“Please.”
Samar’s feet arrested.
Why did that please sound like it was her pepper spray?
“Amaal… I didn’t expect…”
She was shaking her head, staggering back from him, taking more steps back. Back, back, back, back, back.
“Stop!” He yelled before she spilt from the shoulder of the road onto the main road. As if jolted, she glanced around herself. She turned and began walking back towards the city.
“Amaal!” He stalked after her. She broke into a run.
“Amaal!” He kicked up speed and she ran faster.
“Don’t run! Amaal!” He caught her without breaking a sweat. She pushed away — “Leave me!”
“I am…” he fought her off the main road and pushed until she was on the shoulder, shielded by him on the outside. “You can’t leave like that… we are in the middle of a forest.”
She did not even look at his face as she wiggled out of his hold and broke into another brisk walk, this time on the shoulder of the road.
“Amaal!” He ran around her and barred her way. She still did not look at him, her eyes far away into the distance.
“You don’t want to hear why?”
Her throat tightened, the skin there turning white.
“Amaal.”
“No why can justify it.”
She again began to step around him, but he stepped with her. Her eyes finally rose to his. And Samar recoiled.
Every emotion that had begun popping inside him ever since she had started popping that dimple at him stuffed back into his chest. Samar stood straight — firm, unyielding, giving her the man she had already made him to be.
“How…” Her face crumpled. “How did I get to know you…?”
“There is so much of me you don’t know,” he found himself saying. “And I wish you never have the misfortune of knowing.”
Samar pressed his car key into her hand, turned and started walking down the deserted road.
35. Amaal Durrani, Press Secretary to Chief Minister Kaul…
7 Months Later
January 2015, Jammu City
Amaal Durrani, Press Secretary to Chief Minister Kaul.It had sounded so fancy on day one of work. Not only her life, but her entire identity had switched in that one switch of designation. From a woman working 24X7 to shape a political party’s media presence, she had gone on to become a woman responsible for shaping a government’s image. From the private sector, she had transitioned into the public sector. From the robust salary that she had scaled her way to, she had compromised to an official salary that was no match for it. Atharva had been generous in supplementing it with a private stipend from his personal funds. It still had not matched what she was making as the Media Head of KDP.
ButAmaal Durrani, Press Secretary to Chief Minister Kaul,had eclipsed every drawback of this job.
On day one, she had preened inside.
On day two, she had grinned.
On day three, she had smiled.
Now, a couple hundred days later, with the ups and downs they had already seen in the first six months of being in government, the title just skimmed past her ears. She hardly had time to breathe, forget absorb the words and relish them.
