Chapter 50

This was getting long...very, very long. And since the chapter is pretty heavy, I decided to split it in half so you guys don't end up getting a headache reading the whole thing. 

And also because I'm a bit selfish, and I want the last part of this story to be exclusively- or at least mostly- ArHi. Hehe :P

This chapter gave me a hell of a time...I almost cried out of frustration at one point. Writing about Anji always gives me a headache :( But hopefully the way Arnav reacted in the last chapter will make more sense after reading this. I really, really hope it does.

Also, thank you to everyone who took the time to read and comment on the previous chapter! It was a crucial and very serious one, and I was very unsure about it. Still am, to be honest...perhaps that's why it took me so much effort to continue :s In fact, why am I still talking? Enough whining- on with it! 

Chapter Fifty

Part I

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then." Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

***

She had almost died.

No, that was not it.

When she had stumbled in through their front-doors just hours before Akash's wedding, smiling reassuringly beneath a smattering of bruises and bandages, he had understood, in one bloodcurdling, spine-chilling moment of realisation, that his sister had avoided death by just a slight swerve of chance.

It had terrified him- in that one moment where that one possibility, that one "could have" had implanted itself into his brain, he had felt him steer dangerously close to the edge of insanity.

He had handled that fact before- he had not handled it well, because that one "could have" had cropped up countless times to torment him in his dreams since then, nailed in deeper and harder by what he had encountered on the terrace just moments after he had grasped the fact that he had almost lost his sister to a twist of fate that had been, contrary to his conceited beliefs, completely out his hands.

She had almost died, and he had understood that.

But what he had not understood, what he had not even known, was the fact that she had almost been killed.

It had not been an accident- not chance. It had been deliberate, and it could have happened again, and he had not even known.

His self-control was an ephemeral thing- he could feel it draining out of him with every step he took toward his four-wheeler. He felt disoriented- even setting one foot before the other took him more concentration and effort than it should.

It was partly because Khushi was not here, stabilising him as he teetered dangerously on the brink of insanity again. He had expected as much, feared as much- a jolt of panic had rocked its way through him when the Inspector had requested a separate, one-on-one interview with her. It was only procedure, he had explained courteously and professionally to them, and there could be no exceptions. And Arnav understood that- understood the sense and necessity underscoring that request.

But letting go of Khushi's hand- letting go of the one absolute that had remained fixed and unwavering in his transient world- had landed a mighty blow to his will.

And now he was inside his car, planting his forehead into the steering-wheel, uncaring that the edge of its leather casing was hard and was digging into his skin and against his skull.

There was only one thought doing rounds inside his head.

She had almost died.

She had almost been killed.

And he had not even known.

It was too confusing- too much. Thoughts and their complementary images were flitting past inside his head, like a television set flipping through channels- too fast for him to make out the pictures, to tell apart the noises.

Try as he might, he could not grasp just what he was feeling, and not because he had gone numb, but because so many sensations were currently coursing through him, scrambling for leeway, that there was no telling them apart.

It was too confusing- it was too much.

He heard the car-door click open, and he knew instantly that it was not Khushi.

He also knew, just as instinctively, who it was.

But he did not look up, because he couldn't.

Evidently, she realised it too.

For a moment there was nothing but silence- the kind of brittle, bitter silence that is reminiscent of the bite of a forlorn winter when there is nothing to ward off the cold. And then there was movement, the telltale swishes and rustling of fabric, the faint thump of someone lowering themselves into the passenger seat, and the definitive thud with which the car-door closed again, and sealed the reality he had been thoroughly unaware of into the car with him.

It was only then that she spoke.

"Are you that angry, that you won't even look at me?"

That was not it. Arnav was grappling with the emotions condensed clumsily inside his body, his ribcage straining to hold it all in, and he could tell he was a touch away from detonating, but he was at least aware that it was not anger that restrained him- that locked the muscles and joints of his neck and sealed his eyelids shut to keep from glancing askance.

