Chapter 1
"Sometimes you don't know what made you ask for a second chance in life. Sometimes you do; but then you just don't want to accept it. And yet; you ask for one. You ask for a second chance. For the first time..."
***
Rain was pounding hard against the windscreen. She couldn't make out the individual droplets as they splashed on the glass one after the other. The wipers moved wildly; sending the water flying off the car as he sped on the road; leading to nowhere in particular.
She glanced sideways at him; as she twisted and turned her dupatta around her index finger out of habit. He looked straight ahead; his eyes fixed on the road; his knuckles white as he tightly clutched the steering wheel with his right hand and the gear with his left. She didn't know how long they followed the yellow light that sketched a straight line from their car into nothingness; flickering between smudged and sharp as the wipers oscillated at the set rhythm.
"Stop the car", she whispered; breaking into the stagnant reticence; unable to take it any longer.
Even if he had heard her whispered request; he did a very good job ignoring it. She sighed when she heard the engine rev further in response to her. Darkened shadows of the trees zoomed past her at a faster pace. She saw the dashboard getting immersed in darkness and getting lit with a subdued luminosity from the streetlights and dark again the next second.
"Please", she murmured; clutching her kameez near her knees; aware of the increasing speed.
He spun the car on the road, the steering wheel whaling to the left at the maximum. The tyres screeched as he pulled the breaks against the torrential momentum of his sedan. He turned off the ignition and yanked the key out of the socket; letting them plunge into almost darkness in the middle of nowhere. He took a deep breath as he continued to stare out of the windscreen; probably looking at the trees outside as they danced furiously with the feisty wind.
"What do you want, Khushi?", he muttered under his breath; but loud enough for her to hear against the fierce whooshing of the wind on the drawn windows.
"I -", she begun, but paused immediately. Did she have answer to that question? What did she want?
"We should -", she hesitated, trying hard to put her feelings into a coherent string of words, "You know, we should think about the divor -"
Arnav put out his seat belt and stepped out in the heavy rain outside before she could complete her sentence. Khushi jerked back in her seat as the door thundered against the frame as he slammed it behind him. Sighing, she pressed the button to her right to release the seat belt and climbed out, following him. She walked around the car; her eyes fixed on the tall figure on the other side.
She looked at him; taking in the magnificent form of her husband drenched in the rain. He stood there; eyes closed, leaning back against the sturdy frame of his luxurious sedan. She saw his eye-balls moving rapidly under the closed eyelids; probably trying to avert his tears; blocking them into the faulty confines of his orbs. His eyes were so expressive that she hated to look at them while they were closed. She hated the feeling of not being able to lose herself in the depth of them. She wondered how she had misread them for all the love they had for her; she wondered how they had misread her for all the love she had for him.
A couple of strands of his hair had made their way down to his forehead with the pouring rain. She stood mesmerized at the strong contrast of his jet black hair over the honey of his skin; faintly glowing in the light from a far stood streetlamp. She didn't know when she raised her hand to his face. She slid her fingers over his forehead, stroking gently to the right and into the silken mass of his hair.
He opened his eyes at her touch and looked at her; standing so close to him, her fingers caressing him. So feather-light; as if he was someone fragile. As if he was someone who would break very easily... Her fingers lingered around the half-healed wound near his temple - the only reminiscence of the faked kidnap he had staged earlier that month. She stroked her thumb over the hardened lesion a couple of times, while the rest of her fingers buried themselves in his hair over his ears. He flinched at the slightest of the pressure from her on his deep cut.
She tip-toed to his height and blew warm air over his temple. "Does it hurt?", she asked, looking into his eyes that were now boring into hers with an electric intensity, his brows pulled together.
He nodded, "A little..."
Khushi fixed his hair into his usual pulled-back do with one hand; cupping his face in the other. "I'm sorry", she whispered.
There was a flash of lightning over them and it thundered a moment later. She pulled away from him; realizing how close they were standing and turned on her heels. As soon as she lifted her feet to walk a couple of steps away from him, wanting to give her some space to breathe steadily, she felt him grasp her wrist lightly. She felt her other hand fly up to her neck unconsciously, clenching her dupatta; her breaths quickening with a single touch from him. She struggled to get her hand off his; but he refused to let her go.
"Khushi, wait", he called her; "I want to talk to you."
"What is it?", she replied, without looking back at him, her hand still in his, "Listen, I was just concerned over the wound - how - how much have you hurt yourself. I - I mean - you are hurt and me - I mean - I know I don't mean anything to you but I was just con-concerned - you were -"
"Shhh...", he tugged at her hand, trying to turn her around to face him. But she just walked backwards to him because of the pull, until she collided against his hard torso; still refusing to submit to his wishes.
"Ar-nav ji?", she fought to retain the control over herself, pretending to remain unruffled by him, "What do you -"
"Khushi, please look at me when I'm talking to you", he told her, softly, brushing his nose against her wet hair, "Please..."
Khushi's breath got hitched midway with the intensity of his tone. She frowned; her mind partly believing, partly doubting the candidness of his request, "What is it?", she repeated, staring at a road-side tree; failing hard in preserving her fake demeanour any longer.
Arnav sighed, "You gave him a second chance, didn't you?"
She tried to get herself free from his grip again; but his hold on her was too strong. She gave in to the sure but comfortable pressure of his grip and turned to look at him; regretting her decision immediately as she saw a half-smirk stretching across his face.
"Didn't you, as well?", she threw in; acidly.
"Then why not me?", he said conversationally, as if there had been no interruption from her.
