit in front of my mirror. My dress hugs me deeply while it flows down, my hair perfectly pinned, and my minimal make-up perfectly lined.
I never live perfectly. At least I can die.

The letter I had written is on the dressing table, addressed to everyone. Stating my final words.
I am not disgusting and smeared in filth as they have made me.

I was a horrible person, and I have lived like one. But I am doing better.
My last words are even border. Bigger letters.
If you find me before I lose my life? Please, please, I beg you. Let me die.

The blade inserts deep in the centre cavity of my wrist before I start to strike it downwards, and a soul-crushing scream rings out of me. While my sight catches darkness before I can continue feeling this horrendous pain.

~~~~

My head is in a spiral, and when my eyes open, the light is so bright I have to shut them again.
And after my eyelids adjust to the shadow of the lights, I slowly open to the striking light rays.

I can hear commotion around me, and soon a doctor is before me. His hands reach for my eyes, opening them and looking at something before he does the same to the other one.
A lot many check-ups happen, and then he departs, a nurse still standing.

My lips open, but nobody is around me to hear.

I remain still and shut my eyes.

~~~~

I am such a failure.
I have conquered nothing my entire life, and the one thing I am doing—one thing I am ought to do—and I manage to fail.

My returning to consciousness seems like it’s been ages since I was in bed.
And nobody has appeared in a familiar face before me.
I see the nurse doing something to my machine.

My dry throat forms words and then starts to cough. “Sister, where is my family?” I ask and instantly start to cough.
“You don’t have a blood relative. Your guardians are outside.”

“What? They are my family, my mom and dad.”

She sees my face; she is so beautiful. And with a small apology in her eyes, she says, “I don’t think that they are that old or that you are that young!”

Two knocks before the ICU door slide open, and Manyata steps inside. “I heard you woke last night. How are you feeling?”

“She seems to be well,” the nurse walks away, Manyata recalling from behind her, “Thank you, Yogyati!”

She passes her a gentle look before shutting the door.
“My parents?”

“I want to slap you, but I also understand you, because I wanted to do the same!” Manyata steps forward and sits down on the sofa far away in the corner. “Jheel, when we met earlier that day, you should have told me what you were thinking about. You know—”

“Don’t, Manyata. Please don’t be nice to me, don’t be kind to me. I am glad my parents have left me, because now they can actually live their life and not dread over me. And I expect you to please, please hate me. So, I can continue to live in sorrow and remorse!”

“But do you need to?”

She does not deny my parents. That means they have left me. Well, I did not slit myself to be awake again; I wanted this to be my end. My everything to be over.
Yet, here I am. Still stuck, and now a bigger taint on the Chauhan surname. Because, apart from being a foolish, betraying friend who was dirty, I am also now someone who slit her arm for attention.

I do not reply. She nods.
“Leave me alone.” My harsh words.
And she has to stand, departing from the ICU room. The door shut behind.

~~~~

I know she still visits, but she chooses to stay outside. I hear her voice a few times. Yesterday I was transferred to the normal ward. I step outside the door for the first time, and right outside the door of my room, on the steel bench—

The face of the man who managed to make me smile for the first time in two years is sitting there.
He sees me, rising slowly from his seat.

That day fogs my mind—when I sat normally, when my mind and my past actions weren’t eating me. I was sitting quietly. I would think of my dread of being lost, and the happiness of being found. The harshness of being alone in a maze and then woven out. And the smile. The joy and bliss I felt. I would sink into guilt. The way he had looked at me. I would remember the face, and die in the pit of my regret.

“Are you alright? Do you need something? Can I fetch for you? Nurse? Should I call my sister?”

“What are you doing here?” I query him instead.

He does not reply. “You should not exhaust your body. The blood circulation is still weak.”
His hair is ruffled, his button-down navy shirt hangs lower over his faded blue jeans, and he appears exhausted.

“How long have you been here?” My question again.
He picks a jacket—blanket?
It is a thick cotton shawl he picks and then loosely folds around his hand.

“You first return to your room, sit there. I will answer everything.”
I will appreciate answers to all my questions.

I revert, sit down, and he joins me in the ward.
“Where are my parents?” I shoot the moment I am inside.
His face rests upon me, and he sighs before skidding his gaze away.

“I think you should no—”

“Tell me, Jivan!” I ask, requesting.
I know Manyata would tell me if I ask her, but she would say it in ways where I would not feel enough guilt about it. And I want to feel the despair I am causing for others. Plus, asking him—it feels easier. Is it that I have no connection with him, or that I have more than a little?

“They left you because they didn’t want to get more entangled in everything.”

At least some man stands on my expectations. I am glad for his honesty.
He hopes I would give a bigger reaction, but in the last three days since Manyata told me, I have somewhat accepted it. Yet I want to hear it for sure.

But if not my parents, what am I supposed to do?

“Who is paying my hospital bills then?”
My second concern in line wasn’t this, but after knowing I am abandoned, this becomes the first thing that concerns me.

“We are taking care of it.”

“We as in? That Gujarati? Manyata’s Gujarati husband’s money? The one Somvarth tried to ruin?”
Without intention, what comes out is as sharp as a knife.

He does not reply, but it is obvious. Manyata’s husband is paying my hospital bills after everything I have done for them.

“What about you? Why are you here? What do you want?”
My question hangs in the air; he refuses to reply.
I am not mad, but I feel this question is needed. A requirement—I am not sure why.

His head jerks toward the window, looking outside before a nurse disturbs, and he gets an exit from this conversation.

He is probably here looking after me because Prithviraj and Manyata are people nice enough not to leave someone stranded alone in a hospital while her own family has refused to own her.

