Chapter 5

[MEMBERSONLY]

Hello all dearest, darling readers 🤗 I don't know how to thank and appreciate my readers enough when you all post such wonderful comments on this story. Reading it, re-reading it, analyzing it, trying to take sides, hoping them to be together, finding one party right and the other not-so-right, able to relate to it and most importantly asking for Arnav's point of view. Chapter 7 will be dedicated to his point of view completely!


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Chapter 5

(3252 words)

Arnav rubbed her back as she cried in the crook of his neck, holding the lapels of his suit with both hands. Arnav extracted one of her hands from his suit and held it in his while his other hand settled on her waist. He helped her get up from the floor, her body leaning against his as he walked her to the bed. He made her sit there, while she continued to cry in his arms. He couldn't see her cry as if someone had died!

"Khushi, listen to me. Stop crying. I cannot see you cry at all! Please, for me, don't cry" he pleaded and he noted with relief that her tears ceased after a few moments, although she still shuddered a little every few seconds as her body tried to calm down. A few minutes later, he felt her relaxing against him as her hands travelled from his chest to his waist where she encircled her arms around him, snuggling against him.

After several minutes of silence, Arnav spoke in a gentle voice, "Khushi, I want you to understand me and understand carefully" He felt her stiffening against him but he had to do this so he continued "I cannot marry you. It's not you. I will not marry anyone. So it is better that you find a guy for you who will love you as much as you love him"

Khushi looked up from his chest, searching for something in his face "Don't you think I tried that? Ever since I started attending college, I have been asked out so many times but every time I looked at them, the only thought that crossed my mind that they were not you"

Arnav immediately dropped his hands from her back and waist and shifted away from her on the bed, saying "What you feel for me is a mere infatuation. You have not started looking at others in that light. I am sure once you do, you will forget all about me"

Forget about him? This seemed to infuriate, irritate and hurt Khushi a lot, who revealed, "I too thought that it was infatuation or attraction. But infatuation wears off, it doesn't expand and extend in to love so much so that even the thought of separating from you makes me die a little from the inside!"

He stood up abruptly from her bed and took several steps away from her, backing towards the door he came from. She too stood up and took several steps towards him.

"For the last time" he spoke through gritted teeth, his finger pointing at her "Stop saying all that and get off my back!"

She flinched at his words and took several steps back "You want me to get away from you?" she asked in disbelief, her steps faltering.

"Yes!" he said without even batting an eyelid.

"Okay..." she whispered.

"Good" he said and then added before exiting her room "I hope when we meet next you won't repeat what you have said to me" Arnav sighed in relief as he left her room, grateful of the fact that she had now finally understood and will not pursue the matter further. He had to be harsh on her. He had no other option and it would be better that he distanced himself from her. A long business trip would help.

*

Arnav had gone back to office as he had left a lot of work midway. But even after sitting in the office for four hours he didn't get even a single work done, hence he left the office close to 10.30 in the night.

When he reached home, Devyani was sitting over the dinner table, waiting for him.

"Nani, you shouldn't have waited for me" Arnav said while loosening his tie and settling on the chair next to her.

"I am not as old as you think I am" she retorted.

"I don't think you are old at all" he remarked, winking.

Devyani smiled back and called out to Jai Prakash "Serve the food and call Khushi bitya"

Jai Prakash brought the dishes out and while Devyani and Arnav started with their dinner, he went up to call his Khushi baby. But a few minutes later, he came down informing that Khushi was not answering her door at all. This worried both Devyani and Arnav, who stood up to move towards her room.

"Did you try the door? Was it open?" Arnav asked Jai Prakash.

"I tried. It is locked from the inside" he replied and Arnav breathed in relief, at least she was in the house "Nani, you wait here. I will see what the matter is. I guess she is just sleeping"

"No, I will come as well" she said adamantly.

"Nani, you have been advised to not exert pressure on your knees. I will just be back" Arnav tried to reason with Devyani who finally gave in and settled back in her chair.

Arnav strode towards her room in angry strides. What was wrong with this girl? Didn't they have a talk just a few hours back? Why was she back to behaving like that? He stood knocking on the door, calling out her name but there was no response. He tried for a whole of two minutes but with no success. Why the hell is she not opening the door? She always answers the door for me. Has she done something to herself?

This thought made him enter panic mode. If she has done something to herself, only he is to be blamed. Should I break the door? Just then an idea struck him. He walked down the corridor towards his room and slid open the poolside door to move over to hers. She never locked the glass doors of her room. He quickly moved on the other side of the pool and pushed the door to the right and thankfully it opened smoothly.

"Khushi!" he called out in the dark room but no answer came. He groped his way to the switch board in darkness and hurriedly pressed all the switches, bathing the room in light. He turned around to find himself standing in an empty room, with no sign of Khushi. He walked over to the bathroom, turned the knob, the door opening easily. The bathroom was empty too.

