SS: Dear Diary... Part 14 Upd 11/30 Pg 66 - Page 5

He was prepared for the assault, if she did have one on her mind. He waited for her to respond, while she took small steps and walked behind the carved headboard, as if she was buying time to work up the anger, her face didn't show.

When he concluded she had nothing to say and moved towards his closet, he heard her mutter sullenly as though she didn't care if the words didn't make it to his ears "It didn't mean anything"

Had she known him any better, she would have known he didn't count actions without motives. Being an attorney for that long had taught him enough about irrationality; to be aware of the preposterousness people were capable of being led into when their helplessness attained their respective peaks. Initially he'd wanted to believe that the kiss was a baseless act, coming from a self-serving younger sister in desperation to unite her sibling with her chosen destiny, that was Gurvinder. Quite obviously he hadn't known that her sister's affections lay elsewhere until much later. But the shock that had slowly unraveled itself on her face, after kissing him, had not vanished just as quickly as it had come. It had lingered with a thousand questions there; fixed with a certainty that had had little to do with the surprise that she'd acted on her thought with such boldness. 

All through that night he'd fought to erase the face he'd silently watched being drawn away from the chair where he'd sat for dinner. Remorse didn't conceal what he'd first caught a glimpse of and it had stayed there until the closing doors had finally played its part to tear their fixated gaze on each other, but not before he'd caught her raise a finger to her lips, echoing the same question that was ringing in his ears then. It was in the waking hours of the dawn, in their terrace that he'd resolved to follow through on his search; to find out more on what lay hidden beneath that kiss and his efforts had paid of, much to his own surprise.

He knew it was pointless to argue when she was up to her ears in denial. Sidling past her he hunkered down to the suitcase that was yet to be unpacked from their trip yesterday. He fetched something and strode back to where she was standing and her eyes caught on fire, when she regarded the familiar tattered leather bound diary in his hand. It was shocking, albeit reassuring that she had taken offense only to reading her personal thoughts, while their demeaning wedding had not summoned a reaction close enough to the one that embroiled her now.

"If it didn't mean anything...then explain what ever you wrote on 23^rd of this month" He shoved the diary into her hands and opened the closet to grab fresh towels. He paused before he shut the closet doors back, as if he intuitively felt the words making its way through her closing throat. Finally when she did speak, he was already at the bathroom door, about to seal the punctured silence between them once again.

"I didn't expect this from you...to invade my privacy" She said, refraining from opening the diary to the date he'd referred to. He smiled in response, amazed that she was still capable of stunning him with her words.

"Well, too bad Geet, you invaded mine the day you decided to act on that thought that had troubled you since the time, you caught me bathing in your fields"

The diary slipped from her hands as her fingers lost its strength as she realized, he'd read it all; her entire being consumed into the fight against breaking down from embarrassment. If he hadn't earned her wrath until then, he was the sole owner after that moment, by making her face her worst demons. It had been bearable standing in his presence with the impression that she'd kissed him in the name of her sister. However, he was asking her to take responsibility for something she'd not had the courage to face while it threatened to seep into the words she regularly poured into her dear miss diary. Go to Hell! Or rather she wanted to give him hell, for sabotaging the illusion of reality she was living with, and she was determined to do just that.

"You can't think people mean every sentence they put in their diary, especially when it's only a jobless girl, stuck in the boredom of the country side"

He'd expected her to fold under such pressure and he'd even wanted to leave her alone to come up with some answers, before he furthered with his interrogation. But to his disbelief, she wasn't the typical village girl, as he'd expected. Appearing rather amused she was still up for a discussion, he crossed his arms and sat down on the chair near his desk.

"And it doesn't occur to you that its exactly the kind of people, who would give much thought before they would word their feelings they go through each passing day?"

She closed her eyes and turning in profile to shield the countless expressions that was showing on her face, she bent down to pick the diary from the floor.

"What would you know about diaries? It's the very thing people dread...no one wants to face skeletons from their closets...let alone give them shape and meaning through their words" She sat back on the bed, with her back facing him.

"It's a moot point Geet...Let's talk about you in particular...because we both know you don't fit that mold...I don't expect you to evade the subject matter, when you have such clarity than most people I have met in my lifetime" He hadn't realized what he'd said until afterwards and that had him smiling inwardly when it dawned on him, that he'd attached himself deeply to her journal entries.

Well, that should've felt good, but it didn't and she didn't dignify him with an answer either. They sat there in yet another interval of palpable silence. When he didn't show any inclination to march back into the bathroom, she rose from the bed and approached him.

"I'm as normal and mundane as village girls come" She gave him back the diary "I think you are reading too much into it, perhaps you must re-assess your decisions"

She was insistent in having him read it again and it lay stretched in front of him to convey the same; he didn't know if the diary wobbled from her nervousness or uncertainty, but he went ahead to relieve her of the weight and placed it on his desk "And you should also know I don't commit every secret of mine to the diary...For all you know I might have had another life"

Once, she thought she didn't have anything more to add, she turned around to head out of the room for some fresh air. And then it came to her that she hadn't given him a piece of her mind about the course of events that had followed yesterday.

"If you need verbal acknowledgement of the fact that I'm mad at you about abandoning my sister at the mandap and marrying me, then you should know that I will never forgive you for that..." She said pausing mid way "You could have stopped the marriage earlier, had you wanted"

He sat there twisting the paperweight on the glass table, staring at it a minute longer, before he looked back at her, the sound of the tumbling weight punctuating the words that left his mouth "It's not fair Geet when at some point, you wanted the same for your sister..." His words pierced her like needle pins, making its way under her skin.

"To me this is an arranged marriage...it didn't make a lot of difference if it was you or your sister sitting there next to me. But...trust me when I say, I'm considerate enough to know it was a world of difference to you sisters...I honestly believed that the diary entry didn't mean anything...even accepted that Channi was fighting her infatuation towards another man, hoping it will fade away with time when she and your parents begged me to go ahead with the wedding...but when I weighed in the fact that your smile faded watching the pandit hand me the mangalsutra, against my reasoning..." He stopped the pivoting weight on the table and she swiveled around to give away the horror she felt at what he was suggesting then.

His voice softened, "That instant, I realized there was hope for something more than just a convenient relationship I would be settling in for with your sister..." He'd never put himself in the open like he'd done that moment and he hated for doing so, when he watched her grow stiff with the same shock he'd seen the previous night, when he'd tied the mangalsutra around her neck. She simply refused to give into that sob that was congesting her chest with waves of tumult.

"For an attorney...I assumed you act on your better judgment, not gamble away our lives based on a flicker of something you saw cross my face" She wanted it to come across as a insult, but it rather made its way to him as her disappointment.

"Bingo...but I'm not foolish to make life decisions based on that" He said, getting up from his chair and came to stand opposite her "I acted based on what every good attorney goes by...evidence combined with intuition to sniff out the possible motive behind the act" He took her hand and thrust the diary into her hold "I suggest you review the evidence you are submitting as your rebuttal...especially the entries around your birthday"

He left her standing there, with the diary turned to the entry on 23^rd. Her gaze fell to the tiny words she'd scribbled in a frenzy...thoughtless she would be forced to confront the consequences another day. She dared to read the first few sentences, but when it made her cringe in pain, she threw the diary away and ran out of the room as well...leaving the abandoned pages stare up at the pale solid roof, that silently promised to contain their misgivings.