Chapter 10 SHE REALLY CARES

Laksh couldn't believe his ears. His mind went shut for some time.

'Panic attack'

'Paralytic attack'

'Abhishek.'

"No this can't be. Save him Roshni. I beg you." He said weakly. "Uncle would die if anything happened to him."

She kept a hand on his shoulder assuring him her support and said, "I never said I wasn't helping Laksh. This is the sole reason I'm here."

"Roshni I'll help you in every way I can just..."

"Ya...Ya I know. thank you for that."

"So, what do we do now?" Laksh asked.

"Um... Laksh first of all, I'll talk to him about it tonight when he returns from office. Even though there are very less chances that he'll listen but... I'll try cause in the end we only regret the chances we don't take."

Laksh nodded in agreement and left.

Roshni went back to completing household chores and waited for his return.

Finally, he came back. She smiled seeing him and he was confused at her behaviour and headed straight to the room.

"Dinner?" She asked him trying to start the discussion.

"I had dinner at the office."

"I was waiting for you." She said sadly.

This angered him. He wasn't used to anybody taking care of him or showing concern for him. "Listen Roshni just go and have your dinner. you don't need to fake your concern-"

"Why would I FAKE concern when I really do?" She said hurt by his words. "Anyways, I'm not hungry. Good night." She said and walked towards the cupboard to grab her nightie.

"Wait." He said looking everywhere but not her. "I'm hungry now. Bring OUR dinner here."

Her face brightened into a smile. "OK" she said and happily strolled towards the kitchen.

'He's also concerned about me. He just doesn't show it.' she says to herself. 'After dinner I'll talk to him.'

They have their dinner in silence. After dinner, Roshni left to put the food plates in the kitchen sink.

Now when the time has come to talk to him, she gets nervous. She slowly walks towards the room and what she sees leaves her shocked.

"What the hell." She yelled. "I left you alone for just 10 minutes and you managed to mess up the complete room."

Ya right. Just to irritate her more he messed up the complete room and sat calmly on the edge of the sofa.

"Clean it." He said pointing to the mess.

'Not today. You like to play games Abhishek Malhotra let's do it.'

"No, it's okay Mr. Malhotra." She shook her head intently.

"What is okay?" He asked blankly.

"This. It's okay if you like the room this way. I will adjust." She said raising her hands in surrender. "In fact, I'll try to put up with it just for your happiness. You don't trust me? See..."

Saying this she began dirtying it more to an unbelievable extent. She scattered the flowers in the vase, wrinkled the bedsheet, threw all the books and every single page of files separately while he stood there dumbfounded.

"You know Mr. Malhotra I got one more idea. I'll just bring the dustbin and empty it right beside your bed so that when you put your feet down in the morning you can get the feel-" but she was stopped in the middle.

"Roshni Malhotra stop. Or you will regret it." He almost shouted. "What the hell did you just do?" He said looking around and curled himself into one clean corner. Irritating her was another thing but this just went too far. He had some slight OCD when it came to his room. It looked disgusting, a wreck like he would vomit if he stood here for one more minute.

He called the maid and asked her to clean it while he slept in another room and never did that again.

She slept there with him determined to talk next morning.

-Next day-

Roshni completed her work and waited for him to return. He came back all tired and exhausted. He fell on the bed.

Roshni: "I'll bring the dinner here."

"Hm"

He got up from the bed and walked towards the cupboard. He was just about to inject the syringe in his hand when he felt a soft hand holding his hand.

"Don't." She said in a soft voice.

He was in desperate need of it to and her act was annoying him. As much as he didn't want to show his vulnerability in front of anybody, the truth was that he was vulnerable now.

"Take your hand off." He said coldly in a dangerously low voice because he was hardly controlling his rage.

"No. It's harming you so much don't you see. How dependent you are on these. Its high time you should stop before it's too late. Its either now or never."

She was saying all this confidently but deep inside she was hell scared of his reaction.

He angrily throws the syringe and holds her tightly from here shoulders and pins her to the nearby wall causing a vase to fall down. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO TELL ME ALL THIS HA. I HAD WARNED YOU BEFORE NOT TO INTERFERE IN MY MATTERS, THEN WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND. I'M WARNING YOU FOR THE LAST TIME ROSHNI, STAY AWAY FROM THIS. STAY AWAY FROM ME."