Arnav was well-versed in anger. In white-hot, blind rage. He had experienced it one too many times in his life- and often as a cover to camouflage deeper-seated, more susceptible emotions that would have left him vulnerable and weak if ever exposed.

It had been anger beneath which he had hidden the effect Di's accident had had on him, the night of Akash's wedding- anger at the driver, anger at the maintenance of the vehicles, anger at Di's carelessness for not at least calling them- just a wildfire of rage that roared and blazed recklessly in all directions.

Pointless rage.

Pointless, because the accident had already happened. Pointless, because his fury would not salve the wounds Di had sustained, and pointless, because it could not change the notion that had been stamped into his brain as a very real, very likely possibility that had been avoided purely by chance.

Pointless rage that only hid his helplessness in preventing one of his deepest, darkest fears.

But right now, he could not even muster up that rage to cower behind. His psyche furiously flicked at the lighter, but could not ignite even a spark. It was as though he was drained- drained from the physical, emotional and mental strain that had been piling up on him and dragging him down into the ground for more than a month now- the episode in the police-station, the shock of a revelation he had not anticipated, had been the last straw.

 It was as though his body and mind knew that no matter how much he craved the familiar, consuming flare of fury, it would still be pointless.

Futile. Superfluous. Belated. Useless.

Pointless.

Because what was done had already been done, and his wrath could not change that.

He was not angry at her, but he could not look at her, because he knew he was defenceless and exposed, and he knew that if he looked at her, he would break.

Shatter.

Come apart, completely.

Reality had been sitting there waiting for his acknowledgement in that meagrely-furnished, ascetic office-room, and it now sat just beside him and he could hear it breathing, but he was not sure if he was ready to accept it yet.

But time stills for no one, and as with many things in life, he had to learn that even Arnav Singh Raizada was no exception.

"Chote...don't do this to me."

Her words were quiet, and even though he was not looking at her, even though he remained slumped over his steering wheel and staring into the stormy black-grey behind closed eye-lids, he could still detect the tinge of sadness. It was just as insubstantial as the early noon sunlight trickling in through the windscreen and falling against the back of his neck- but it was just as tangible as the film of perspiration soaking his collar from the warmth.

"Please...Chote...don't be mad..."

You don't understand.

I'm not mad.

I wish I could be.

I wish I could but-

"Please."

The pressure was building. The flimsy barrier that had inserted itself between his psyche and the mechanical part of his brain, that had dedicated itself to the task he had been stalling since the evening he had left the bedside of his father-in-law, had started to crumble. It was imperative that he keep his cool- imperative that he ensured justice was secured for the man who had ripped off the blindfolds Shyam had so deftly tied about his eyes. Back then, he had funnelled his willpower into keeping it up, into blockading every last emotion that might impede him as he dictated his version of events to the constable recording his F.I.R.- but right now, with that done, with the report signed and the investigation underway, and Shyam locked into some police-truck and being speeded over to Delhi and toward his inevitable fate, there was no excuse he could use to keep that wall up.

"Chote...I've lost my husband already. I don't want to lose you too."

And then that last bit of distance separating him from a hideous, horrendous reality was breached, and a small, warm hand that had often calmed him and comforted him before was laid palm flat on his shoulder.

He broke down.

"Di..." it sounded somewhere between a whine and a whimper, and his throat, unaccustomed to making such plaintive, pitiful sounds, convulsed at the effort it took him to speak. But the barrier had collapsed, and it was too much for him to handle, and the excess had started to spill out.

From the corners of his eyes, hot and bitter and wet.

From the quivers running up his limbs, wobbling and weak.

From his mouth, hoarse and garbled and soaked in despair.

"Why...?!"

Why didn't you tell me?

Why didn't you let me protect you?

Why did this have to happen?

WHY did any of this have to happen?

So many questions, but they are all pointless too- and he knew that. He knew that their answers would not alter the outcome that had already come and gone without his knowledge- knew that what was done was done, and nothing would change that.

