Chapter 19

A/N: Thank you tonnes for your patience.

.

.

Chapter 19

Khushi did not regret it.

As she hurried out of that car, her heart ready to break out of its cage because of the sheer force with which it was beating, she did not regret her words or her actions.

But as minutes turned into hours and hours into evening, she began to feel a dread.

And now, as she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling fan turning lazy circles above her, she could feel tears rising at the back of her eyes.

Arnav had not followed after her.

He had not called.

He had not texted.

And the clock on the front wall read 10:45 pm, each minute ticking past louder than the last in the silence of her room.

Did he really leave? Even after what she told him?

The weight of the pendant that Arnav had gifted her on her birthday, the one she'd worn ever since without fail, now sat on her chest like a stone, each breath drawing it a little tighter.

She did not realize when the first teardrop fell. And the next. Then the next, until she'd lost count, her pillow damp beneath her cheek.

She did not realize when the first tear drop fell. And the next. Then next.

Everything was ruined forever.

She shouldn’t have said anything.

He did provide her a list of the girls he had dated in the past.

And Shilpa! She was a model, he said?

How can she even compare to these girls. Of course he left!

It was utterly stupid of her to think that he would want to do anything with her. Stupid to think that all those things on the roof, the pendant, his fingers at her neck, had meant anything at all beyond a passing moment.

Maybe he'd only acted so angry because she hadn't told him about Akash sooner, and he was hurt as a friend. His anger didn't have to mean he was hurt by the idea of Akash and her being together.

As more minutes ticked by, Khushi began to question everything, turning each memory over and over until it lost all its shape. Maybe he'd only opened up to her because he pitied her, another motherless girl, someone whose grief matched his own closely enough to be worth confiding in.

It will soon be midnight but sleep still looked far-fetched, when her cell phone vibrated in the silence of the room, the sound so sudden it made her flinch upright.

Abandoning the haunting thoughts, Khushi immediately picked up the phone.

"Hello." She said, her voice thick from crying.

"I need to see you."

Her grip on the phone tightened, and her heartbeat quickened so fast it made her lightheaded. It was Arnav's voice.

"Arnav, I meant what I said. I had no intention to keep you in the dark about this thing with Akash. I wanted to tell you. Remember? On my birthday? I told you there was something I needed to tell you? I wanted to tell you about this. About what I used to feel for Akash and how I don't anymore, but I couldn't.."

Khushi stopped the rant that she didn't fully know how or why she'd begun, her words tumbling out ahead of her thoughts. There was a tapping sound against her window.

"Open the window, Khushi." Arnav said.

"What?" Khushi immediately got down from her bed, her heart lurching, and reached the window on unsteady legs.

She pushed open the wooden shutters, and there he was. Standing right outside, between the potted plants, phone still pressed to his ear, his shirt slightly rumpled, his hair pushed back like he'd been running his hands through it for hours.

A soft, surprised noise left her mouth.

"Arnav? What are you.."

Her eyes widened further when Arnav slipped the phone into his pocket and swung himself inside the room in one quick, unhesitating move.

Khushi gasped as he landed and pulled the windows shut behind him, the night air cutting off with a soft click.

"What do you think you're doing, Arnav? What if someone saw you? And where did you disappear? Why didn't you call? Why didn't you text? I thou.."

Khushi was startled into silence when he stepped up to her and caught her face between his hands, fixing his eyes on hers.

So much intensity in them.

"You kissed me." He said.

Khushi's face instantly bloomed with colour, and she couldn't hold his gaze. She started staring at her feet, mumbling, her hands twisting together in front of her.

"Oh!..Umm..well..that..that was..in the spur of the moment…sorry..silly..it was silly."

"Improper." She looked up when he said the word, something in his tone making the single syllable land heavily.

His eyes were still boring holes in her sanity, refusing to let her look away.

"It was improper." He repeated, and she blinked.

She realized he was still cupping her face, his palms warm and steady against her skin. She tried to pull back, but he didn't let go.

"You can't do things like that. Do you know what it did to me?" He continued, holding her face, her eyes, her entire existence in that one unbroken gaze. She was lost in the moment, amazed by it, by how completely he seemed to be looking at her, not past her, not around her.

"What?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper now, looking into his eyes.

"This." He said, and Khushi's heart thudded once, hard, before his lips were on hers.

It cracked open her heart and filled it with sunshine.

She forgot to breathe as his lips softly found hers, and then pressed more urgently, more certain. She became a live wire, current coursing through her body, her knees growing weak beneath her.

She all but whimpered when he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her fully into him, the last inch of space between them disappearing.

"You electrified me" He whispered against her lips, before catching her bottom lip gently and running his tongue over it, slow, deliberate.

Khushi knew it was only his arm around her holding her upright now. So she gathered her hands and placed them around him, anchoring herself to him instead, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.

A few seconds passed before Arnav pulled away from her lips and tucked her face into the crook of his neck, holding her there.

Khushi realized she was shaking slightly, but her senses were filled entirely with the scent of him, woodsy, warm, something she couldn't quite name but knew she'd recognize anywhere now.

"How could I leave, Khushi?" He said softly, his voice rough against her ear.

Khushi pulled back slightly and looked at his face. It looked mystified, almost stunned by his own words.

"Why not?" She asked him, needing to hear it.

He looked at her, locking eyes, something raw settling into his expression.

"I felt that something of great value was being left behind." He replied.

Khushi nodded slowly, something in her chest loosening.

"I felt something of great value was being taken from me." She admitted, and dared to bring a palm to his face, placing it softly against his cheek, the way she had on the rooftop, only this time without any hesitation.

Arnav closed his eyes and breathed in, leaning into her touch as though he needed it to steady himself.

When he opened his eyes again, they were apologetic, something guilty settling behind them.

