The Wait : Part 6

Read previous 5 parts here

(..contd)

"Yes .. just one year .." Nitin started to blabber, as if he was speaking to himself, as if he was reminding himself what he had never forgotten all these months. 

"Lets move to the parking lot " Shalu had paid the bill already, but forgot to keep tips. The waiter gave her angry look, but by then the couple had already moved past the transparent door. He muttered as to how much he hated lovers, who half the time lived in their own dream world, oblivious to the people around them. 

Nitin didn't realize that he was walking a long way to parking. The area was deserted, except for a girl who was waiting, perhaps for her boyfriend. But to Nitin, the earth had all of a sudden had dearth of people at his side. He, in his mind's eyes, could see all people standing against him, instructing at every little thing. If not for Shalu, Nitin would have hit some tree by now and his forehead would have been bleeding, and he still wouldn't have felt anything, for that one question had took away all his senses, who, with combined effort had masked his emotions so well all these months, with everyone, with Shalu ..

Nitin never knew how long it had been since he leaned over his bike, he didn't knew whether it had been hours or even seconds that Shalu had wrapped him in her hug, but he was beginning to come back to reality, a reality which he was already lost in. 

Nitin began to gather his thoughts. Shalu closed his cheeks with her trembling hands, quiet aware that she has touched most hurtful part of his life. She wanted to take back her words and just opened her dried lips to say that she didn't want any answer. She was already trying to accept him, as the question ad brought a total different personality of his which she had never witnessed even in his dullest moods. But she wanted him to share his pain, Oh if only he could say! "Its okay" was all she could soothe him with aching heart.

Nitin looked in her eyes. There was so much warmth in them, he loved those brown eyes which had always comforted him, which had given an unknown strength, which had so much pain that at times he forgot his own.And inadvertently his thoughts threaded with words "Have you ever known how much it hurts when someone very close don't wish you on your birthday?" 

It pricked Shalu. Yes, she knew how much that does hurt. The faces that gave her pain. How could some one who said they cared and loved her so much could forget to wish her on her special day? But that was not the time to relive that hurt. Nitin needed her and so she stamped all those thoughts in the bottom of her heart, where even Nitin didn't knew what all lay beneath it. She just responded with a nod. 

"No, I mean, what if your parents don't wish you on your birthday? Not once, but every year?" Shalu felt numb. Except for the tight closed Nitin's palms within her hand she couldn't feel anything, except for the pain that trickled in his eyes, she couldn't see anything. She was proud of having known this person every bit, and now as if all that seemed nothing, when she saw this new face, this new helplessness, which she never thought he ever felt. 

Shalu was breaking down. She felt as if all along she was being fooled by her own confidence of knowing Nitin. How come she never tried to take off the veil he was wearing all along? He had always brushed aside the topic of his family, of his past, by talking about his passion, his job, his colleagues. The only thing he talked about was Subhash and how much he missed him in this new city. 

"I used to think they might have forgotten it. Once or twice was okay. But every year? They don't know how much I had cried" Nitin was blabbering. Today he felt like a 2 year old struggling to form a sentence and convey what he wanted to. He gave a long pause, which Shalu deciphered that he was trying to convey something that had devastated him inside all along. 

"I am... I.. They..me..." he tried, but almost choked. "They aren't ...I mean, they are... but I am..."he buried his face within the lines of fate, breaking down

There was a confused look on her face now. She didn't know whether to stop him or let him bring out his secret. She wanted to help him, but seeing his tear stained face, her little brain also refused to give out instructions. She didn't knew what it was, but it pained her, and that was clearly visible on her shrunken face 

"I ... am no one" Shalu was more puzzled. What does that 'no' stood for? What it meant? He was so much to her, more than a friend, less than a lover, something which languages world over had forgotten to frame  a term, and how could he be no one? And one word which he had said sometime before : parents, stuck her and she shivered at that thought. Was he ... ?

( To be cont. )