But the questions poured out of his mouth regardless, because the feelings, the emotions, the backlash of how helpless and how clueless and how useless he had been- it was all overflowing within him and it was bursting its banks and brimming over the edge, and he could do nothing to stem the flow, nothing but wait for it to finish ravaging the very core of his existence until it could hope to subside.

Absently, as though his body did not belong to him anymore, he could sense the press of small, dainty little hands rubbing circles over his back, clasping his shoulder. He zoned in on the source of that warmth, fighting through the deluge crashing around inside him, and tried to haul himself back to shore- toward the voice that was speaking so softly to him.

"-why didn't you tell me anything either, Chote?"

She traded his question with one of her own, but Arnav already had an answer for her- an answer that only served to crank up his anguish.

"I wanted to protect you..." he gasped, wheezed, his timbre fractured, as if his vocal cords had been sliced apart by the pain wedged inside his throat, "I wanted to keep you...happy..."

But I failed, he screamed silently, his eyes clenching so tightly shut that flashes of scarlet burst into the darkness behind his closed eyelids. I failed!

And it destroyed him.

It destroyed him utterly.

For so long, for such a large part of his life, everything he did, everything he was and strove to be and had become, had centred around Di. It was Di's happiness that he'd modelled into the goal toward which he had barrelled, with single-minded determination- it was Di's support and love and care that pulled him back on to his feet every time life and the cruel world they lived in knocked him down. After that hellish night, lost somewhere in the recesses of time and the dark, morbid corners of a past they had tried so hard to leave behind, his older sister was all he had left- one of the few people whose love and devotion were unconditional, and the only person he thought could empathise with him, understand him.

She was the reason he had come as far as he had- become who he had become. It was the only reason, the only motive he had had since the age of fifteen to go on ploughing ahead. He had to keep her happy. He had to make sure she never again cried the way she had cried the night the two of them had lost the lives they had lived for, the night they had to re-forge their identities and leave their roots behind. He had to make sure that she would never experience heartbreak again.

He had become unscrupulous in his quest. He had become ruthless- heartless. Cold-blooded.

The only thing that redeemed him, the only thing that justified his existence and his actions in his own eyes, that wound up justifying every morsel of torture he dished out to Khushi, was the fact that he was doing it all for her. He was doing it so he could keep Di happy- so that he could protect her from anything life and humanity could contrive to throw against them.

But he had failed.

He had failed in the one thing he had thought he had done right for thirteen long years of his life.

And it hurt.

It hurt so much that he could not keep it in- so much that his frame rattled with the force of his grief and his remorse, so much that the salty tracks of tears singed their way down his skin before dripping into his lap- so much that he could not even make sense of the words gurgling out of his mouth, lilted with agony and shame.

"Why, Di? Why did you do it?! Why didn't you say anything, why did you do this to me?"

That last question was unfair, but there was no helping his feelings- he could not control the sense of betrayal powering his ragged voice, because in the throes of a selfishness that he had not even known existed within him, that was how he felt- betrayed. Forsaken.

Robbed of the only thing that had been sole priority for so long.

Robbed of the only thing he could sincerely be proud of.

Robbed of the only thing that would have made his mother proud of him.

Robbed him of the contentment of knowing that whatever else he did or said, at least he had been able to keep Di happy.

Keep her safe.

"Why, Di? Why?" he kept whispering thoughtlessly, chanting the question whose answer would change nothing, muttering it again and again and again, tiring himself out, draining himself dry.

The whole time, Di's hand patted his shoulder and his back with a rhythm that was somehow pacifying, and though it took him a while to sort through the rubble that was currently the wreckage of his thoughts, he managed to establish just way it felt so familiar. So...nostalgic.

Because thirteen years ago, when Arnav had last come into contact with the fatal taste of death, he had broken down just like this, had been reduced to a pathetic, helpless mass of incoherent mumbling just like this...

And just like this, Di had consoled him, with silent touches and quiet gestures that assured him of her presence, but without speaking a word.

