Chapter 8

Fear
____

She had his haldi on her. Omkara noticed as he gently sat her down on her bed. He had never been invited inside her room before. It was painted in a shade of royal blue, an entire wall plastered with twinkling silver stars and photographs inside silver frames. A large photograph of Ri wearing a cowboy hat and grinning at the camera hung over her bed. The girl frozen in that, and the girl shivering on the bed belonged to two different eras; of cause the latter had tasted his darkness. 
Omkara poured a glass of water from the jug kept at her bedside and handed it to her, her fingers trembled as they wrapped themselves around the cold glass, hardly sipping from it, as she stared unfocusedly at the wall opposite. He felt like a monster, for looking from the sidelines as she lost her self, a little bit each day. But then again, letting her go meant bringing Svetlana into his mother’s life. He knew Mr. Oberoi meant what he said. 
He didn’t ask her where she had been going, her guilty expression said as much. For the first time he wished she should have been successful in running away, at least he wouldn’t have to watch her suffering and suffer in return. They were supposed to be married the day after. When he returned the glass to its original place, Omkara noticed the bottle  of pills behind the alarm clock. She answered before he had even asked the question.
“I can’t sleep these days,” her voice was monotonous, empty of any emotion. “I got those prescribed from a doctor,” she added as if she owed him an explanation. He hated it; hated that sound of her tone, her words and everything. It made him feel like he was her jailor or something. Perhaps that was her intention as well. Omkara turned to leave. 
Her cold fingers tugged at his hand, astonishing him enough to stop his steps. 
“Don’t go,” her voice was so small and begging. “I’m scared.”
“I’ll deal with those people,” he heard himself saying words he never expected to say. “And the police if I have to. Nobody was hurt, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” In the need of something to do, he leaned closer and picked up a shred of glass entangled in her hair, amazed at the fact that it remained all the way and careful not to touch her even by mistake. Ri looked into his eyes, catching him off guard as she always did.
“When did we become so heartless Omkara?” He had no answers for her question. “Both of us have become so pathetically selfish.”
“You don’t know me enough to judge that,” he told her bitterly. “Perhaps this is who I’ve always been.”
“I’ve seen your art,” she spoke with confidence. “There was no darkness – there was peace and flickers of joy. You weren’t always what you are.”
And finally her words started making sense. 
“You’re scared of me…” It wasn’t a question, but a mere statement. It felt so heavy on his tongue that he could hardly get it out of his mouth. 
“Not you,” she shook her head. “Your world, if they could do this to you, humara kya honga?”
With his thumb he brushed away the strain of turmeric on her jaw. Her gaze flickered up to him and he chose his words carefully. 
“Main tumhe kuch hone nahi dunga,” his tone was finite. 
She clasped his hand in hers, holding his gaze. For a moment, that strange emotion flickered in her eyes, that hauntingly beautiful sadness. 
“There’s something I want to tell you – ”
The door opened with a snap and her father entered, carrying a heavily loaded dinner tray. 
“Baatein toh hote rahenge,” he said smiling at both of them. “First eat something, I know both of you are starving.”
Omkara stood up, her fingers slipping from his hold. 
“I need to leave uncle, everyone must be worried at home.” He lingered only to offer her a faint smile, her eyes were pooling with tears once more and she looked at her father, before hastily wiping them off with the back of her hand. “Good night Gauri!”
She hesitated for a moment, before sighing. 
“Good night Omkara…”
**
He was used to the darkness that swallowed his surrounding, the drape of night that stilled the wall lamps to tiny circles of worthless shimmer as shadows danced around in glee.  Yet each time his heart felt painfully stiff within his ribcage as he stepped into the hall. As usual, the silence was punctured with sobs, tiny and faint to be of any significance. 
He could see her shadow collapsed against the wall, a half empty bottle of wine next to her and a glass at her feet. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, pulling them to her chest and her forehead resting on them. Her shaking figure, a familiar sight of his childhood. 
He couldn't see her face, her dark hair cascading it. But he could picture the exact shade of her bloodshot eyes, the white of her pale skin, blotches of kohl against it.
“Mom?” His voice sounded fearful, he didn't want to see her state, but he couldn’t walk away either. 
“Please, let me be. Not again, not tonight,” the bitterness of her voice made him flinch before he noticed something different about her voice. “Let me go Omkara!” She raised her head to look at him, her coffee brown eyes rimmed with red and smudged black eyeliner. 
“Gauri!” Omkara woke up shaking, his body drenched in sweat in spite of the AC. 
He ran a hand over his face, trying to catch his breath and caught his reflection in the mirror opposite. 
For a moment he expected to find his father gazing back at him. Like in that dream. That fragment was one of his childhood memories, only his mother and father replaced by him and Gauri. Picking up a glass of water from the bedside cabinet Omkara drained it at one go. That slight change had turned his memory into a full fledged nightmare. 
He slammed a hand to his forehead, his own breathing too loud in the silence and her words haunted him. “I’m scared…” why did she say that, he wondered.  He was scared too. She made him scared of himself. He concluded reluctantly.  That fear has always been there in the back of his mind, that he would one day end up being his father. But never has he come so close of really becoming Tej Singh Oberoi than he had with her. She brought the worst in him, the demons he tried to suppress. But the same demons dragged him to her, like an addict to a drug; he thought darkly. He could not let her go, the thought had started to rule him. Trapping her, had trapped him in turn, in a cell of his own guilt.
From tomorrow onwards the world would call her his; Gauri Omkara Singh Oberoi and he wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad about it.
**