Silent Tears - 7 & 8

CHAPTER 7:

Fanaa was barely conscious of Alian’s presence. He bustled from the kitchen to the drawing room. Even preparing a hot bath for Fanaa. He just wanted her safe. Anyhow… she was still sobbing softly. He carried towels and tissues towards her, sneezing along the way.
"Alian…. I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry…."
"Kindly shut up. You were not supposed to sit there and get wet. Why… why Fanaa?"
Fanaa sobbed a bit and said, "It's not that… I told you about Aryana?"
"Yeah, what about her?"
Fanaa broke into a new set of tears. Alian sat on the sofa with Fanaa in between his knees on the carpet. He used the largest towel to dry her hair. All the while cursing her for sitting in the rain. she couldn’t hear him.
"Well there was something I wanted to tell Aryana. Something she hadn’t approved of…. I’d rejected her advice and done something wrong…."

Alian’s hands rested on her head and stopped as she talked.
"You see… I distanced myself from Aryana when she started telling me things that a particular guy used to tell behind my back… it hurt…"

Alian fumed to think of what a guy could say behind her back. It would be so cheap…
"… not that he was saying bad about me, but the fact that Aryana did not approve of my relationship with him…"

Alian’s heart skipped a beat….
"Relationship?" Alian asked suddenly feeling lost. She was in love with someone else… she would never be his. He had accidentally fallen in love with someone already committed. That was impolite on his part…. Impolite?

Fanaa had not heard him ask about the 'relationship' so she continued rambling on and on and on letting go of all the feelings she'd held caged inside her for such a long time.
"… I never told anyone what happened two months back… I kept running… tried to run away from what the relationship made me into…. Running away from myself…."
Alian hung the towel on a hook and sat opposite Fanaa with microwave heated French fries and ketchup.
"So… why didn’t Aryana approve of your relation with him?"

Fanaa said softly, "He really used to talk bad about me, behind my back. And I never believed Aryana. Until I saw him talking some very cheap things about me to a group of friends in a restaurant. My parents heard him too." She shook her head. Something else was wrong and she was trying to hide it. Still it hurt like a stab… someone was her first love. Someone had taken the place he had wanted.

"It was embarrassing… humiliating…. And he saw me there too. But he didn’t know that I could read lips. My parents were hurt. Aryana came to know. She stood up for me…. But I just ran away… that was two months back. I ran away by coming here. Left my normal life style….
And today… I got a message from a friend of Aryana’s…. She committed suicide…."

Alian felt himself shudder. He held her hand for some time. Her actions were justified. He had never known someone whom he had to console. How could he console someone as unpredictable as Fanaa? At least he could try….
"Aryana…why do you think she did something like that? Anything that you knew about her?"
Fanaa inhaled deeply and said softly- "She was my senior… that was almost two years back. Very few people actually acknowledged that she was deaf. She could lip- read very well. And she was all goody goody with everyone. After I lost my hearing… I started being such a depressed person that people stopped socializing with me. I was always frustated with everything…."
Alian placed a hand on her hand which held a balled up tissue paper. He wondered if he was to do something like tell her some phrase or…
Fanaa continued- "And then she started being with me all the time. And I liked her a lot too. Because she was helping me. She helped me with speech therapy and lip reading. I was glad to find someone like her… but then along came Julian and I stopped listening to the things Aryana used to tell me."
Alian could see her, she went on looking at him. As if waiting for a sign for him to stop her. But he gave none. So she rattled on…
"She warned me against him…. I fought with her over that. I told her that someone I loved so much and who loved me back so much could not exploit me behind my back. But Julian was a looker. I never doubted him. Then almost 2 months back, rumors spread that he was in love with the hottest cheer leader of the college. It pissed me off and I shouted my mouth off at the people who said so. Aryana included. And it hurt her, she was going through some family problems at that time. And I was against her in that too…"

Fanaa just knew that Alian was there waiting for her. His shirt clung to him because it was soaked while she sat dry and warming up. He was the first person to whom the reason for her leaving her home would be known. What would a celebrity like him do with that knowledge. She wanted to talk. And she hoped he’d listen….

"Some distance came up between me and Julian and I started getting closer to Aryana again. By then, Julian started making public declarations of how she was my teacher, my god- mother etc. I never thought he’d say such things. Never, not once in my life. And Aryana was putting up a smile on her face for my sake. She was so hurt. I knew it. I could feel it. Yet I was so busy mending my broken heart that I decided to run away. Aryana also said that taking a break for a few days wouldn’t be so bad. But…"

Again she stopped and Alian handed her another tiny bundle of tissues. He said softly, "But what Fanaa?"

"He slandered me before going. Yelled at me the most unpleasant of things. Said that my world was so dry so empty. And I agreed with him. And till date I agree. He said things about sympathy… and… and how my being deaf made it difficult for him. I should have listened to Aryana…"
She broke into new sobs. Alian felt so distant from her. It was strange. She had loved someone else and he thought she was in love with someone else. How very strange….

***
The wind tore at Alian’s jacket as he pulled it closer but did not get up from the swing on his terrace. It was getting colder by the minute but he wondered if the wind was as cold as he was feeling. Why that someone else? What would happen if Julian came back into her life…. She must have loved him a lot considering she hurt her best friend for Julian…. But he really liked Fanaa. Even if it was way too early to fall in love with a stranger he knew he was helplessly falling in love with the girl he’d met a few days back. Would she reciprocate? In any way?

