Healing Hearts

Chapter ~ 8

MUMBAI

He put two fingers against her forehead, above the frown, meaning only to see whether she was feverish.

The frown went.

It simply left, the way water leaves a glass, and her mouth turned up very slightly at one corner, and she made a small sound and settled.

Manik took his hand back and looked at it.

MANIK’S POV

That is not a thing that happens.

That is not a thing that happens to me, at any rate. I have spent three years being the reason rooms go quiet. Children in restaurants look at my face and lose interest in their food.

I touched her forehead and she stopped frowning.

Put her down properly, put a blanket on her, sit on the sofa, and do not think about that again.

POV ENDS

He eased her sideways until she was lying flat, which took some doing, and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.

And Nandini, entirely asleep, reached out and took hold of his hand.

She did it the way a person does in sleep — without hesitating, without any part of her being consulted about it — and then turned over onto her other side, which pulled him half off balance and left him leaning over the bed with his hand trapped against her chest in both of hers.

He stayed like that for a moment, extremely still.

MANIK’S POV

Right.

Options.

I cannot stand here until morning. I cannot pull my hand out of somebody’s hands while they are asleep and hold it like — like whatever this is. And I am absolutely not going to sit down on the edge of this bed, because there is a version of the next ten minutes where I do that, and it is not an acceptable version.

She is holding on very tightly. That is the thing I would like to stop noticing.

Who has she been holding on to for six months?

Nobody. That is the answer, isn’t it? She had been holding on to nobody at all, and the first hand that came near her, she took.

POV ENDS

He pulled his hand free with rather more force than he intended.

Nandini came awake all at once, the way people do who are not properly asleep in the first place, and found a man leaning over her in a dark room eight inches from her face.

She shoved him in the chest, hard.

“What do you think you are doing?”

Said Nandini.

“Nandini—”

“I was asleep. I was asleep and you came over here. Is this it? Is this the revenge? Over a phone? Are you actually—”

She was up off the bed and pushing him backwards across the room with both hands, hitting his chest with every second word, and Manik Malhotra was going backwards with his hands half up saying her name and getting nowhere at all.

“Nandini. Nandini. Stop.”

He caught both her wrists and put her back against the wall — not hard, but with enough finality that she stopped, and then he placed one hand on the wall beside her shoulder and put his face down close to hers, and she went completely silent.

“Listen to me.”

Said Manik.

“What exactly is the matter with you? What sort of person do you think I am?"

Said Manik.

“I was not taking advantage of anything. You fell asleep sitting up, I put you flat down and put a blanket on you, and you grabbed my hand and would not let go, and I could not get it back.”

Said Manik.

“That is the entire event.”

Said Manik.

“And I want to say one more thing, and then you can think whatever you like about me.”

Said Manik.

“If there is ever a day when I want to come near you, you will know about it, because I will ask, and you will say yes or you will say no. And I will never touch you when you are not awake to have an opinion about it.”

Said Manik.

“Believe that or do not. It makes no difference to me.”

He let go of her wrists and stepped back.

Nandini stood against the wall and did not move.

NANDINI’S POV

He is telling the truth.

I know he is telling the truth, and I knew it about four seconds ago, and I went on hitting him anyway because I was frightened, and it was easier to be angry.

I have just accused a man of something appalling, and he has answered it more decently than I deserved.

And a monster does not say that. A monster does not stop and explain the rules to you in a dark room at midnight.

Say something, Nandini.

POV ENDS

He had turned to go and get his jacket off the chair when she caught his hand.

“I am sorry.”

Said Nandini.

Very quietly, barely audible, and she let go of him again immediately and moved away.

Manik Malhotra stood with his back half turned and did not answer, because he was not entirely sure if he could.

Neither of them said anything after that.

He sat down on the sofa by the window. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Twice their eyes met in the dark and twice they looked away, and there was a curious peace in the room that neither of them could have accounted for.

Somewhere around one in the morning, without either of them intending it, both of them fell asleep.

It was nearly two before Priya remembered.

“Oh God. The room.”

Said Priya, and was down the corridor before anybody could answer.

She turned the key as quietly as she could and pushed the door open a few inches and stopped.

The others arrived behind her one by one, and one by one they stopped as well.

He was on the sofa with his head back at an angle that was going to cause him considerable pain in the morning. She was on the bed, on her side, one hand under her cheek.

Both of them were completely still. Both of them were entirely asleep.

An hour and a half ago, they had been going to each other in a hallway in front of five people.

The others went away down the corridor without a word.

Priya went in.

She straightened Nandini out properly, pulled the blanket up, and stood for a moment looking down at her.

PRIYA'S POV

Six months.

Six months of standing in a doorway at two in the morning watching you lie there with your eyes open pretending, and letting you have the pretence, because it was the only thing you had that was yours.

And tonight you are actually asleep. Your face has gone soft. You are not holding on to anything.

I asked for this. Last night. On a sofa in Mangalore, in the dark, I asked for somebody to be sent who could reach her.

I did not expect it to be him.

I am not going to think about what that means at two o’clock in the morning. Tonight she is asleep, and that is enough, and it is more than I have had since last 6 months.

POV ENDS

She kissed her sister’s forehead and went across to the sofa and put a blanket over Manik, who did not stir, and turned off the lamp and went out.

She got about four steps down the corridor before she started crying.

“Priyu—”

Said Aman, already there.

“She is asleep, Aman.”

Said Priya.

“I know.”

“Properly asleep. Not pretending. Six months and I have not seen her sleep once, and tonight she—”

Said Priya.

“I know.”

Said Aman.

He wiped her face with his thumbs.

“She will be all right. Not tomorrow, and not next month. But she will.”

Said Aman.

Cabeer left a little after two, with a great deal of unnecessary eyebrow work directed at Aman on his way out.

Navya announced that she was exhausted and required her own room, said goodnight with total innocence, and was gone before her sister could form a sentence.

Priya turned around slowly.

Aman was smiling at the ceiling.

“Do not say anything.”

Said Priya.

“I have not said anything.”

Said Aman.

And that was the first day.

An airport, a broken phone, a surprise, a locked door and two people who had spent the evening trying to take each other apart, asleep in the same room without meaning to be.

Priya Murthy had asked for somebody to be sent, and had got exactly that, and had no idea. And the two people at the centre of it had each arrived independently at the same tidy conclusion. At the end of the night — stay away from him, and stay away from her — and had gone to sleep quite satisfied with the decision.

They were both entirely serious about it.

It lasted about eleven hours.