Rishav knew that what he has done is going to catch up to him but he didn’t know that he will have to face repercussions of his big mouth so soon. He knows that it’s Khanak at the door. He has seen her getting out of Ankan’s car and looking at the building with what he is sure was anger matching hell’s inferno in her eyes. Rishav has realized the moment he has seen Khanak getting out of car that she has met Ankan to come clean to him and has come to know that Rishav has already let Ankan know when she has explicitly asked him not to.
He has sat on the bed, waiting for her and his damnation, for what seemed like hours but still felt too soon. She didn’t bother with knocking. Knowing that he is inside, she has just shouted his name and started banging on the door, unbothered by whoever hears her shouting and beating the shit out of the door like a runaway mental asylum patient.
For a moment Rishav looks at the window, the same window he has seen her getting out of Ankan’s car from, and thinks about jumping out from it. He is on 5th floor and right now having a broken leg or hand sounds better than facing the sweet and warm girl he has fallen for. Actually, getting a brain damage and falling in coma and waking up after Khanak has had time to calm down seems like the best idea, Sweet and warm, huh?! Rishav scoffs in his head, when he hears continuous banging. More like crazy and feisty and angry. He hears his name through the door once more and winces at the loud voice. Really angry!
Rishav crosses over to door to open it but not without looking at the window longingly once with every step he took towards the door. The hand she has raised to continue her banging hits him on his chest as soon as he opens the door – right where his heart is beating twice faster than it normally does. Half because he is terrified of the turn his and Khanak’s friendship will take after what he did today, though how it can turn any worse is beyond him, and half because Khanak has sought him out for the first time since the incident last year and even though she is angry, he can’t help but be excited.
Khanak looks at him, slightly taken aback at his sudden appearance. For a moment confusion replaces the anger in her eyes and her hand stays right over his heart – giving him goosebumps with the physical touch, as if she isn’t sure what she should say now that he is here, right in front of her.
When Rishav raises his eyebrows as if mocking her for taking time to gather her senses when in real he is just trying to appear not so affected by her closeness, her confusion morphs into anger and she pushes him with the same hand that was just now making his heart beat like a lovesick fool. Khanak enters the room as if she has every right while Rishav closes the door on very amused faces of some of the residents of the hostel. No doubt, they have heard Khanak shouting his name and have come to worst possible conclusion. Rishav is sure he will face hell with all the oohing and aahing he is going to get from others for foreseeable future.
Rishav turns to see Khanak pacing restlessly around the small hostel room, her mouth set in a scowl and her eyes giving him icy glare. This is the first time Khanak has entered his hostel room. What is she thinking about it? Rishav wonders when he sees her giving the room a light once over. Rishav looks around his room to see if there is something that should have been hidden or if his already tidy room could be cleaned anymore. Fortunately, he has cleaned the room before going home last weekend. It’s hard for him to resist the urge to ask her ‘so, what do you think?’ and he wouldn’t have been able to resist if she hadn’t looked so angry. Jeez, he is behaving like a middle school student, Rishav reprimands himself, straightening his tie or shirt just because the girl he has crush on smiled at him. Next, he will be fluffing his pillows, Rishav chuckles at his own thought.
Khanak stops her looking around to come back to glaring at him at the sound of his chuckle. And Rishav doesn’t know what he should do? Raise his hand in universal gesture of surrendering or let out the laugh he has been holding in since he saw the fire in her big black cute eyes. Resisting the urge to do either since he knows either won’t bode well with her, Rishav gestures for her to sit on his study chair. Khanak will hate the idea of him finding her anger cute rather than intimidating –the angle she is going for.
Rishav rolls his eyes in reaction when instead of sitting, Khanak stubbornly opts for standing. Rishav shrugs as if he doesn’t care and sits on one corner of single bed,“You should sit. I think this is going to be a long conversation”.
“I don’t think so” But she still turns his study chair to face him and sits down. “Why? Why did you tell him when I asked you not to and you said that you won’t?” For the first time since she has walked inside his room, Khanak lets go of her anger. And what is hidden behind anger is worse. Much worse. She looks hurt but more than that confused. No, not the right word, Rishav thinks. She is perplexed as if she is at loss about why would Rishav do something like that. Though Khanak has implied yesterday that Rishav has turned into a new man and she doesn’t like the new him, this is the first time she is looking at him like she is sure that there is really nothing left of her old best-friend inside Rishav. As if Rishav is a long-lost friend who she doesn’t know how to connect with anymore and isn’t even sure that she wants to.
Put on defensive, Rishav replies with the first statement his stupid head could think of. “I didn’t tell him”. When Khanak raises her eyebrows, Rishav amends his answer, “Not in direct words, anyway”.
Khanak scoffs at his reply, her eyes losing the befuddled look in them and replacing it with icy determination. The new emotion in her eyes chills Rishav’s core. He has got a bad feeling about whatever it is she is about to say. “I am not here to fight with you about semantics. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to come here” Khanak looks down at her hands in her lap and chuckles humorlessly at herself. As if she has matured between the minutes of when she has decided to come here and now. “Whenever you hurt me with your words or actions, I think the only person that can heal that hurt is you. So, every time, like an idiot, I come to you and think that this time you will apologize” Khanak raises her head to look into his eyes, to let him see how much the lack of apology has hurt her every time – the time when he forgot her birthday in high school, the time he so casually threw away her heartfelt confession, today and every time he has hurt her with his thoughtless words which he has said because he was jealous of the hers and Ankan’s friendship.
Rishav holds the bedding with tightly clenched fists. He knows that any attempt to console her won’t be welcomed. But damn it, it’s difficult to see his Khanak, so full of life usually, exhausted with everything and that too because of his thoughtless actions. “But every time… every single time you somehow twist the situation and act as if …” Khanak closes her eyes mid-sentence, he is sure, to hide her tears. Rishav hates that she feels the need to hide her vulnerability from him. But he also knows that this is nothing less than he deserves. After all he has never shown her that how honored he is that she has chosen him to be vulnerable with. On the contrary he has made her feel that her emotions are worthless. “As if you don’t realize that you have hurt me, as if you don’t even care that you have hurt me” Khanak continues with her eyes closed. Her voice filled with the tears she is refusing to allow to flow from her eyes.
Rishav wants to shout that of course he cares. He cares for her more than anything and that’s why he hurt her the most. Because she affects him more than anyone else does. And then frowns at his idiocy. Why the f*ck is he thinking all these things when he can say them?! The girl he like is sitting there and he is confessing his feelings about her in his head.
Taking a deep breath, he crosses over to her in one step and falls onto his knees in front of her. Okay, here goes nothing!