Letting him weep out his grief until he could not weep anymore.

Because words in that situation were redundant. They were pointless. They would not have changed anything. Words would have been like painkillers- they might numb the pain, but they could not keep it from coming back.

It had been then, in the silent, bleak, hollow hours that had followed afterwards, as the two of them sat bound by mourning and by woes and fears, that he had sworn that he would do absolutely anything to make sure that his Di was not taken away from him too.

But he had come so close to what he had dreaded the most...so close to losing her...and he had not even known...

He had gone to such lengths...sunk so low in his quest...wronged so many people, wronged Khushi and yet...

"Stop it, Chote."

And yet, he had failed.

All his money, all his power, all his fame, had after all been for nothing.

***

Anjali knew her brother. She knew that he abhorred the idea of displaying a weakness, even before her, his lone confidante for many, many years.

She knew that that was the reason he had so abruptly distanced himself from her in the police station.

She knew that that was why he had attempted to hide himself away.

She also knew that she had not seen him this...shattered...this unstable or distraught, since the night they had lost both their parents.

That night had, in many ways, defined them both, and set down the paths they were condemned to follow from that moment on.

While Anjali had retreated into a world spun of fantasy and woven with dreams, where only good things happened to her and those she loved, Chote had braved into the unforgiving harshness that real life was capable of.

And they had both suffered for it.

Now, watching her brother visibly shake with the force of silenced sobs that he was struggling to contain, his face buried out of sight in the nest of his arms, muffled, rambled snippets of disjointed words coughed up by a voice so choked with emotion to did not sound like the cool, collected Chote he had trained himself to become, she could not take it anymore.

"Why-"

"Chote, stop..." Quiet, but quavering.

"Why-"

"Chote, listen to me-"

"Why did this have to happen-"

"Isn't it better this way?"

It had burst out of her before she had conjured the intent to say it, and the earnestness and conviction with which it did took her aback.

And evidently, it took her brother aback too, because in spite of himself he had snapped up to look at her.

She caught a glimpse of bloodshot eyes and the zigzag, damp trails that glimmered slightly against his face, and she let them propel her on.

"I think...it's better this way," she confessed, dropping her stare to her enjoined hands. It was ironic, that despite pleading for him to look at her, now that he did she somehow could not maintain eye-contact. But then again, people did not change overnight. Anjali had spent too long retreating into her shell and diving out of sight at the first hint of trouble- she had spent too long abiding by the delusional principle that if she did not see the flaws of a life she'd construed to be perfect, then those flaws would not exist. It had taken her a lot of courage to get as far as she had, but even her courage had been tempered with cowardice.

And that was why facing an unknown police inspector had seemed easier to her than facing her own brother.

"How can you say that?!" Chote demanded, and he sounded as though he were pushing the words out through teeth clamped together, "How can you say that when that man nearly killed you?! And you knew, Di! You knew for weeks! And you didn't tell anyone, you didn't tell me!"

Yes, she had succumbed to her cowardice and forestalled facing her brother- the very same brother that sat here, tormented by his guilt, tormented by the secrets she had kept from him, and he had endured far too much for her, for far too long, and she couldn't take it anymore.

"What would you have done if I had told you, Chote?" she asked him softly, even though she knew the answer.

"What do you mean?" he growled, and in the splits driving apart his normally even tenor Anjali could hear his desperation and the blame he had taken upon himself, could hear the hurt that had for a split second shone clear in his face, "What do you mean? If you'd told me, I'd have made that bas***d pay! If you'd told me, you wouldn't have been in any danger, living with him under the same roof-"

She interrupted him so calmly, it felt as though the connection between her emotions and her vocal chords had short-circuited, "But what about Khushi?"

She glanced up at him then- he was staring at her, his mouth partially open, the leftovers of his angst-fuelled tirade fading from his tongue as his eyes grew blank in the face of her question.

"What...do you mean?" he echoed himself again, but this time the desperate, self-destructive sorrow had been replaced by surprise- and wariness.

