His fear

There was only silence in the car since they drove off from the restaurant and it was killing him, it was a suffocating silence. He was not used to this silence when he was with her. Hridhaan would glance at her now and then. Through this whole time, Nisha just looked out of the window, tears running down her eyes and she was continuously wiping them off of her face.

Hridhaan wanted to talk but didn't know how to begin. He was at a loss for words. But he knew he needed to talk to her otherwise things would go out of hand here. He couldn't run away from this situation. He inhaled deeply and then said,

"Nisha can you at least say something? We can't just leave this matter like this we need to sort it out."

Nisha snapped her head in Hridhaan's direction, with tears still flowing down her eyes, and burst out at him in anger that had been piling up inside her, "What should I say, huh? What should I say? You have already made things clear, what is there left?" She said in a broken voice. "You have already decided what you want, what should I say on this matter? Can you tell me, please?" She asked mockingly.

Hridhaan hadn't expected such a bewildered reaction from her. He just stayed calm, he didn't want to lose his cool that would result in a disaster ending and started saying, " You know that I have commitment issues, I am not ready for all of this. I am just not!" He said honestly to her while he drove the car and not once taking his eyes from the road.

Nisha shook her head and tears were coming back in her eyes, and they started to flow down. She looked away from him. She couldn't handle it anymore, it was too much for her.

After a couple of seconds, she looked at him with a teary face and asked in a broken voice, "What about me, Hridhaan?" She kept looking at him without blinking her eyes for once. Hridhaan ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He just didn't know how to say what she meant to him, it was all about words, and in the sector of words, he was poor.

After a nice couple of minutes of, silence Hridhaan finally spoke, "I don't want to rush myself in this. If I am not ready for a commitment I can't say a, yes, both you and I know it won't end well." He said devastatingly.

"And how can you say that it won't end well, Hridhaan? How are you so sure?"

"You know what I mean, Nisha!"

She just bobbed her head up and down and wiped a tear away from her cheek that had rolled down her eye.

"And for once stop comparing your parents' live with yours, please!" She said bewildered.

"I am not comparing their life with mine, I am just seeing some aspects that give some answers to some things."

"You think too much and analyze too much." She said, all her tears had dried.

As she completed her sentence at the same moment Hridhaan stopped at the gate of her house. Nisha didn't utter a word, she looked at him for some minutes and then unbuckled the seatbelt, stepped out, and walked away towards the gate. As she stepped out Hridhaan wished her a good night. Nisha didn't reply to him. He waited there until she went inside and closed the gate, as she closed the gate he maneuvered from there. He didn't go to his house from there, he went somewhere else. He needed to think about today.

The drive to that place was 40 minutes but he was driving at high speed so it took him less than 40 minutes.

Hridhaan didn't know how many minutes he had been sitting in the car. All he could do was think of Nisha. Her words were swirling in his mind and nothing else. He just felt so angry at himself for causing all these pains. In his anger, he slapped his hand against the steering wheel. There was a sting in his hand palm as he had hit the steering wheel but he didn't care.

He stepped out from his car and a cool breeze welcomed him, some locks of his hair fell in his eyes, he combed it back. He leaned against his car and stared mindlessly in the sky; which was bathed in the glowing moon and sparkling stars.

His fear of commitment caused difficulties in their relationship. He didn't want to say yes knowing that he is not ready. He does not want to end up like his parents. Somewhere his parents failed marriage gave him this fear for commitment. He still remembers that once they were a happy family but there was this one night that changed everything drastically, he was just 8 years old when it happened. Everything went downhill from there onwards, his parents were always screaming their lungs out at each other and he would just cover his ears with his tiny hands and he would close his eyes tightly.

Hridhaan snapped out from his memories, he took off his blazer and put it on the roof of the car, he then rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbow. Why did he remember those memories? He questioned himself. He started pacing back and forth with his thoughts back on Nisha. He saw the desperation in Nisha's eyes for marriage with him.

He was losing his mind thinking about Nisha and that one night. He needed a cigarette to smoke, which would calm him down in this situation. He went to the car took one from the packet, lighted it, and started to smoke.

He was just only thinking about why did she had to propose to him.

And on the other side, Nisha thought why did he have to reject her. She had been crying since the moment she stepped into her room.

Both of them were suffering in this, because of his fear of commitment.