Pandya Store - Shiva Raavi (ShiVi) FF- My North Star

Chapter 33

Silence. She stared at her hands, her eyebrows dipping together in nervousness, playing with her hair trying to move past that question.

"Raavi...tell me baby girl, kisi ney tujhse kuch kaha? Ya tune kuch kiya... aur kiya bhi toh hum use theek karenge," he pushed her.

Silence from his wife.

Fine, two could play this game. He stayed silent, too, waiting expectantly for her answer, hoping his instincts were wrong and his chipkali hadn't done something to satisfy her curiosity.

Finally, she bobbed her head, the tiniest millimeter, and looking sad and downcast. "I have been trying for five years...I never entered the building, but I entered the property with the intention of going into the building."

Good f**kng hell, he thought to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. If nobody let her in but she entered anyway...he just knew, what she had done. "Did you... did you...by chance try to force your way in like climbing a fence or entering when you thought no one was looking?"

Silence.

Raavi hung her head, wrung her hands in front of her, plaiting her fingers painfully. She looked up, meeting his eyes for the briefest second before turning away running to the kitchen, under the pretense of drinking water.

"Get back here and answer the damn question, hamesha toh sherni bani ghumti hai," he shouted after her.

He watched her, as she slowly came back to sit beside him, clearly panicked, and anxious. Didn't she have any care for her safety? Tu kya usse saawal jawaab kar raha hai, he asked himself, as remorse and anguish burned down his throat. He should have been there for her, but... Shiva forcibly shut his mind off, now was not the time to go down the memory lane. Her silence was admission enough. Still, he wanted to hear it from her. "Chipkali, jawaab de," he snapped finding a modicum of guilty satisfaction when she flinched at his tone.

She closed her eyes, and nodded, confessing in the smallest voice, "As if you haven't figured it out, but if you want to hear it from me...I tried to enter when I thought I could enter thru the main gates. But I also ju-jumped the fence."

He swore at her. "Tere andar zara bhi akal nahi hai? Apne safety ka zara bhi nahi socha? Aur ye nek kaam kitni baar karni ki koshish ki tu ne? Saach saach bol, haar bar ki tarah teri bakwaas nahi suna mujhe."

Raavi felt Shiva's concern for her safety mixed with anger, coming off his body in waves. When he was in this mood, she didn't dare look at him. Still, taking his fingers and rubbing them to her heart, she whispered, "I didn't count, but multiple times. Each time I somehow got kicked out by the guard. Please don't yell at me. This hurts enough as it is."

Remembering the past events, she let out a half-sob in fear and frustration at her lack of success, blurting out the truth she had been holding in for a very long time, "Th-the last time I tried it was right before I returned to Somnath. There are these iron gates that you have to cross before entering the property and then you have to walk couple of minutes to enter the dilapidated building. The last time, I couldn't force my way in through the gates... I-I-I" she stopped unable to speak.

"What happened?" he asked, though he had a feeling what had happened. "Tell me, sweetheart," his fingers squeezing hers.

"I...I climbed and tried to jump the walled fence with barbed wires. But I lost my balance, I fell backwards and hurt myself. I scratched and cut myself trying to jump. Then, few people came by to see what happened, I got scared and I still don't know how, I-I-I stepped on some wires, tumbled, fell again, and caused the electricity to short circuit. I ran from there, as people chased me...and haven't been back since." She rolled up the sleeves of her yellow Lucknow Chikkan Kurta, and blue straight leg jeans showing him her palms, and the very faint scars underneath her forearm, and her knees. Shiva stayed silent, staring at her. She flushed, her nose red, eyes wet and in a small, trembling voice said, "How the security guard never found out and never told Kaka...I don't know. So, you also don't tell anyone, ok, because...I didn't. Not even Hetal," closing her eyes as tears of humiliation, pain and frustration leaked down her cheeks.