Anjali laced her hands together, noting absently how cold the tips of her fingers were.

"If I had told you, two or three weeks ago, about what I found out...what would you have done to Khushi?"

The pause that followed was damning- not because they did not know the answer, but because they both knew the answer too well.

But it had to be said. There was so much that had to be said. All of them, every person that had been involved in this convoluted string of events, had held on to their secrets with tenacity, whatever their motivations- and look at where that had got them.

Look at what it had done to them.

She had signed away her husband's life with her own hands, and now she sat in the car with the person she had cherished the most since the passing away of their parents, but she could not even look him in the eye, and for the same reasons that had caused him to try and hide from her, avoid her, earlier...

Shame.

"You would have hurt her," she whispered it bluntly, because there was no other way to say it, "...you would have been angry, and you would have been reckless, and you...you would have hurt her."

***

He wanted to tell her that it wasn't true.

He wanted to say that it was a lie.

But he couldn't.

Because three weeks ago, he and everything he did had revolved around one objective-

Tormenting Khushi. Punishing her.

Using her as an outlet for all the reckless, untameable rage that roiled inside of him- the unspent desire to smite down anyone that had threatened his Di's peace...

If, in that time, when he had refused to believe Khushi's pleas of innocence, he had found out...

His mind blacked out and his heart stopped beating, because he could not contemplate what would have happened.

Did not want to contemplate what he would have done.

And then Di spoke again.

"But you wouldn't do that now, would you?"

This time, there was no question of hesitating, of convincing himself, of fabricating answers.

"No."

It came out easily and effortlessly, because it was the truth.

Even moments ago, when they'd been sat side by side in the police-station and Khushi had tried to fidget out of his grip- when she had tried to squirm away from because she held herself accountable for what Shyam had almost done- he had not blamed her. Not even the thought of her culpability had crossed his mind- instead, the accusations she levelled at herself, the link between them that in her guilt she had tried to sever, had been the trigger to setting his chaotic thoughts in some temporary semblance of order.

He had not blamed Khushi then, he did not blame her now.

He had not thought to hurt her then, he couldn't think of hurting her now.

It was just...impossible.

Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to do it.

Engrossed in examining these thoughts, it was a while before he noticed that Di was watching him closely. When he focused on her properly, he might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smile against her lips.

"I know," Di sighed, lifting a hand to rub its heel against her closed eye. On closer inspection, Arnav could distinguish the dark daubs under her eyes, the tiredness evident in her posture, but before he could fully muster the energy to react to his observations, Di resumed, "And that's why I'm saying it's better it happened this way...that we found out what we did...when we did. Otherwise...we might have..." she faltered, and then her eyes were downcast again, though he could make out the trembling of her mouth, "we might have hurt people...a lot more...than we already have."

A lot more...

Even in his cloudy, disjointed state of mind, the odd little inflection in Di's words tweaked at Arnav's attention.

And then he remembered a fact that had been eluding him all this time.

"Di...did you know from before?"

Maybe his sixth sense had already told him that she did, and that was why he had not bothered to elaborate.

Because even though he had reiterated his discovery of the fact that Bauji's paralysis had been caused by a failed murder attempt, and every action he had taken since then, he had refrained from mentioning the circumstances under which he and Khushi had been married.

That was his own crime to pay for- his own sin to bear. The way he had defiled and deprecated the relationship he'd been lucky enough to forge with Khushi was not a matter for the public records- he would not stand for her humiliation, nor that of her family's, but then-

"I didn't know," Di responded evenly, shaking her head just a little, "I didn't find out until yesterday."

Comments, please? I'd really like to know how you guys are liking where this is going...

The next part is half done...I might post it in a few hours or maybe tomorrow morning :) There's still a lot more clarification to go...I hope this goes well...

I reserve all rights over this work of fiction and request readers do not reproduce/copy/modify it elsewhere and/or claim credit.

-doe-eyes-2014-03-03 07:29:22