Heart-strings

Chapter 30

I rushed to the second floor of the hospital in search of Darshan. I looked in every ward but he was nowhere. Suddenly I heard a lady calling out my name which made me turn back. She sat on the bench outside of the doctor’s cabin and gestured me to come to her. I walked to her clueless pondering how she recognised me. She forced a smile after looking at me and shifted to her side making place for me to sit. “How are you?”, the lady, Darshan’s mom, initiated the conversation between us. “Umm, fine”, I said looking at my palms. He used to talk a lot about his mom. Long back, when we were together he would show me her pictures and share his memories with her. It comes without saying that he loved her more than anything in this world and that too made me fall so hard for him. “Where are you these days?”, she asked me, dragging me out of my thoughts. “I went back to my hometown. I live there along with my family. How do you know me anyways?”, I finally asked her. “You? Darshan would always talk to me about you. He used to send me your pictures and say that once he would settle down he would bring you home to meet me and his Dad”. That did something painful to my heart; I felt I cheated on him. “What are you all doing here though?”, I asked her because it was better than asking Darshan. If I would talk to him, he would assume that I still loved him. “Well, Darshan’s father comes here for his regular checkups so we are here”, she answered back and that calmed me down because I was way more scared for Darshan. “Why are you here?”, she questioned. “Actually, my friend’s bride-to-be met a terrible accident so I came here with him. Today was their wedding but this unfortunate incident took place.”, I answered and regretted. What if she would tell this to Darshan? He would surely try to reach me and my lie would get caught. “How’s she now”, she worried. “She is fine”, I smiled at her and she took a sigh of relief. “Did you not see Darshan yet?”, she asked me. “Umm, no”, I shook my head to my sides. “If you do not mind, what went wrong between you both? Everything was fine when all of a sudden Darshan rang me up and said that you guys separated. He said that he failed to manage between his career and relationship. He did not want to give you false hopes and keep you in dark but he is my child, I know him. I know that he will never give up on someone he loves because of his work pressure. How can he even leave such beautiful girl?”, she cupped my right cheek and smiled while I sat blank. That boy took all the blame on him in spite of knowing that I was the one who failed in our relationship and called it off. The respect I had for him, always increased but I thought staying quiet and letting Darshan play the bad role in front of his parents for me would be unjust. “I called it off, auntie. I broke up with him, he did not do anything. I broke his heart; he is taking the blame on him to protect me. I stranded him alone”, I clarified while she looked at me stunned. “Don’t take the blame on you. I know he is childish, he must have done something foolish”, she was reluctant enough to forgive him. “I swear it was my fault. He is a very good guy, you have brought up him so well but I think I didn’t deserve him”, I fixed my gaze at the floor. She slowly kept her hand over mine and said, “Don’t think so small of you. You do deserve him more than anybody else, trust me. Anyways, did you move on? Listen, answer to me honestly. After all, I am a mother; I can understand what’s going in your mind and what you speak”. Only if she could convince me enough to tell her everything but I had to keep it a lie for Darshan’s sake. “I moved on”, I said hesitantly and she caught my lie. “Honey, your eyes and words don’t match”, she said and a tear ran down my cheek dropping on the back of her hand. I had said enough of lies; I could not take it anymore. I felt like breaking down at that point and revealing everything to her. It was so suffocating; I was dying from inside since more than a year. I wanted to end everything and go back to him but I did not have the courage to face Dad. “Don’t worry. You can tell it to me. I can read your silence but I want you to speak it yourself. Trust me with that, I won’t judge you if you tell me the truth”, she convinced me. I decided to tell her everything, right from the start to end.