***
CHAPTER 8:

Fanaa sat in her bedroom. Her clothes a toussled mess. She was crying from inside but there were no more tears left to cry. She had cried all through the night. She had stopped after Alian had come and talked to her… or rather just listened to her. Even if he had said, she wasn’t careful enough to keep lip reading and trying to hide her tears. Aryana was dead. She wasn’t coming back. And maybe she knew why Aryana had killed hersef….

It was 10 in the morning. Another bout of tears threatened their way up to her eyes but she knew that she had no more tears left.
‘What on earth was I thinking, crying in front of Alian… I hope he enjoyed the birthday party for Prudence, she must be a lucky girl to have him as a well known friend… maybe I should check out the latest pics on page3.com….’
Fanaa knew it would hurt to see him with others… who are you kidding…. To see him with other ‘girls’…. Ah… correct!
She picked out a simple black dress with a sapphire coloured jacket and platforms. In between her breakfast and getting ready she checked out the latest pictures.
‘Alian party pics’
Some old pictures and a few which she hadn’t seen came up. A quick glance and no mention of any Prudence party. She scanned the comments and found one –
‘Alian, the upcoming pop star has taken a break from his performances and has taken a leave of a week… to sit back and do some soul searching….’
She didn’t read the rest of the article but hurriedly packed her stuff, stashed in some money and started walking towards the mall. Her breakfast had been a plate of scrambled eggs. And by the time she reached the mall, it seemed to have gone down. She was hungry again.

Still it was relieving to get away from her house and leave it in the hands of a maid servant who used to come to her house once in 3 days. She went through some of the latest fashions in footwear. But platforms were the only one which attracted her. She bought a pair on an impulse and continued shopping. Some eatables, some paints and a small gift for Alian. Thanks giving for letting her cry. It was a tear shaped crystal which was entrapped in a heart of wires made of silver. It was a miniature and was very pretty. She held a piece of paper against her mobile’s back and scribbled-
Dear Alian,
Thank you for listening to my silent tears.
Take care,
Fanaa.

When she turned over her cell, a message blinked on her cell. She felt her heart leap as she clicked to open it. It was her mum….
‘Baby, Julian is on his way to console you. Be careful. Please. Get in touch with me as soon as you can.’

***
Alian was surfing through the channels when his phone started beeping. He just knew it was Fanaa. She was one of the few people who had that number.
‘Alian, I need to talk. Where are you?’

His finger tips flew over the touch screen as he replied- ‘I’ll pick u up, where are u?’

Fanaa sent a reply.
‘I’m in the city mall. Please hurry. May I come over to ur place, please?’
Though he found it very worrying he sent-
‘wait just a little while longer, I’ll meet u in the parking lot. Just wait. I’m on my way. Bye.’

His mind raced over the grotesque thoughts that kept pushing at his heart and the accelerator. Why was she asking him to hurry up? Had something come up? With Aryana?

***
A huge limousine swung into the parking lot and stopped beside her gracefully. Alian jumped out and hurried over to her.
"What’s wrong Fanaa? Are you…" his eyes scanned her quickly. She shook her head. Her thoughts were a mess. A thousand ways of avoiding or meeting Julian ran through her. All those thoughts seemed to vanish when she saw the care on his face. She hadn’t wanted to worry him. Alian was breathing hard and was clutching his mobile in a hard fist.
"Let’s go somewhere else. Somewhere not so public…."
A camera click sounded somewhere. She didn’t notice, but she did see the expression of pained irritation on his face. His face still looked beautiful, his wavy hair framed hi strong jaw line and handsome face. He looked like a brave knight who had seen that after one trouble gets solved, another comes along. She felt his hand tugging on her arm as he shoved her towards the limo. She didn’t object. But was asking something, "Alian why are you so distracted?"
When they sat in the car, he explained, "See, I’m on leave as of now. So any news of how I’m doing right now becomes NEWS. I’ll deal with it later. Tell me what happened?"
"Uh… I’d told you about Julian, right?"
"Uh huh…"
"Well, he’s coming over to console me over her death…"
Alian’s expression was crumpled and he just nodded to tell let her continue.
"And mum messaged me to get to her as soon as possible. I can’t go to my house, cause he knows I live there now…."
Alian sighed and said, "What are your plans?"
"Plans?"
Alian said with his eyes closed, "What are you gonna do about him? Are you gonna patch up? Scold him? Kick him in his sorry balls? What?"
Fanaa smiled and said, "I think I’d like you to do the last one…."
Alian looked up at her and into her eyes. So beautiful, the most attractive part of her, her deep hazel eyes…. ‘Uh ok I’ve a situation here….’ Thought Alian.
"Why me?"
Fanaa shook her head and said, "If I meet him I’ll become the same old beggar girl who kept pleading him to spare us the pain of our breakup… but he was already gone and I’d never known that…."
Alian fumed at the thought of that lowly creature hurting such a beautiful human. He could feel his mind’s workshop whirring…. If only he could find something out of there for Fanaa…. His mind had done it, this time for someone who needed him.
Fanaa was gazing out of the window when Alian’s cool fingertips prodded her knee. She turned to look at him smirking wildly.
She asked with a raised eyebrow as the limo continued in its state of rest in the traffic, "What are you smirking at?"
Alian settled on the seat opposite her and said- "I’ve a plan…."