Prologue - Loving You Endlessly
Part One
“You know me, don’t you?” she said, her voice trembling between fury and something softer she would never name. “I don’t love you. I have never loved you. Then why do you keep chasing me? You have taken away my comfort, my peace of mind, every quiet corner of my life. Why are you still behind me?”
Before he could answer, her hand flew through the air.
The slap landed sharply across his cheek.
He did not flinch. He did not raise a hand to his face. He only stood there, perfectly still, looking at her the way one looks at the sea before a storm with awe and a little sorrow. At least, he thought, for the first time, she had shown him an emotion. Anger was something. Anger was not nothing.
He was dressed the way he always was for her, black shirt with the sleeves folded just above his elbows, grey trousers, dark sunglasses tucked into his collar. Black, because she had once said, in passing, that black was her favourite colour. Since that day, he had not worn another shade. There is a kind of love that listens to small sentences and builds an entire wardrobe out of them.
He took one slow step closer. Then another. He reached for her hand, and the moment his fingers met hers, both their hearts forgot their rhythm. He leaned in, close enough that she could see the green of the veins running down the back of his hand, close enough that his breath warmed the air between them, and he smiled that quiet, unbearable smile of his.
“One day,” he whispered, “you will love me more than I love you.”
She did not speak. She could not. She only stood there, still as a temple lamp in a windless room.
This, he had decided, would be the last time. He had promised himself that if she still chose not to accept him, he would never trouble her again. He had only one small wish left, and he asked it of her like a child asking for a sweet.
Wear, he said, the red frock he loved on her. The long jhumkas that swayed when she laughed. The red chunni draped softly across her shoulder. Leave her hair open, the way the sea wind liked it long and golden, falling past her waist, with a single white flower tucked behind one ear. The kohl in her eyes, dark as a deep ocean a man could drown in without complaint. The tiny silver nose-ring that caught the sun. A wash of pink on her lips. The thin silver bangles on her soft wrists. The delicate anklets that whispered when she walked.
He wanted to take that picture of her into his heart and keep it there forever.
And the small heart-shaped silver pendant he had once given her, he asked, only that she wear it today. She had taken it long ago on a single promise: that he would never trouble her in this life again. She wore it now.
These memories, he thought, would not live in his mind. The mind forgets. They would live in his heart and would stay there until his last breath.
“You will be mine,” he said softly. “In my world. Beyond my last breath.”
Then he turned, and he walked away.
She stood where he had left her, replaying the last minutes the way one replays an old song that hurts. A single tear slipped from the corner of her right eye, ran down her cheek, and disappeared into the red of her chunni.
Then she, too, walked away.
❦
