Chapter Sixteen

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Chapter sixteen

Eight years later

The smell of rain filled the air. It was mid June now and classes had already resumed. Jaanvi incessantly bit her lower lip and bounced her legs up and down.

She honked again, longer this time and watched as the door opened and the girl came running towards her car. Immediately she started the engine and waited until the person settled in, strapped herself with the seatbelt.

Once the car hit the road, Jaanvi kept silent, focusing on the road ahead. She could feel the gaze on the left side of her face but decided to ignore it.

"Vi," Came a whine. "I'm sorry. I was ready on time, I promise but then I couldn't find my socks which lead me to ask mom and she started lecturing instead of helping me find them." Jaanvi hid her smile as the other one kept going, filling in the silence. "You know I even told her she could lecture me after I come back but she just glared at me and then disappeared. But she definitely has some super powers. Because when I last checked my drawer, the socks weren't there but when she did, Boom, they magically appeared."

Jaanvi chuckled as the kid went totally off track from apologising to telling tales about her mother. Nonetheless she wasn't complaining because she enjoyed her presence.

"Kia," She called out as they reached her school. The talkative girl was yet to notice, in her own world. "If you don't scram in a minute now, you're going to have to stand outside your class."

Kiara's eyes widened as she checked the time. "Eeeeeee! You distracted me. Stop talking so much." Her voice grew faint as she all but ran inside the school building.

Jaanvi watched amused as the twelve year old turned right and disappeared from her sight. She chuckled and drove to her college which was just ten minutes away. When she reached she realised the professor was even more late than she was.

Jaanvi chose Arts after completing her twelfth and now she's in the second year of her graduation. Up until she was in school, she had no idea what she wanted to do after tenth and that was okay.

But what wasn't was that after Ayaansh left, Jaanvi built a wall around herself so high that nobody could break it. Not even her parents. She drowned in self-blame and felt guilty for years for separating Ayaansh from his family. After all, it was because of her that he left.

She cocooned herself in her own world where her only friend was Abigail and Nihal. But even to them, she never shared her fears, her insecurities, the guilt that she carried. She feared that if they saw her demons, they would also leave her not wanting to be in her presence. So she kept it all to herself.

Jaanvi knew that her parents noticed the changes in her and they even tried to talk it out of her but she didn't. She couldn't. Her depressed state was affecting Aditya and Zevah and hurting them was the least she wanted to do. So she started pretending to be fine and even if it was not easy to fake smiles, she kept up the act.

Thankfully, Zaviyar, her baby brother was enough of a distraction for all of them. He was so cute, so tiny and she loved him the moment her eyes landed on him.

But what a nuisance he is. A little devil. Now the seven year old acted like he was the man of the house.

Anyways, Jaanvi knew she couldn't kept up the pretence her whole life so just after she completed tenth, she felt like she wanted, no, needed to tell somebody. This time she couldn't hide her puffy eyes, the pain lingering in them from Aditya.

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