Khushi's eyes shot up to his, "You really want the answer to that question?"
Arnav shook his head; a small laugh escaping him instinctively, "I don't think I can stand the sarcasm from you, Khushi. But to answer your question - yes, I want to know. I want to know why you are treating me like this. As if I don't exist for you!", he cupped her face; ignoring the raindrops pricking their skin like blunt knives, "I can't take this anymore! Forgive me, Khushi - and if you can't - and I don't blame you if you won't - kill me! Please, trust me; you would be doing me a favour!"
Khushi shook free of his grasp, carelessly shrugging his hands off her face, "Why should I? Why should I be doing favours for you?"
"Don't act, Khushi", he told her, "Don't act as if you don't care!"
"But I don't!", she cried, stepping back from him, "I don't know how to act. And I don't care about you. Do you understand this, Mr Raizada? I. Don't. Care. About. You. Do you get it?", she spoke slowly and clearly.
He took a deep breath and wiped a few raindrops off his face; not earning any results as fresh drops replaced them. "Your actions speak otherwise", he said plainly; dispensing the rage in her tone, "He wronged you. And you gave him a chance to rectify. You let him live with my sister as her husband. You let my sister worship him. You knew you were wrong, didn't you, Khushi, huh? You knew you shouldn't have been doing that. You knew you should have been exposing that creep in front of everyone. But you didn't! You let him have his way! I accept I have wronged you equally -"
"Equally?", she stormed, "Are you for real, Arnavji? You treated me like a w***e! You accused me of being involved with that creep! And you disgraced the sacred institution of marriage by marrying me for six months!"
"ENOUGH!", he bellowed; unable to hear her accusations; however true they were, his voice audible even above the thunder that just flashed in the darkened sky, "Are you comparing me with him, Khushi? Are you?", he twirled her around and pinned her petit stature to the car; trapping her between his hands on either side. "You can give a chance to a person like him. But not me! Why, Khushi? You hate him, right? You are disgusted with him, right, that's what you told me? And yet you can -"
"Because you killed me Arnav!", she screamed; "You killed me with everything you had. I don't know how to resurrect to life now. I don't know how to be alive.", her voice trailed into silence as she sobbed, trying to shrug off her tears that escaped any way, camouflaging with the water landing on her face from above.
Arnav's hands dropped to his side at her words. He couldn't describe how much they hurt. Never, he didn't want to describe how much they stung. "Khushi...", he spoke softly as he looked into her eyes - bloodshot - because of the fresh load of tears that filled them and the roughness of her actions to wipe them away on each onslaught. The redness around the edges of her eyes made him want to hurt himself; the reddish halo around her iris scared him to death.
"There was a reason that I let him", she spoke after a moment; "Di was the reason. I didn't want her to get hurt. I didn't want her to suffer in the darkness. I didn't want her to live my life. I didn't want her to live my fate!"
"And me? I am not a reason? Am I not a reason to forgive me? What am I? Not good enough?"
The road was lit suddenly as a lightning flashed through the sky; sprinkling colours to the surroundings for a moment before everything went murky again. She shivered involuntarily as a gush of wind blew past them, her lips quivered with the unexpected chill. "I -", she found herself struggling for words again. She didn't have the answer, "You -"
The lightning flash left an imprint on him as he saw her; trying to hold herself back against something, shying away from him, maybe even afraid of him. He took a deep breath as the scintillating source of light receded into obscurity, and the yellow light was all that was lighting the place again. Her hair was sticking to her face at odd angles, lying haphazardly over her cheeks. Her clothes were clinging to her like second skin. He felt his breathing quicken - his reflexes going out of control; watching her standing there in front of him like that. He looked at her trembling lips and then back at her eyes; demanding answers from her. She felt a blazing current pass through her body under the heat of his gaze; melting her into oblivion, "Yes, me", he whispered, leaning against her, "Me, Khushi..."
"Arnavji -"
"You don't have the answer, do you?", he asked her quietly, bending further; making her arch her back along the curvature of the car behind her, "Hmm?", he added, his voice husky, his lips almost brushing against hers.
"I don't know what -", she gulped, her bosom heaving; as her brain registered the proximity.
He didn't know when he captured her lips into his; allowing them to linger tenderly over hers intermittently. He hesitated to continue; only to memorize the feel of her on him; to commit to the taste of her to his memory. The rain poured over them; as was the sense of belonging to each other. Something that was just resurfacing... Something that was done being buried down in their hearts somewhere for too long; battling with itself if it would ever get a chance to express itself... He couldn't name a tingly sensation that ran down all the way to his toes. He couldn't name the bliss that washed over him; enveloping him in its mellowed, restful arms...
He broke the kiss seconds later; and rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. "Don't I deserve a second chance, Khushi? For once? For the only time?", he whispered, as he slid his hands around the small of her waist, "Please..."
She breathed into his musky-woody scent as she lifted her arms to his shoulders; clutching the sleek material of his shirt. Her lips still shook under the feeling his lips on her; unanticipated. She didn't know how to reply. She knew words would fail her yet again if she tried to answer.
She nodded. "Yes", she managed to say somehow; unaware of a smile that stretched across her face; unaware of her anger melting; disappearing; unaware that she was falling in love. All over again... With the same person. Someone who was asking for her forgiveness; knowing full well that he probably cannot forgive himself for all the sins he had committed... Someone who begged for her mercy; as if it was the most important thing for him...
Someone who asked her for a second chance. For the first time...
***
[MEMBERSONLY][NOCOPY]
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