Where is she? The hand that was holding the knob started shivering, so did his whole body.

Get off my back!

Had she taken his words in the literal sense and left? But where will she go? What if she has gone somewhere to kil...? No he shouldn't think about all this.

The thought of separating from you makes me die a little from the inside!

Her desperate voice resonated in his head, as true implication of her words dawned on him. Shit! He should have never told her all that! He could have been more patient with her. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her.

He went down quickly to go out and look for her. Just as he was walking past the dinner table, Devyani called out to him "Arnav. Where are you going? Khushi bitya?"

Shit! He forgot about Nani! "Nani, I have some urgent work and Khushi is sleeping in her room. Her head is troubling her again. I will take her to the doctor tomorrow," saying this he took a few more steps towards the door, and then stopped, turned back to Devyani and said "Please don't disturb her. Let her sleep in peace. Meet her in the morning, okay? And I will be late. Don't wait up for me. Go to sleep. Don't forget to take your medicines"

He left from there before Nani could stop him. He had to find Khushi at any cost. He took his car out and looked around the streets of Delhi, the places she frequently visited, the special corners that she liked. But at past midnight most of her favourite places were closed and the thought that Khushi was roaming around somewhere in Delhi, at this time of the night sent several chills down his body. The thought of a few nasty, disgusting men surrounding his delicate, innocent Khushi made his blood boil.

He won't let any filthy man come near her! She will be safe and secure with him soon, he assured himself. But after a futile two hours, with no sign of Khushi anywhere, he thought that it was time to take the matter to the police. Their resources will help him find her better. He steered his car back to his home, parking it in the backyard, the shorter way to his room and safer too so that he wouldn't encounter Nani, lest she was awake. He would pick up Khushi's picture from his room and take it to the police.

Just when he was climbing the staircase past the ivy covered wall, his eyes fell on the courtyard where sitting on the white iron wrought resting bench, her head bent down, her back to him, was Khushi, still dressed in her blue dress. And the way her body was shaking, he was sure she was crying.

The relief that he felt in that moment was so enormous that words would not be sufficient to describe it. He walked to her slowly and then increased his pace towards the bench and came to a halt before her, falling on his knees, taking her cold hands in his.

She was looking pale and weak, her body hunched while fresh set of tears graced her cheeks every now and then. He knelt there, staring at her and after a few minutes of silence he asked, very gently "What are you doing here?" He had to be sure that she was sitting here just because she wanted to and not because she had tried to leave this place.

"Don't you want me to be here?" she asked pleadingly.

"That is not what I meant. Were you trying to leave?" he enquired, still clutching her hands.

She nodded and then another crying session started. He wiped her tears, holding her face in his hands "Why?"

"You asked me to leave. What else I would have done?" she asked looking at him with wet, accusing eyes.

"So why are you here then?" he asked, curiously.

After he had shouted at her in her room in the evening and had asked her to get away from him, Khushi had felt broken. She had shut her door after him, not wanting anyone to meet her when she felt that she was crumbling from within. She had already agreed to leave him the moment he had uttered those words but it took her a lot of time to bring herself to obey him in action, even if it hurt her. She had walked to her door, then turned back to her room to look at it one last time. But her eyes were automatically drawn to the connecting poolside door. Instead of leaving immediately, she went over to his room.

After carefully memorizing and caressing his things in his room thoroughly, she left from his room with a heavy heart, her legs feeling steely. She had just left her everything behind.

She looked down, her face still caged in his hands "I tried to leave. I managed to walk to the next street. But beyond that, I couldn't. I came back here, hoping that you will not mind if I just stayed in the periphery, not crossing paths with you. I will be well behaved. I promise. But please don't ask me to leave this place" she joined her palms together, begging.

He pried her joined palms away, holding both her hands in his as he told her "I never asked you to leave the house when I told you in the evening...I...I didn't mean that"

"Then why are you insisting on me leaving this house?"

"What? Me? When did I tell you that? Of course not..." he defended himself instantly.

"Why do you want me to get married and get away from you?" she looked him in the eye with so much pain that he couldn't take it and got off his knees, standing away from her.

"Khushi, you deserve much better. You deserve a full and better life of happiness. You will not get any of it with me"

"So, you will never marry me?"

"No" his voice resonated in the garden.

"Am I not good enough?" she whispered in anguish. When he turned around, she was now standing, looking down on the green grass in despair.

"I am not good looking enough? Am I not likeable? Am not lovable?"

"What are you saying Khushi?" he exclaimed, walking towards her, holding her chin in his hand gently, forcing her to look up at him "You are beautiful Khushi. Who wouldn't want anyone like you? It is so difficult to not love you!"

"So why don't you love me?" she questioned, hopefully.

