At Crossroads-AbhiMaan OS/SS/TS💌

1.1 Strayed

"Just because of one incident you can't question my love for her as a father nah! I made a grave mistake-but its nowhere related to her right! Y-you can't separate me from my kiddo,right?
Besides,I-I love you both,only the two of you. That boy & his mother is just a mistake of mine. Please, please don't leave me.I would die without the two of you,without Bulbul"
Armaan said while pleading with his hands folded.

"Love my foot. You wouldn't have done that otherwise. Go nestle yourself in your bitchie's arms"

"But I wasn't at fault Abhira. I got carried away. I tried to resist myself but I-I was frustrated and you weren't giving me a chance to come closer to you because of your operation. So I-I just....I never met her after that night,she just suddenly showed up. I swear on Bu-"

"Don't you dare Armaan. My daughter is very precious to me. Don't take her name from your filthy mouth to cover up your deeds"She roared almost choking him with her bare hands. She couldn't believe that this was the man she loved,was he really the one?

"Wh-What about her Abhira? How can you be so self-centered?" Armaan seethed in anger while pinning Abhira to the wall.

"I'll teach her how to fckin live without a father-or rather I should say a sperm donor Mr pimp Armaan Poddar!? You played really really dirty. When that whore of yours was about to hit my daughter you didn't say any thing to her. If it was only about me, I wouldn't have done all this,because all men like you are emotional frauds. This time,it's only about her. In your lust or love whatever you turned a blind eye to your own kid! How could you stoop so low! I think you never loved her-since past 3 years you've been fooling around I guess. You have a whole family carved out of your infidelity. Your son & your hoe?"Abhira roared back giving a death-stare to the stranger standing right in front of her & pushing him with all her might to the ground. He knew her so well,he knew that his wife would do this. He clearly knew!

She stormed off towards the Almirah to stuff her and her daughter's remaining belongings in a suitcase to leave. His plan worked and he accepted his cruel fate as it was. He wanted her to leave. He wanted his reason to live to leave him, to hate him-so much so that she never returns. Never ever. His bulbul would leave him too- his superstar for whom he could bring constellations down to the earth,his partner in crime,his best friend,his daughter was going to despise him to no extent-but he was okay with it,he had to be. 10-year-old Bulbul,oblivious of the entire scenario sat on the study table,her back facing her parents watched a course video,and dared not to take off the noise-cancelling headphones or let her eyes wander in any other direction-as instructed by her & her dadda's 'Sharmaji ki hitler beti'.

As the blazing fire from their "ideal couple's" little nest,now a mere room engulfed the entire house in fear & melancholy, their clueless family members rushed upstairs to extinguish it.
The 4 cousins had never seen their bhaiya-bhabhi arguing in such a way, never in front of Bulbul especially. They had never seen their bhabhi burning with a blazing rage,ready to slash down anyone who confronts her at that moment. Rohit & Ruhi,after putting their boys to sleep frantically searched for all the cctv footages to get a clue of what might've happened when Armaan returned home from office at midnight,when all of them were fast asleep.

Madhav-Vidya,Manisha-Manoj,Kaveri & Kajal were shocked to see the state of the room- the shambles of their wedding photographs,lay scattered on the floor while some were pierced in Abhira's right foot. But no one dared to enter the room, rather they gulped their saliva in fright,Alas! It was too late.

After gathering every ounce of strength left in him,Madhav began to speak-as he was probably the only one to whom Abhira would atleast reply, maybe without even uttering a word-but yes, aleast she would give a hint.

"Abhira bete,you can atleast tell about what exactly happened to madhav papa right". As Abhira with hot tears rolling down her cheeks, handed him two photographs and resumed her packing,a resonating slap landed on Armaan's face imprinting itself both on his cheek & heart. Everything was going as he planned, perfectly in an imperfectly horrendous way.
"How dare you Armaan? How dare you" Madhav howled as he pulled Armaan's collar,scaring all the others standing there. He flung the photographs on the floor, making all the others gasp in horror and eyeing at Armaan with disgust.

Abhira signalled all others to keep mum and act as if nothing happened and Krish to help her in sweeping the mess on the floor on one side. When they were done,he picked up her suitcase and carried it downstairs while Abhira walked towards Padmakshi,wiping her tears with the wet wipe Kaveri passed on to her understanding what she was about to do.

"Akshu baby, would you like to go on a staycation with mummy? Just the two of us!"

"Mummy,what about Dadda? He won't tag along!"

A lump formed in Abhira's throat as her daughter asked this question. She didn't want her child to suffer due to their fight-Akshu had so many to love her,but this time Abhira simply couldn't stop herself. She needed to be away from that very place where she saw all of it,atleast for sometime before thinking about what to do next,for her sanity. Dadisa,unable to bear what her grandson did & also compelled to not slap him in front of his daughter,stormed off to her room to wait for the situation to turn to normalcy. Madhav followed his mother and the rest followed him, for discussing about the entire thing that happened.

"Baby, it's a girls only trip right! What would Dadda do in it?"

"Hmm okay. Let me give him a goodbye kissi then. I'll miss you Dadda. But I'll come back very soon!"

Armaan embraced his daughter in his arms,for the last time probably. His baby bulbul couldn't understand the reason why her father was so emotional in seeing her off just for a little trip. She wiped his tears with her small palms & kissed his eyes. He just held his daughter tight and smothered her face with kisses and then said, "Take care of yourself and your mummy. Always. You've to be her anchor,right? Make her & all of us proud. Dadda loves his bulbul"

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