Page 67 of Mrs. Pandey
And in that moment, I realized something. Some wars aren't fought with guns. Some are fought in the silence between heartbeats. And Prashant was still fighting his battle even though he fought war with guns.
I didn't remember moving, but suddenly I was kneeling in front of him. My nightgown was cold and wet with sweat, sticking to my skin, my elbow still aching from the fall. But it didn't matter.
He was there, broken and raw in front of me, and all I could think was that he had once picked me up out of a crowd when I twisted my ankle, and now he couldn't even allow himself to stand.
Prashant sank to his knees, face down, shoulders shaking slightly as if ashamed of his own breathing. The silence between us was like a string, taut and trembling.
I reached out, my fingers hovered near his face. I was scared of being rejected, of breaking him further. But I couldn't help but touch him, so I touched him gently.
His cheek burned beneath my palm. He flinched. A slight jolt, but it broke something inside me.
"You think I married a cemetery," I said softly, "but I'm looking at a man who's come back from hell and is trying to give me heaven."
He didn't look up, just whispered, "You don't know what I saw there."
"Then show me," I said. "Tell me everything. It might help you release your pain and lift off some weight from your chest."
"No." His head shook. "I don't want you to see that part of me. The part that screamed when they thrust a knife to my spine. The part that cried when they told me to listen to the screams of others. The part that wanted to die to stop it."
His voice cracked, filled with something deeper than pain, maybe shame.
"I can still hear them, Ira. I can still feel the cold metal chain against my skin. I can still smell the blood. And sometimes... when I touch you, I'm afraid I'll bring them inside you too."
A tear slid down my chin and fell to my knee.
"I'm afraid," he confessed, "that one day I'll stop distinguishing between that cell and this house."
I swallowed hard. He had never told me this before. No one had. Not the other soldiers. Not his sisters. Not the newspapers. Not the news anchors who called him a national hero.
But there it was. The bare truth in front of me.
This was the price of being alive after seeing comrades die in front of your naked eyes.
Now I held his face in both hands and pulled him up to meet my eyes.
"Do you remember the first time we kissed?" I asked in a whisper.
He blinked suddenly. His eyebrows furrowed. "Why would you..."
"Because that boy... that same boy... is still inside you. He still smiles when I smile. He still makes stupid jokes when I cry. And he still holds my hand when no one else knows I'm falling apart."
His lips parted, but no words came out.
"Let me join you in this fight," I said. "Not as your healer. Not as your protector. But as your wife."
He stared at me, and for a moment, I saw a ray of hope buried deep in the rubble of his gaze.
"I hurt you," he said in a heavy voice. "I pushed you yesterday, I pushed you today. I'm scared of what I am going to do with you when I lose my mind."
"I've been hurt before, Prashant," I said, giving him a kiss on the forehead. "But it's never been the case that someone accidentally hurt me and broke me like that."
He closed his eyes tightly.
"You think your demons make you unworthy of love?" I leaned closer, pressing my forehead against his. "Then let me have your demons, too."
Finally, his hands reached out for me slowly. They rested on my waist as if he was afraid he would lose me.
"We don't belong to each other, Warrior," he whispered.
