For Your Sake (Complete)

Chapter 4

Pulling out the scarf from his neck, Swayam irritably looked at Kavya who sat morosely on the couch of his living room with her head down. The girl was taking all the sweet time in the world to tell him why she ruined his life, apparently for his sake.

Yes. Ruined was the word. She ruined his dreams that day. Dreams of having a future absolutely different from his past. Dreams which he had anchored around her. Dreams of having a family of his own. A legal family. A wife who he would honor and cherish and children who would have his name. Not bastards like him. A family that his mother would have been so happy to see from up above. But THIS girl never let him have that for she refused to leave his mind, or his heart. Over the years, he searched for her in every girl and returned empty handed. The shackles of her memory never freed him. He never moved beyond that first love of his life. In his hatred for her, she stayed with him. He had tried very hard to do NOTHING but hate her. And he did not know how miserably he had failed at it until four months ago!

His state was that of a mass of jumbled emotions at present. From downright hatred for her in his mind to a flickering hope in the corner of his heart. From an urge to grab her from her arm and shove her out of his apartment to a nervous curiousness to hear out what she had to say. And the fact that in last fifteen minutes that she was sitting there, other than requesting a glass of water she had not opened her mouth, hadn't helped his faculties. He was growing impatient. 

"SPEAK UP. I don't have whole night for you to gather your precious thoughts," he spat.

Kavya looked up startled. On the edges of her huge hazel eyes were two sparkling tears, waiting to roll out at the slightest of provocation. And in all likelihood, his voice proved to be that provocation for he saw them make their way down to her cheeks and drip off into the oblivion while her lips trembled in an effort to produce a sound. He gulped down a labored breath. Shuttling between the vulnerability of her face and enigma of her silence, he could not decide whether to yell at her some more or console her right now. She will be the death of me one day, he conceded, tearing his eyes away from the picture she was making.

"Do you remember our last meeting?" he heard a few seconds later. She had fixed her gaze on his face, searching for any remembrance.

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REMEMBER? fucking remember does not even start to explain how deeply that last meeting was ingrained in his mind. Like a scripture on a stone tablet. Eleven years could do nothing to fade that memory. It was fresh in his mind like it happened yesterday.

It was a bright sunny morning in Lucknow, the day when she had brutally snatched away the very land beneath his feet without warning. He had invited her to his room, for breakfast, because he wanted to surprise her with the news of securing an internship in a law firm in Mumbai. But alas, he was the one who had gotten a surprise of a lifetime that day.

She had been acting strangely for a few days. A little pre-occupied, a little aloof. And however much he tried to pretend otherwise, it was scaring him. Her trying to avoid meeting him. Her looking at him strangely. Her smiling at him with expressionless eyes. He was not very vocal about his feeling but he knew, she was all he had. He tried to probe, directly and indirectly, but she was not very forthcoming as to what was on her mind.

His twenty-one year old mind could conjure only so many reasons for this withdrawal. Owing to his personal complexes, her being unhappy about his financial or social status was the topmost. Therefore he had intensified his job search so that she does not feel bad about being with him. He was a practical person and he knew that coming from such a rich family, this was not an entire impossibility that this thought would cross her mind sooner or later. And he wanted to prove himself worthy of her in every sense. But she did not give him a chance. He had pleaded, begged, groveled, did everything in his power to hold on to her that day, but she had made up her mind. She left him by the end of their last meeting, nothing deterring her from the decision she had made, leaving a crater of pain in his heart. Flinging his past in his face, which he had trusted her with. Her words stinging the wounds life had inflicted on his lonely being, leaving him lonelier than ever before.