And I Found Love

23. The Nightmare

There are no fairytales in real life......Or else she wouldn't have felt like being thrown back into this never-ending nightmare after finally seeing a ray of hope.

There is no guaranteed happy ending to everyone's story as well......Or else she wouldn't be there in her room in a state of numbness- being unable to believe that he left her all alone, allowing the darkness to consume her all over again when she was finally on the verge of welcoming her happiness by embracing her true feelings for him- for Abhimanyu.

Akshara sat at the edge of her bed, staring at the floor like a statue..... without blinking, without uttering a word or without even letting a single tear drop from her eye as her mind was still struggling with the sudden feeling of emptiness that was long gone in his presence all this while.

"Please say something Akshara....."

Abhimanyu's pleading voice from last night was the only thing replaying in her head.

"Can you come with me? Can we start a life together, away from everyone else.....can you choose me?"

She did.
She chose him.

But maybe it was too late.

Too late to say the words out loud that a part of her had realised earlier.......way earlier than what her mind would have allowed her to accept.

She remembered how he was loosing consciousness in that drunk state as he still continued to repeat the same lines that confessed his love for her again and again.

She remembered how she was trying to somehow lay him on her bed to let him rest till the effect of alcohol subsides since she had no clue as to how she could take him back to the Birla mansion when Yuvraj suddenly barged in her room at that hour, startling her.

"Heartbroken lovers always go back to the person who broke their heart",  Yuvraj chuckled as he walked inside, standing next to Akshara to watch Abhimanyu half asleep on her bed. "I knew he would definitely be here at your place only",  he smirked satisfactorily, seeing his state while Abhimanyu continued to murmur the same things in his sleep.

"I told him that I'll be marrying you and I've told the same to my father as well", he stated casually, causing her to shift her attention from Abhimanyu to him abruptly. "You told him?",  she gasped in shock, ignoring the bruises on his face that were caused by Abhimanyu as he nodded in response, passing her a proud charming smile- the smile that once captivated her.

But now......all she could sense was a clear act of deception from his side.

He was talking about their marriage, something that she had waited for since long and yet, all she could feel in that moment was disgust and rage, directed towards him and herself for what they've done to Abhimanyu.

"However, I haven't told him that it was just a plan of ours yet, but you will. Tomorrow, you're going to tell him the truth and end it okay",  he added- shooting another command her way in the same sweet voice, letting her realise how this same tone of his had fooled her multiple times till date......how she always misunderstood his dominating and selfish nature as love.....how he continued to treat her like his puppet and how she continued to oblige to his demands without any objections in the name of love when he on the other hand, never loved her.

And yet, this realisation of not being loved by him wasn't painful for her anymore as deep down, somehow a part of her was always aware of this side of his which her conscious self failed to accept......it failed to accept the fact that she meant nothing to him all along, it failed to accept the fact that she was being deceived by the person she claimed to be in love with, it failed to accept the fact that the kind of love she was looking for was just limited to her books and not her life which eventually caused her to purposely ignore his flaws and the signs that were infront of her since the start.