"Of course I love you, Khushi" he replied instantly but when he realized that she had taken it in the wrong sense, he instantly added "But I don't love you in the romantic sense. You are family"

They stood standing there, looking in to each other's eyes, trying to convey their feelings. Then she said in hushed tones "But I don't want to be loved by anyone else that way except by you" The hand that was holding her chin, immediately dropped and as he tried to move away from her, she held both his hands in hers, preventing his getaway. Holding both his hands to her heart, she pressed their bodies together, resting her head against his chest, listening to the most secretive talk of his rapidly beating heart and murmured against him "When I close my eyes, I see you" Looking up in to his eyes, she confessed "When I open them, I see you" Trailing her hand over his shoulder, she walked to his side and revealed "When you are away from me, I want you" Standing behind him, she fulfilled her morning's wish by hugging him from the back, gliding her hands from his waist to his chest, towards his shoulder where she clutched at them, her nails digging in to them and placed a kiss on his back and whispered "But when you are with me, I want you more"

He instantly jerked away from her hold and increased the distance between them by moving several paces away from her.

"Khushi, have you turned mad?" he asked furiously, his eyes red with anger.

"Yes! Yes! I have gone mad. I am crazy for you. Don't you understand?"

"You don't understand, Khushi. You have no idea what you are asking for. Stop dreaming that I will ever marry you! Marry anyone but that person is not going to be me!" he spoke so venomously that he was sure that she would get the signal and give up. But she didn't.

"You will not marry me and want me to get married to someone else?" she asked after wiping her tears, a strange sense of calm claiming her.

"Yes" he said with firmness.

"Alright. I will do that. But will you do something for me in return?"

"Yes, if you are ready to marry someone, then I will give you whatever you want in return. Promise. But only if you marry someone!" he repeated to make his point clear.

She waved her hand in dismissal "Yes, yes. I will marry. But do you promise this time without breaking it? Because you promised to give me whatever I wanted as a graduation present but you didn't"

Ignoring her jibe, he said "I will not break my promise this time. Ask what you want from me"

She moved towards him, in slow measured steps and came to a stop just a foot away from him "If I am not getting the love of my life, can I please at least get some love from you?" she had started speaking with confidence but later her voice had turned in to a request.

"Khushi, what do you mean?" he asked, suspiciously, his brows furrowing.

"I am ready to marry anyone as long as you...you make love to me...at least once" she had just placed both her hands on his shoulder when he pushed her away from him.

"Are you out of your mind? I am not going to do that!" he exclaimed in anger.

"Why? Haven't you been sleeping with women in the past? What's wrong with me?" she questioned, pointing to her body "Am I not desirable?"

He closed his eyes as he spoke through clenched teeth "Khushi, stop it! I can't think of you like that!"

"It's because you think I am not up to your standard? It's because of the one year I spent in the brothel, isn't it? You feel I am tainted, impure?" her lips started quivering and she said desperately "I promise, I have not been touched yet. Even during college or parties, I have not let any men come near me. I am yours and only yours and if you want me to be someone else's then make me yours first"

"Khushi, do you even understand what you are asking for?" he bent his head to her eye level, pointing a finger at her, jabbing it in the air with each word he spoke.

"Yes" she replied simply.

"Do you know what people would call you if you sleep with a guy once who is not interested in you that way because you fancy him?!?"

"Don't tag my feelings for you under the lowly label of fancy' because what I feel for you is pure, unconditional love"

"Asking a guy to sleep with you is pure love?" he mocked her.

"No, asking a man to make love to me whom I love is called pure love. What you are asking of me, to get married to someone else is not called love. It's called compromise" Folding her hands under her breasts she asked "Do you know what marrying a guy I don't love and letting that man touch me without my consent be called? In that case I was better off at the brothel..."

"ENOUGH!" he bellowed, his hand raised in the air, ready to slap her at her remark. Lowering his hand, balling it in to a fist he ordered "Go to your room right now and don't speak to me until you fully realize what you are saying"

She started walking backwards from him towards the house, turned around and ran towards the staircase. She halted midway, looked in to his direction and said "No matter how much time I spend in my room, thinking over what I said, it won't change my feelings towards you even by an ounce. While I do that, please think about what you will call me if I get married to anyone else instead of you and when that man will make love to me, the only face I want to see, the only voice I want to hear and the only name I want to take repeatedly will be yours"

*

A couple of hours later, the glass doors to Khushi's room opened and closed when Arnav entered her room. He opened the drapes over her bed where Khushi lay wide awake sniffing and slipped inside the blanket next to her, spooning her to his body.

I have not started typing Love Interrupted yet. Sorry I have been feeling low from the past 3 nights I couldn't type even though I had free time I will start typing tomorrow because I am as eager (now) to write the chapter (The update is spinning in my head!) as you are to read it 😃

lazyleaves2013-10-01 13:38:47