Page 111 of The Circle of Exile
He stared up at the ceiling, unable to look at her for this conversation.
“I have been selfish in dealing with this.”
She remained silent, knowing his pauses were always pregnant when it came to her. Atharva smiled. A few years with someone could make such a difference. That they started to become so aware of you, your life, your needs, your mannerisms. Sometimes more than you yourself were.
“I went back and forth inside my own head, trying to come to terms with the fact that you did not leaveme. And in doing so, I couldn’t give you the affection that you clearly needed from me.”
She still did not utter a word. And so he went on.
“I was there for you, but not in the way you needed me. All of me. At first, I thought everything was new, your body needed to heal just as much as your soul. But then… I never took any steps towards you because I was scared I would feel or say or do something cutting again and it would undo so much of what has gone forward between us. I was scared, and hesitant, and wrong in not…” his breath gave away. He swallowed the ball of saliva, suddenly pierced by the thought that his wife, the mother of his son, the woman he had loved, revered and seen as the only focal point of a blurring world had felt that he did not want to look at her like that again. In hindsight, she had mentioned something to that effect while feeding for the first time. And he had laughed it off.
Her fingers slipped up the column of his neck, to his jaw. The knuckles turned and scraped across his stubble, gently pulling his face down to her.
“If I was not ready to welcome you into my body once and you waited, and that was right, then how is this wrong?”
His eyes fell shut.
“Intimacy of body and soul remains,” her soft, wise voice sounded, close to his eyes. “But sometimes it takes a minute to bring the mind back.”
He felt her mouth on his eyes. Warm, deep, pressing with all the weight of their shared intimacies and tragedies.
“I had a long time to deal with all that was going on inside me,” her forehead fell on his, her nose on the bridge of his nose. He held the feeling of that behind closed eyelids, feeling ecstatic even while they resurrected the memories of the worst days of their life between them. “You were holding Arth close, being a single father to him, handling Kashmir burning up again and searching for me while keeping this secret. Atharva, you cannot always be the man who gives everyone everything.”
“I want to giveyoueverything,” he snapped his eyes open. She rose up enough to meet his eyes — “Whatever you give, for me that is everything.” Her fingers went to his temple, caressing him, sprinkling affection on pain points she knew unravelled parts of him. “My guilt is wide and deep. But if I let it overpower me, then I am losing on what’s right in front of me. We decided to walk out of this jungle together. You are going back, Janab?”
He chuckled. Her gaze went to his mouth, then came back up to his eyes — “What brought this on, though?”
“Mmm?”
“You say you were scared of coming close to me…”
“Not scared, myani zuv,” he rolled his eyes. “I meant skeptical.”
“Wordplay,” she brushed him off. “What changed suddenly for you to not even let me bathe in peace?”
“You had finished bathing.”
“Don’t change the topic. I am two years into you and I can keep track of lost topics with eyes closed.”
“Intome?” His brow cocked up.
“Atharva.”
His mouth pursed. And that look on her face returned. The one that compelled him to cough up his greatest crime in a heartbeat.
“Why didn’t you tell me you… fell into a river?”
Her brows drew together.
“You didn’t tell me everything about your journey to Nagar.”
Her eyes widened, understanding dawning.
“Rahim came today.”
She remained silent. Atharva went on — “He has been coming for weeks and waiting outside the gate for me. I don’t know what made me stop today and listen to him. He said some things. And when I asked him why he was telling me, he said because you wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t hide it from you, Atharva,” Iram sighed. “But there was nothing to tell.”
