Tere Liye | ✔

Chapter Eight - The Awaited Union

The cabin was dimly lit, giving her a view of it's furniture and fiery colored wooden wall but resting in the middle of it, was a table, a decorated one which became the center of her attention.

On the table, few tiny boxes and what seemed like pictures were neatly kept and above them all were several fairy lights that made the table shine in the dimmed setting.

She regained her composure and gave out a small befuddled smile as she approached the table, only to have her feet freezing to the spot when she recognized the first picture.

A sour bile rose in her throat, realizing that in the picture, it was her, in Arnav's arms, all scared and stunned after having fallen from an unknown stage she was forced on. 

Khushi sighed, taking off the lights from the picture before holding the memory in her hands. Moisture stung her eyes as the photo that laid next was of her from the photoshoot Arnav had coerced her to do. She held that as well, caressing her own embarrassed face which held a tear rolling down at the humiliation she faced.

The third picture of her again, dressed in a red saree and surrounded by several circles of radiant diyas. 

She sniffled and caressed the image before lifting it up to reveal a picture of them both. It was from the Grahpravesh Anjali had organized to somehow make up for their disastrous runaway wedding. She remembered how Arnav's face had scrunched in disgust when Anjali had constrained him to take a picture with her and how he had softly gritted in her ears not to build any castle in the air just before Anjali had clicked the moment. 

There were few more pictures beneath it, all during their contract marriage period which Anjali had clicked in order to capture her brother's happy married life. Little did she know that there anything but happiness in the bond that they shared at that time. 

Feeling her heart prick at the distressing memories, Khushi kept the pictures back on the table before grabbing the first gift box. She lifted the lid and felt her shoulders sag as her fingers grazed the small white pearls it contained. Closing the box and keeping it aside, she took the second box with a exaggerated slow pace. Her vision blurred and she fought back a sob as this time, she saw a piece of her dupatta which he had ripped the first day he saw her in his office's parking lot.

Faint sound of footsteps and a known tug in her body alerted her about the person now standing behind her and she held the table, unwillingly to look back. She knew what this was all about the second she saw the first picture and she refused to see him, like that. 

But as she felt him tugging at her hand, her resolution broke and she turned around, slowly and steadily only to see him kneeling in front her. His shoulders were slumped and his face was bowed down as if ashamed to look at her in the eye.

"Ever since Mom died, I forgot the meaning of life." He started and she felt her tears escaping at the every first sentence. She wanted to stop him. Tell him that she understands his unsaid words and that he didn't have to torture himself with these memories but a part of her wanted to halt and hear what he had to say, what he had to show her.

"She left me with a stabbing pain that kept gnawing on me, making me so numb I couldn't even cry. Not even when I lit her funeral pyre with my very own hands." He paused and she saw his chest rising and falling slowly as he tried stabilizing his breaking voice and ragged breaths.

"At first I wanted the pain to go away. It was hurting me a lot and I wanted it out of myself but, but no one could help me. Our own family threw us out of our house, calling us by names that still haunts me. Di was broken, Nani was sick and Mamaji was just confused, not knowing how to hold everyone together. That's why I learnt to live with the pain and it would be easy because I would barely have time to think about it while working at a hundred places and taking care of my mourning family. But Khushi, each time I slept, each time I was alone, the pain came back."