I told her about Dad’s condition, how he tortured me that he would destroy and finish Darshan’s career. I told her about the lie I cooked up with Dhruv. “So, it wasn’t your fault too”, she said while I looked at her with teary eyes. “Yes, you both were not wrong. You just wanted to protect him so you took this step. You sacrificed everything for him, your happiness, career and bliss. It was only your Dad who made you go through these hardships. I am with you, don’t worry. We will figure everything out. Don’t say no, I will talk to Darshan. I will even talk to your dad and tell him that what he is doing is wrong”, she said holding my shoulder. “Mom, le...”, Darshan stood beside the bench and stared at us. His mom turned back to see him, “Oh, you came. See whom did I meet today”, she told him while I and Darshan looked at each other. “Darshan!”, she shook his hand as he stood paralysed after looking at me. He forced a smile while his eyes spoke volumes of the pain his heart bore. “I will talk to the doctor. Excuse me”, he said and took a step to walk away when his mom stopped him, “Wait here. She has something to tell you”. He raised his brow and stood silent. I looked at her stunned because I was not convinced to tell him the truth. “Oh, she will say sorry that she did not invite me to her wedding”, he cracked a joke, he was hurt though. His mom stood up, held his shoulders and made him sit on the bench beside me, forcefully. “Mom, you don’t...”, his mom cross-spoke him saying, “I am your mom so don’t try to act as my parent. I am going to see your Dad so sit here and sort things out. “What things?”, he questioned. “Nandini, tell him everything. When I come back, I want to see things sorted out and don’t say no”, she walked away stranding us alone. The awkwardness in the air suffocated me and I felt my stomach twisting in knots. “Are you not happy you are getting married? Why do your eyes look puffed?”, he broke the ice between us after a minute. At least he made an effort. “I am not getting married”, I replied. “Oh, I see so you are crying because he is not marrying you”, he said lightly.
“Are you even serious? Do you think I am in a mood to crack up after listening to your jokes”, I said and we again fell in silence. “I wanted to tell you something. I have been hiding this since long. I don’t know I should tell you this or not”, I said. “Say it. Yes, say it”, he said as if he was waiting for me to reveal something to him and he already knew what the truth was. “I did not leave you because I loved someone else”, I licked my lower lip. He looked at me and giggled, “I knew this already. You both looked ugly together”. I shot a death stare at him while he sat silently. “So why did you leave me then?”, he demanded. My heart thudded against my chest while I decided to spill out the beans to him. “It was my Dad. He threatened me to break up with you”, finally those words left my mouth and Darshan looked perplex. He furrowed his eyebrows and sat expectant. “What? Your dad? Why though?”, he asked me. My mind was tangled with thoughts, I was still not sure if I should tell him the reason. “Say! Why?”, he questioned again. I looked at him, “He said he would destroy your future if we would stay together. I couldn’t take a risk by staying with you because it was about your dreams and goals; I never wanted to come in between them. It isn’t that I got scared by his threats but I actually know that my Dad knows a lot of people. If he decides to win over you with his money, he will surely do it. I know till what extent he can go to ruin someone’s happy life. He never let me, mom and Aarohi live peacefully, and he always overvalued his money. Unfortunately, I am his daughter and I have to go through all this even if I don’t want to”. He asked me why I was in wedding attire and I went through a long explanation to make him understand. “You did not meet me at the airport because of him! You came with that boy and said that you wanted to break up because of him! You ran away from me every now and then to protect me! You never let me know that you did not cheat on me; you suffered for me because of him!”, he looked amazed and somewhere within me I felt relieved. He knew it know, I wasn’t dying with that secret now.