~~~~

He leaves with the nurse, the door shut. And I know he is outside.
Oftentimes, he appears at the peak of the door opening and shutting, and sometimes when I internally feel his presence.
I sleep through the evening until the middle of the night.
And as I see the right-hand angle on the unending time motion hanging on the wall, it appears to be three.

I stand from the hospital bed; my IV is not connected. I step outside the door once again, facing a sleeping man—hands crossed, head laid back on the wall. He is sitting and sleeping. I am sure he doesn’t work 24/7 for them. Why does he decide to stay the night as well?

Ever since I met him, the happy memory…
The identities in them were never people I had previously known, but when I ran across the whole haveli of Agnivanshi, in a labyrinth—willingly getting lost because I knew someone was out there to find me?

And they own my victory, woven out of the labyrinth, with him behind me.
Somewhat, the constriction inside my heart feels like I was out more than the path that day.

Yet, when I return, my home reminds me—how dare I be happy? When everyone around me is left to handle my brought-upon shame?
How dare I forgive myself because Manyata did with her kindness? How can I stop feeling remorse towards any of these people?

I bled before my flesh could.
I withdraw, staying apart from everyone. I am stuck in my room, my bed. My mind wanders through thousands of things before closing any distraction, and once again, I am in the heart of a struggle. My cries that my mattress has soaked. And internal urges telling me I don’t have a purpose in life to live.
It is loud, profound. I want to take the course to end it.

I reach toward him, my IV band-aid hand reaching for his shoulder, and I touch it lightly. His eyes open immediately. Red. He finds me and shuts them before trying to be normal.
“Do you wa—”

“I think you don’t have any business here; you should go home.”
 I tell him. He faces me and shakes his head.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you reaching for me when I am at my worst, always? Why is it always you who saves me when I am about to lose everything? Why do you show me things better than someone like me deserves to see?”

He stands, his height shadowing me.
“And why don’t you deserve it?” He advances a step, and I take one back. “Did you force yourself to marry only royalty? Did you force yourself to make it happen anyhow, that you had to sabotage someone’s marriage? Or did you force yourself to get kidnapped by him because you love to be a pawn?”

A window I never knew I had in a suffocated room in my chest opens.

Tears form, and I shake my head.
“Nobody forced me. I took my own steps. My father didn’t urge me to have an affair with someone’s fiancé. And Somvarth never lied to me about his intentions for Manyata! I was aware, and I was ignorant!”

“You were kidnapped, you were almost molested thrice! And then you were almost killed in the middle of the road by your own lover! Two years suffered under curses and the numerous taunts of others! Isn’t that enough to start lessening your guilt? Instead of trying to kill yourself?”
He shouts back, the first time since I have ever known him.

“No mistake—never any crime—can be big enough for one to try killing themselves! And if they are doing that? It’s not their redemption. It’s their cowardice! You want your retribute, you should have thought about staying alive and doing it for the rest of your life.”

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When I write this book, it feels like I have so much emotions that I can only show as a character because people in real life can't endure my feelings.