Arnav's apartment. 5:40pm.
Standing at the balcony of Arnav's room, Arnav and Khushi were talking about the beautiful view of the city provided by his room's balcony, when they fell silent for a moment, enjoying the cool breeze lightly touching their faces and refreshing their souls.
"Arnav ji," Khushi broke the silence, staring at his side and looking a bit hesitant, when she got a slight nod from Arnav, she proceeded, "I don't know if I should ask you this.. but.. I've never seen your father.. nor anyone talking about him at home. What happened to him?"
As soon as she asked about his father, she did notice a slight change in his facial expression even though he tried hard to remain unaffected. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about him," Khushi said politely assuring him that she won't feel bad if he refuses to speak about his father to her.
"It's nothing like that.. Let's sit first," he said and she readily agreed as they walked to the corner wall of the empty balcony. They sat on the floor next to each other and leaned their backs on the wall with Arnav jokingly asking Khushi to add a swing chair for the balcony on their home shopping list.
"So you want to know about my father.." he initiated the conversation while absent minded drawing lines on the floor tiles, "We were a happy family or I believed we were a happy family living in Delhi in a huge mansion that looked like a palace.. It was me, Ma, Papa, my Dadi, my elder sister Anjali and my chotu baby Ayan living in that fairy tale like palace. It felt like everything was perfect until my father came home one day and told my mother that he doesn't love her anymore and asked her to leave his house. Turns out that during his business trips, he met another woman, fell in love with her and wanted to start a new life with her, completely erasing from his mind that he had three children as well. From one day to another, our lives changed drastically, from a perfect happy family to a broken family, from running to our father when he reaches home to being kicked out of his house and shifting to a new house, my Nani's house. After my parents got divorced, I never saw my father again.. I really don't know where he is right now Khushi," he ended the story with misty eyes staring down at the floor tiles intentionally as he didn't want Khushi to see how deeply he got affected by talking about something that happened years ago neither did he himself wanted to get this much affected by the simple mention of his father, but he hasn't learned how to control his emotions when it comes to this topic, he always feel betrayed by his father and it pains his heart a lot whenever he thinks that the man who claimed to love his family the most could ever kick them out of the house as if they never meant anything to him.
Khushi felt sad to hear his father destroyed their happy family by cheating on his mother and then disowning them like this. Being an introvert, she didn't know the right words that could be used as a consolation for him or perhaps she thought just staying silent and being there for him was the right way to console him. He certainly didn't want to hear a long lecture of someone feeling pity of him and making him think they understand the dimension of his pain and what he went through in his life due to the separation of his parents.
A little hesitantly and awkwardly she moved her fingers in attempt to reach him, forwarding her hand and then withdrawing it within seconds repeatedly out of lack of surety, confidence and comfort on how to react in such situations where a male friend that she never had is showing his vulnerable side to her, she finally garnered courage to place her soft like pearl hand above his, stopping him from drawing lines on the floor tiles.
Arnav finally looked up to her and she pressed the back of his hand gently as if consoling him, her soft palm touching his hand definitely acted like the pain relief that diminished the pain he felt in his heart. He smiled.. it was a soft and grateful kind of smile, as a reply from the consolation gesture he received from her.