“Why did you not tell this to me then? We could have sorted things out. We could have found a better way out, Nandini”, he shifted closer to me. He slowly searched for my hand and held it gently. I looked up at him, blankly. I never thought of sorting things out. I thought running away would be the best option for me. For the sake of his happiness, I decided to take all on me and leave him unaffected and intact. “Do you want to give us another chance?”, he asked with must softness in his voice and it was big yes, obviously. I longed for him since a year, I wanted to be with him, I yearned for his tight and snugly hug, I died for his smile and I lived to see him grow. “Say!”, he asked again. Within that moment, I felt I was wrong. I thought just about my happiness. How could I forget that Dad would hurt him if we would patch up? “But Dad...”, I sighed. “Huh, don’t worry about that. You suffered alone once because of me. You took the bullets on you to stop them from piercing through my chest. Now end to your sufferings, if anything happens, we will fight against the situation together. Just say yes”, he comforted me and he had no idea what his words really meant. My eyes moistened and tears dribbled down my cheeks while he smiled. He was magical; he knew how to bring my dead tissues back to life. “Should I take this as a ‘yes’?”, he wiped off the tears through his thumb and I nodded. The moment was magical, he wrapped me tight in his arms, my head rested on his chest and I could hear his heart beating. After a year of wait, I was finally in the safest place of the world. The warmth I longed for was now around me. How I wish I could stop the time right there and freeze the world! We broke out of the hug and saw people staring at us in awkwardness, we both cracked up. “Let’s call your Dad now”, he said pointing at my phone. “No!”, I sighed in fear. “Today or tomorrow, we will need to talk to him. We can’t run away. You trust me, right? So let’s ring him up. Don’t worry, I will talk to him. Dial his number”, he insisted on calling Dad and there was no way I was fighting him back. I dialed Dad’s number and gave the phone to Darshan.
I feared Dad would say him something worse than he would have expected. “Hello”, Darshan spoke. “Uncle, this is Darshan...yes, the same Darshan whom your daughter loves”, he winked at me. My heart was thudding against my chest and he felt like joking in real. “Yes, she is with me. In fact, we are together again. No matter how hard you tried, love found its way all over again”, he spoke with so much of courage. Had I been that courageous, we would not have suffered. “She won’t talk to you and I won’t let you threaten her again. She is my responsibility now; I won’t let her suffer, so what if it’s her own father trying to hurt her, I won’t let that happen. I don’t know why you love your money so much or not let her live happily. I feared Dad would say him something worse than he would have expected. “Hello”, Darshan spoke. “Uncle, this is Darshan...yes, the same Darshan whom your daughter loves”, he winked at me. My heart was thudding against my chest and he felt like joking in real. “Yes, she is with me. In fact, we are together again. No matter how hard you tried, love found its way all over again”, he spoke with so much of courage. Had I been that courageous, we would not have suffered. “She won’t talk to you and I won’t let you threaten her again. She is my responsibility now; I won’t let her suffer, so what if it’s her own father trying to hurt her, I won’t let that happen. I don’t know why you love your money so much or not let her live happily. I have seen her going through sacrifices and pain and because of her real father, the most unexpected thing. How can you even go out of ways to hurt your loved ones? One day, everyone will strand you alone so change yourself. At the end of the day, you are harming yourself by hurting her. Her happiness means the world to me and I will make sure that anyone who comes in between, ends up destructing their selves”, while he spoke all of this, I sat beside him and looked at him with moist eyes. He was fighting against my biggest fear for me. He was trying every possible thing to bring me back to life. “Tell me, does this give you any happiness? I know you’re a father, however cruel you try to become, you know that you love your daughter. Maybe you are not being that expressive but you too want her to be happy. I am ready to forget everything you did if you accept us but if you don’t, I feel sorry to say but I’ll make sure you suffer for your deeds”, he explained rather I should say threatened Dad and I did not know Darshan Raval was so good at that too. “Sure”, he extended the phone in my direction to talk to Dad while I refused him but he still managed to make me take that call. “Yes, dad”, I looked at Darshan who gave me a ‘everything will be fine’ look. “Are you serious? You are accepting us. Thank you, Dad. Bye”, the conversation was not that short. He spoke a lot and that day I got to witness an other soft-side of Dad, he sounded so loving and caring maybe because of Darshan but I wanted him to be like that forever. I had the hopes that now my family would also go back to normal.
“Miss Nandini Malhotra, are you ready to spent the rest of your life with me?”, he asked with a mischievous smile and I nodded. “Whoa, you both look happy now”, Darshan’s parents stood beside the bench. We both stood up and Darshan said looking at me, “Yes”. “Let’s execute your wedding plans then”, his mom said and we all burst into laughter. I found my ‘FAMILY’ in them.