Changing Shades - 6

Chapter 6 

Manish!!!

Khushi broke off from Arnav with a muffled cry. He let her go and she stumbled away from him.

“No,” she said, and then more strongly, “No!”

He came after her.

“I'm not mistaken, Khushi. I was not mistaken. You don't love him,” Arnav said, and there was victory in his voice. “You love me, not Manish. Admit it. You can't marry him, Khushi. You're mine, and you always will be.”

“Arnav, no!” she cried. “Don't talk like this! Don't do this! I don't love you! I'm getting engaged to Manish the day after tomorrow. I have to marry him.”

Arnav stared at her disbelieving, his eyes growing cold. “You can't do that,” he said. “You love me. I always knew you did. I'm sure of it now.”

Khushi turned away in distress, her mind churning.

"No, I don't. I cannot do this, Arnav. Please, don't make me do anything I might regret. I cannot leave Manish now.”

“Tell me that you love me,” he demanded, his tone imperious, possessive. He turned her around to face him, and his eyes bored into hers. 

Khushi looked at him helplessly. “Don't, Arnav. I can't. I don't love you. I can't love you.”

“Then why did you kiss me like that?” he demanded.

“You kissed me,” she said defensively.

“I didn't notice you fighting me,” he retorted immediately, and she was quiet. She looked at him pleadingly. “Please,” she said, “can you forget this ever happened? This whole conversation, this …”

“This kiss?” he said. “No, Khushi, I'm sorry, I can't pretend this never happened. I always knew you didn't love Manish. You and I … we're meant to be together. You're mine, not his. You love me. Your kiss said it all.”

“I don't love you,” she exclaimed. “You took me by surprise. I don't love you and I can't marry you. I have to marry Manish.”

He pounced on her. “Have to? Why do you have to? Tell me! Answer me, dammit!”

Khushi rounded on him in impotent fury.

“Please!!!” she exploded. “Just leave me alone. Isn't it enough that I have to … do you think it's easy for me to do what everybody tells me to do, and expects me to do, without you putting doubts and fears into my mind. When I wanted you, needed you, you had gone to fix your own engagement! Now you tell me that you love me! Why do you think I agreed to marry Manish? You let me down when I needed you! I thought you would clear things up for me, and you just disappeared. Now I've made my decision, now please, just leave me alone, Arnav!”

“I did not go to get engaged," Arnav replied strongly. "I'm not the one with a ring on my finger. I don't know what stories Sunny and the others made up, and I'm not responsible for them. If you believed in me so much, in our closeness, didn't you stop to think I would tell you rather than any of the others if I was going to make such an important decision? I went because my grandfather was sick, and I told him the name of the girl whom I wanted to marry. That girl was you. It has always been you."

She turned on him furiously.

"Oh, so you told him! How about telling me? Or did you just take it for granted that I would fall at your feet in eternal gratitude, that you were stooping so low as to want to marry me? Yes, I'm poor, I'm not from the same status family as you, so I should fall at your feet and accept anything you care to give me? What is the difference between Manish and you? He takes me for granted, so also do you!"

"You are making things up!" he retorted furiously. "Why are you twisting my words around? I felt nothing of the sort."

"You did," she said. "I had such pride in our friendship…"

"It's not friendship on my part," he said, bleakly. "It was love. But you don't seem to want it, don't seem to need it. You're more concerned with your pride. As for not telling you that I loved you, I thought my actions spoke louder. I'm sorry if I was mistaken. It's obvious that I was wrong in my estimation of our closeness, our ability to read each other's hearts. I thought I read yours, but I was wrong … and you … you didn't even try to read mine."

She turned back to him, stunned.

"Arnav…"

"No," he said, still in the same bleak, even tone. "Go to Manish, Khushi. I'm sorry I made such a big mistake. I thought I had found my soul mate, a girl with fire in her, with the courage of her convictions. But I was mistaken. Go marry him. Run rings around him and his parents. You'll prefer that to the life I can give you. I'm not such a big man as he is, that's the problem."

He turned away, and stared over the hills.

She turned and went.  

She did not see him again.

She went to Manish, told him that she had a headache and would he take her home. Startled and worried, he obliged.

The next day, she stayed at home. Yes, Arnav had cleared things up for her in her mind. She knew she did not love Manish, not in the way a girl loves the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with. The problem was, that by clearing things up, and forcing her to realize her own feelings, he had only made things worse.

She touched her lips, felt again the feel of his lips, heard the emotion in his voice, and felt her own response.

"I do love him," she thought, with a sense of wonder. "I do! I never realized it till now – what a fool I've been! That's why I was so angry and upset when I heard he was getting engaged, that's why I felt so let down, and depressed. And that's why the world moved when he touched me, when he kissed me. I love Arnav!"

But what about Manish? What about her engagement? What about Manish's parents, who had done more for her than her own parents? How could she let them down?  

"I can't go through with this," she thought. "I don't love Manish. It's Arnav. It's always been Arnav. And now I know he loves me too. I can't marry Manish."

You cannot let down your uncle, and Manish's parents now, a voice inside her answered back. Everything is ready and set. The engagement is tomorrow. Manish loves you. You have said yes to him. How can you turn around at the last minute and say you love somebody else?

And his parents? After all they have done for you, you cannot let them down. Your life is not only your own. Your happiness is not the most important thing in the world. These people have given you more than life. It's the duty of parents to look after and care for their children, but these people? They are not related to you in the slightest. In fact your father was their servant. And the way they have looked after you, even your own parents could not have done as much. You cannot let them down. Their happiness, their wishes are more important than your own. If you have to give your life for them, it is not enough, after all they have done for you. And what are they asking of you? They are not asking you to give any sacrifices. The reverse, they are welcoming you into their house and making it yours.

But they love you for yourself, a little voice inside her argued back. Not just as a bride for Manish. They love you like a daughter. Surely, if you tell them that you love somebody else, that you don't want to marry Manish, they will listen to you?

Khushi paced up and down in her room, fighting with herself. Then she came to a decision. She quickly and quietly slipped out of the house, and made her way up the hill to Manish's house.

When she returned half an hour later, she was pale, her hands shaking. She came back into her room, and stared at herself in the mirror. Her decision was made – it had been made for her. She knew that she could not make any other, even if it meant a lifetime of regret. 

The day after was the engagement. With deep foreboding, she got ready for the ceremony, half hoping and half afraid that Arnav would say something during the proceedings.

He never came.

All through the ceremony and the tea afterwards, she kept waiting for him, her heart in her mouth. When Manish slid his ring onto her finger, she almost screamed that she did not want it, she wanted Arnav's ring. But she kept quiet, and put her own band onto his finger, her hand trembling. She heard their other friends talking, wondering as to his absence. Nobody, it seemed, had heard from him. 

A few days later, Manish told her he had got a letter from Arnav, postmarked Bombay. Arnav had had to fly there suddenly, due to his grandfather's ill health.

“It all happened very suddenly,” Manish read to Khushi. “Sorry could not even inform you before I left. I had to take the first flight out. Fortunately, Grand dad is recovering now, but I have to stay on here and take over the firm much earlier than I thought I would. Am going abroad for a while too, so I will see you after a few months.”

“A few months!” Manish exploded. “He won't even be there at our wedding. That bloody idiot! Calls himself my best friend! Wait till I see him!”

Khushi didn't know if Manish ever saw him again. She knew that she definitely had not, not until this afternoon, when he had walked into the office, and his eyes had bored into her soul, just as they had done at their last meeting.

What am I going to do, she thought bleakly. Dear God, what am I going to do?