Sagnik didnt know what to do with this new feeling in his chest.. this was new. Almost like a knot which refused to be undone.
He was feeling things which didn't make sense. He knew that things had already escalated past the point where things can be reverted back to normal. Now, they are just electrically charged.
He tried sleeping but that wasnt easy.
We have kissed... doesn't that makes things exclusive? He thought to himself... But, still that's absurd, its only been what?! 2 months since i saw her life from this close, that too in HD. Why do i want her so badly? Why did I not want her when she confessed? Arrrggghh! This entire situation is frustrating.
He turned to his side, then to the other, the sheets twisted like they were just as unsettled as he was. Sleep stayed out of reach, hovering somewhere above him, watching.
Every time he closed his eyes, she appeared—not dramatic, not posed—just there. The way she looked when she wasn't trying to be anything. That was the problem. Nothing about her felt rehearsed.
He pressed his palm against his chest, as if he could physically flatten the feeling down, quiet it. It didn't help. The knot tightened instead—warm, insistent, unfamiliar.
He had always believed emotions followed logic. That attraction needed time, justification, symmetry. This didn't. This had arrived fully formed, like something that had been waiting for permission and finally stopped asking.
The kiss replayed itself against his will. Not the act of it—but the after. The half-second where neither of them pulled away. The silence that followed, heavy and loud and unfinished. He hadn't felt relief then. He had felt exposed. As if he had revealed a truth he wasn't ready to claim.
Did a kiss make promises? Or did it only create expectations?his mind echoed again, testing the word like a foreign language.
He groaned softly and dragged a hand through his hair. Wanting her this intensely felt disproportionate, almost irresponsible. He barely knew her life before these two months, yet here he was—imagining her absence like a threat, her presence like oxygen.
And the most unsettling part?
He wasn't afraid of wanting her.
He was afraid of what wanting her would demand of him.
He had walked away once, when clarity was expected of him—and now that clarity was finally forming, it felt cruelly late. Back then, he had been steady, reasonable, untouched. Now he was restless, reactive, constantly one thought away from her.
Somewhere between irritation and surrender, a quiet realization settled in him:
This wasn't confusion anymore.
This was attachment trying to pass itself off as doubt.
He exhaled slowly, staring into the dark, knowing sleep would eventually come—but also knowing that when morning did, this feeling would still be there. Waiting. Persistent. Unresolved.
And for the first time, the thought didn't scare him as much as it should have.