FORNEVER | ✓

CHAPTER 53 - SLIPPING AWAY

HIM

"Tell me Siddhanth it was you, wasn't it?" Baba spoke up after the longest two hours of my life in which I had to ride him home from the hospital. I stared at the raindrops tapping relentlessly upon the windshield as I pulled up in front of my - Baba's home. Baba had been quiet since the last few days, which I had inferred why, but I had expected some sort of turbulence to come with it, and this calm frightened me more than it should have.

"Baba I-"

"Why did you get him arrested Siddhanth?" He turned to me, his voice blatant and void of any emotion.

"Baba, let me handle this, please." I sighed.

"Vivaan had visited me the day I learned about Soumya's pregnancy-"

"What?" I snapped my head towards him as he turned back in his seat, unlocking the belt.

"He wanted to marry Soumya-"

"I will kill him," I muttered.

"I said he needed to talk to Soumya about it-"

"Baba! Are you forgetting whatever happened five years ago? His pathetic excuse of a brother cheated on Akka!-"

"Siddhanth, people change-" I let out a gasp as I saw him stare at the windshield nonchalantly.

"What are you talking about Baba?" I reached out for his hand, this was not my father, this was not my father's valor.

"Listen Siddhanth, I don't want this to go on for lineages to come. I have a grandchild to look out for, if I wouldn't have accepted truce, things could have worsened-"

"So you're telling me we should accept peace but have you seen the price we are asked to pay?"

"Soumya's child needs a father-"

"It will- it will have a father-"

"Siddhanth, you are just being emotional about it. Imagine what your wife will think of you fathering your sister's child-"

"My wife will love that child just as much Baba-"

"Siddhanth, are you mad? Do you not know how much blood matters? No woman will watch you love someone else's child equivalent to hers."

"Baba, I know exactly the woman who will love this child as much as her own."

He looked at me as I assured him with a smile, his eyes softening at her thought.

"Siddhanth, before we welcome the child, I feel it is only right for you to get married." I felt my face fall at the thought of forcing her into marriage, yet again. I couldn't blackmail her anymore if I had made a promise to protect her trust. The rain had taken a pause, making Baba walk out of the car and walk towards the iron gates. I rushed out of the car to help him get inside, something about his weak and timid state breaking my heart. He had always been the man I had looked up to, and to see him still walk with the same regality, his shoulders stretched broad and his chest outright, made me tear up, all the while I held his hand as we walked in.

"I'll see you soon Baba," I mustered, trying not to tear up like a baby, although I could have used a fair share of crying myself.

"Come inside." He ordered.

"Not today Baba-" I smiled, making him pause amid his steps,"- soon, but not today," I assured him before his staff came running up to him, in order to take him upstairs. I nodded at the people with whom I have grown up.

"- Siddhanth Garu-" whispered Sitama, my nanny.

How are you, Sitama?" I smiled, bowing down to touch her feet.