Page 73 of The Circle of Exile
He stilled. It wasn’t an accusatory question, it was a curious question.
“I know we understand each other, sometimes even before we understand ourselves. But this time, I am unable to. And if you don’t tell me, I don’t know how to figure it out. I am losing touch with myself now and then. I cannot lose touch with you.”
His eyes squeezed shut.
“Atharva?” She pushed back, her fingers still working on the skin behind his ears. Desperate brown eyes met his.
“You do not want this burden.”
“I want it.”
He shook his head, pulling back, letting her fingers slip from his shoulders and hating himself for it.
“You need to bond with Arth, heal, feel connected with life back here. We will talk about this some other time.”
Her fingers tugged him back before he slipped fully away. His eyes widened at how his body snapped back to her — “There is no connecting with life here without connecting with you,” she held his face in her hands. Her thumbs outlined the space under his eyes, massaging the bones of his cheeks. “And what will I do with life here if I don’t have you?”
His chest caved.
You had to think that before abandoning me.
“Go up and sleep, Iram. I am not in the mood.” This time he was brusque, cutting, finding no other way to send her away.
“I was working to come back,” she began to say instead. “I swear I was coming back to you, Atharva…”
“You shouldn’t have left in the first place!”
15. Why is it so easy to leave me?
“Why is it so easy to leave me?” Atharva thundered, jerking to his feet. “And then come back as if I am the criminal? Mama did it, then made me believe thatInever went after her. You did it again and now stand here asking me why I am angry with you? I seriously don’t know why I am still angry, Iram, because I accepted you leaving me behind the moment I knew I had failed to find you in Budgam or Ladakh. I had made peace with it then, was angry on Yathaarth’s behalf. But now looking at you I am still angry. I love you with everything inside me and I am still unable to stop being angry because you thought our babies were gone and still left because you wanted to leave me, you wanted to go away from me knowing I would be left alone there with two corpses and no you Iram you did not wait to think how I would come to that room and find nothing but your ring in a plastic bag and our daughter’s wrapped body in a steel tray…”
She snapped into him and her arms wrapped around his chest. He stopped, horror filling him at the things he had blurted. His body was heaving, his chest feeling looser than it had a moment ago but his mind bursting with fear.
“Ir…”
“No, keep going,” she croaked, tightening her arms around him. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to push her back but she stuck to him, held on, refusing to go.
“I left you,” she pushed — her head into his chest, her palms into his back.
“You left me,” he accused, letting his arms fall from pushing her, his eyes becoming a blur they hadn’t become since he had found out that she was alive. “You left me there with the world crumbled around me. I would have borne the pain of our daughter going alone if only you had just told me to. I would have taken everything on me and not let it fall on you. If you’d asked me to bear it for you I would have borne it without flinching. But you left me. And without you I cannot successfully bear even a prick.”
Her head burrowed deeper.
“I came back to that room and didn’t even know if you went of your own free will or were dragged out!”
She scrunched the back of his shirt in her fists.
“I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive!”
Her nails clawed into the skin of his back.
“Why was it easy to leave me?”
Her body rattled.
“Why would you not even wait to see me? Why would you go away for things that were not even a part of your real world? How could your unseen family be more than me? How could names in thin air mean more than us? Did you not even think about me once?”
Her hands clasped together behind his back, squeezing him tighter. Atharva felt tears streaming down his face. He let them, his voice turning hoarser, softer, until the next words only came out in croaks.
