MASK

Part 10

Six months later...

I stretch my arms lazily as Arnav pulls off the curtains allowing bright sunlight to fall inside.

He walks towards me and gives me a tight hug. "Get ready, we have a breakfast date" He smiles as he walked away. I smile too as I look around the room, a lot changed in the past few months, the medications and the counselling helped a lot, but more than that Arnav's love helped me a lot, I wonder what I would have done with my life if he wasn't there to hold my hand and lead me through it. The problem with us is when we are depressed we just want to shut ourselves out, we think we need no one but the truth is that this is that one point in life where you need someone so badly and I'm glad that Arnav was there for me. I jump out of my bed happily as I rush to shower, when I was depressed I had lost all hopes, I never thought I'd wake up feeling like this once again and I'll stop having all those negative thoughts I always had. It was a world of darkness and I really hope that no one falls into that trap, it's very bad and if anyone does I hope they have someone like Arnav in their lives to help them out because battling with depression on your own isn't easy. Although I'm not completely out of it, there are still days when I wake up and feel sad for no reason, I know it's not as bad as it was earlier and I also know with time I'll get over with it completely. I walk out and search my wardrobe for almost fifteen minutes deciding what to wear, Arnav walks back in my room and hugs me from behind. "Just so that you know, we aren't married yet and neither are we in a living relationship so you aren't allowed to walk into my room without knocking" I giggle He stares at me for a while as if he'd seen something he had been looking for so long on my face. "Stop staring at me like that, I can't stop blushing" I say as I turn away from him. "I missed this part of you Khushi, I'm glad my Khushi is back" he says I just look at him and smile, I'm also glad that I'm back to what I was before, that feeling of emptiness and sadness disappeared and it actually feels much better, I can now look at my life and feels it's so perfect despite of so many flows while six months before all I could see were the flaws. "I'm waiting for you, breakfast's ready hurry up" he says as he kisses on my cheeks and walks away. I get dressed quickly and rush to the hall where I'm surprised to see Ishaana, Rehan and Lavanya. "What a pleasant surprise, I dint know you were coming here to crash our breakfast date" I say "Because you can't always have dates with Arnav, we also deserve some of your time, so today we are going to have a friends breakfast date, if that makes sense" Ishaana says I jump on the sofa and settle myself next to Lavanya and we all begin chatting as usual, Ishaan and Lavanya have lots of gossips for me and Rehan gets bored so he walks to the kitchen to help Arnav. "Arnav I'm hungry, how long are you going to make us wait" I shout from the hall. "We'll I'm ready if you're so hungry you can start with me while I finish cooking" I blush and try to hide my face so that Lavanya and Ishaan don't notice but I'm too late for that, they just look at me and burst out laughing. We all walk to the table and sit down as I look at all what Arnav has cooked. "You knew they were coming?" I ask looking at the amount of food he'd cooked "Of course I knew, I was the one who invited them, thought that now you're back to being our old Khushi so we all should have fun again" "Oh Mr. Arnav Singh Raizada, this is a kind reminder for you, summer holidays got over long back and I'm back to work" "And Miss Khushi Gupta, today is a Sunday and I'm sure you don't work on Sundays" I just stare at him like I'd kill him right away but I don't, I just smile and continue on eating. "The Goa plan is still on, next holidays we are definitely going" "Obviously and you better not leave me alone here" I say "Yeah look who's talking, if you dint refuse we would have been talking about how fun it was right now" "Doesn't matter" I giggle. I walk back to my room after we are done with breakfast and after everyone else leaves except Arnav. I leave him watching the TV as I arrange all the clothes I had messed up in the morning while looking for something good to wear. I'm busy doing my work when I hear someone walk into the room, I know it's Arnav so I don't even turn to look at him. He gets hold of my waist and hugs me from behind, the dress I'd been holding in my hand falls off and he pulls me away. "I love you Khushi" he says as he turns me to look at him. "I love you too Arnav" I say looking him into the eyes. "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're out of depression, I know how much it had affected you and now seeing you all happy like this makes me feel so peaceful, I'm really glad that you're okay" "I'm glad too" He pushes me to the wall and locks me inside his arms, he smiles looking at me as his gaze moves to my lips and before I think of anything else, I can feel his lips brushing on my eyes. I close my eyes as he parts my lips with his and kisses me slowly, I get hold of his shirt and pull him closer even if there's no space left between us, the slow kiss becomes a faster and harder one, he sucks my lips passionately biting it lightly and I can't stop moaning. He pulls me from there and pushes me on the bed, I laugh at him as he jumps on me and locks his lips with mine again and in this short moment, I realize I'd never felt as loved and as happy as I feel now.