"It's hurting." She managed to say through her tears.

"It was meant to hurt and if one more time I hear you telling me what to do and what not to do, you'll see the worst side of me and trust me, I won't ever regret it. So, you better mind your own business."

Saying this, he pushes her and walks out of the room in rage. Roshni's hand lands on the broken vase and the pieces cut through her palm and her hand starts bleeding.

She cries in pain but what hurts her more is Abhishek's harsh words and his rude attitude.

She somehow manages to bandage the wound with her other Hand but the tears keep flowing continuously every time she remembers his harshness but her heart still cares.

"It's all because of me he left like that. He's in so much pain. Where might he have gone at this time?"

She gets worried about him. She keeps calling him continuously but he doesn't receive her call. She keeps waiting for him but he doesn't return. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she falls asleep.

In the morning, she was waken up by the sound of shower running.

She gets relieved that he's back. He comes out of the bathroom and doesn't even look at her.

She goes to the kitchen to prepare breakfast but struggles to do it with one hand.

"Go and take rest." His strong voice comes from the other side of the counter.

"No, its OK I can-"

"I wasn't asking you. Besides I don't have all day, I've to leave."

"But breakfast...?"

"I've called the servants, they'll do it." He says in the same flat tone but she can sense the concern in it.

She nods and leaves for the room. There she sees painkiller kept on the table with a note,

TAKE THEM AND COME DOWN FOR BREAKFAST WITHIN 15 MINUTES.

She sighed reading it. 'It will reduce his pride if he apologizes.'

Within an hour, the house was filled with servants. All of them doing their respective works.

Both of them had their food in silence. She didn't understand what to say and Abhishek also didn't say anything. He was pretending like he didn't know anything about that note.

He saw her eating differently, actually abnormally.

He looked at her and said, "Roshni last time I saw you eating like this on our wedding day, I think."

"What do you mean by 'like this'?"

"Like a baby elephant." He said coolly.

She was angry but she knew he was right. "Actually..., when I'm tensed, I... Eat like this."

He was amused, 'wow. log tension me Khana peena chhod dete hai aur ek ye hain.' He said in mind.

He had his breakfast and left. Before leaving, he turned around and said, "And yes . Be ready tonight. Dad has arranged a reception party for us." She Just nodded.

She sat there in the lounge thinking about what to do next. His act of yesterday night had made it very clear that he wasn't going to cooperate with her.

"Did it work?" She heard a masculine voice from back.

She turned around to see a hopeful Laksh standing there.

"No Laksh. He..." She didn't know how to frame words for her answer, "He got angry and left." She said finally.

Laksh panicked hearing this. "Now what Roshni? What will we do? His condition will worsen like you said? He will-"

"Laksh calm down. There's always a way out of every problem OK. Don't freak out."

"Now we'll have to try some other way."

"Bhabi what about medication? I mean... Even if he denies taking the medicines, we can mix it in food, juice etc. and give him. What do you think?"

"I don't think that'll work Laksh. Detox medication works on those people whose 10% of the body is controlled by drugs, that means at the first stage of addiction. In his case, 40% of the body functions under the influence of drugs. HE HAS TO COOPERATE WITH US." She almost yelled in frustration holding her head in her hands.

"Roshni, he wants it or not, he. is. leaving. drugs." Laksh said with stubbornness.

"How? I mean medication and counselling is totally off. Then?" Now She was feeling like losing hope.

"First tell me one thing Roshni, to what extentyoucan go to treat him."

"To. Any. Extent." She said without thinking twice.

"So just be with him. I know I shouldn't be saying this, but be with him despite how much he hurts you. Bring his faith back in goodness, happiness and peace. That's the only thing we can do for now."

She was in deep thought hearing his words. 'He is Right. I cannot help him unless he lets me and that would only happen if he trusts me enough. And I will have to win his trust which was something next to impossible.'

Abhishek's soul was like a dishevelled apartment, unless he cleans it, he wouldn't want to invite anyone inside. He wouldn't want to open up his fears, his past, his pain to anyone, especially someone he met just a month ago.