"I was lying in the afternoon. About almost everything. There is no girlfriend. I mean...there was. But I broke up with her before coming here. And..I, most certainly, was not happy to hear about Akash and..you. I was..disappointed, angry, and hopeless. I was lashing out." He said, his voice dropping with the weight of the admission.

Khushi walked him to her bed and made him sit, her own legs still not entirely steady.

Then she smiled softly.

“I didn’t really believe you when you said all those things, Arnav” She said to him.

Arnav looked at her with questioning eyes.

“You didn’t?”

“No! I thought why you were telling me all this suddenly and out of nowhere. And though you sounded so convincing, I just..I couldn’t make myself believe that you really were happy. You were saying it but your eyes were saying something else. And another reason I quite didn’t believe you is because I didn’t want to. There is something that I wanted to tell you today where we met for lunch. But, I couldn’t due to all that..misunderstanding” Khushi said.

Arnav was looking at her, listening carefully, a whirlpool of emotions running rampant in his eyes. Khushi wondered, watching him, where exactly he'd been all evening, what road he'd driven, what he'd said to himself before finally turning back.

"Yes, I loved Akash." She said, looking away from him, toward the window, needing somewhere else to rest her eyes for this part. She watched, from the corner of her vision, as his breath sharpened once more.

“He was my best friend. Kind, caring and helpful! It was easy for me to imagine a fairy-tale life where he and I would get married and always be together. But, that’s not what life is! Life is not a fairy-tale. At least, not for me. Over the years, I have changed, Arnav. I have seen what love should be like and my love for Akash was not like that. Once I realized that, I don’t know how and when my feelings for Akash began to fade. However, a few years after that, I learned something else. It was when Akash was with you in Delhi. I was looking for something in his room and I stumbled upon his prized box. You know? He keeps a box. It had always made me curious. When I opened it, I found it filled with love-letters for the girl he often ranted about. Some crush. It was then I realized that I didn’t feel one bit of hurt or disappointment. In fact, I was happy for him. I found it amusing and silly that he had kept the letters from me even though he ranted about the girl so often. I think he was too embarrassed to share the romantic fantasies he had written down for the girl. Anyway, that was when I realized I really had no feelings for him. I had moved on from being in love with my best friend to just being friends” Khushi said, the whole confession coming easier now that it was finally out.

“You didn’t ever tell him you saw the box?” Arnav asked.

“No. I thought I wouldn’t until he showed it to me himself. But he didn’t. So, I didn’t tell him” Khushi replied.

She watched as Arnav reached for her hand and held it between his, his thumb moving slowly over her knuckles.

"This whole marriage thing.." He began, his voice careful.

"Is meaningless." Khushi finished, and smiled at him.

Arnav swallowed thickly, and Khushi watched his eyes turn glassy, something breaking loose in him at the sound of that word finally being said aloud between them.

"I instantly believed it when I heard it from Akash." He said, clearing his throat.

"Why?" Khushi said gently. She wanted to hear what was going on in his head, all of it, even the parts that hurt to say.

Arnav looked at her for a second, gathering himself.

"Because I always lose the people I love the most." He said.

This time, it was Khushi's breath that sharpened.

“For the longest time I can remember, I have wanted you in my life, Khushi. The girl who could teach me not to be unjust and hateful! At first, I thought I just needed your friendship. I kept trying to slip into your life. From phone calls and birthday wishes to helping Akash choose your presents. Even if remotely, I wanted to be attached to your life. And when you lost Garima aunty, I remember wanting to be by your side, to hug you and tell you that it gets easier. Not the pain, but living with it. I think that was the first time I felt scared by the intensity of what I felt. And even then, I knew I was nowhere in your thoughts. It was only Akash. I think I always knew somewhere. I envied it, even hated it to some extent. That is why when I first came here, I planned to stay miles away from you. I did not want to wish for something I knew I could never have. But…it happened anyway. I tried to stay away, Khushi. But, I failed. When I saw you reaching out to me, my desperate, unloved heart just couldn’t refuse it. I don’t know if this is too much for you. I don’t know what you feel. But, I feel. I feel so many things I cannot put them in words, Khushi. And today when you said you didn’t love Akash and you kissed me, I cannot tell you how long I sat there convincing myself that I wasn’t dreaming. That all of this was real. That, there is finally someone who might want me even after knowing who I really am. Not just someone...you.that you might want me, choose me instead of being stuck with me” By the time Arnav finished, his voice was choked with emotion, his hand tightening around hers as though he needed something solid to hold onto while the words left him.

It made Khushi's eyes burn, but she held back her tears, watching him with an ache spreading warm through her chest.

A man who loved her. For years. And she'd had no idea. But she saw the hints now, gathered them up one by one, finally clear in the light of everything he had just laid bare before her. Khushi didn't know how to put into words that she felt the same way about him. That she too had been scared by what she felt, that the fear had followed her through this entire day, this entire drive, this entire aching silence. But not anymore. She was not scared anymore.

She moved and hugged him, placing her head on his shoulder, feeling him exhale slowly against her.

“I choose you. And that means I will never let you leave” She said.

They sat hugging for only a minute when the clock chimed. Both of them looked at the wall clock. It was one in the morning now.

"I am sorry for coming so late." Arnav said, pulling away from the hug, something sheepish in his expression now.

"You should be." Khushi said, getting down from the bed, though her tone had none of its earlier bite.

Arnav's lips twitched into a smile, and he watched her slip her feet into her slippers.

"Where are you going?" He asked her.

“I don’t think you have eaten. I will heat some food for you” She said.

"I knew it" She added, when Arnav's face turned sheepish and he scratched the back of his head.

“Wait here.”

Arnav nodded, and Khushi left, her steps light now, lighter than they'd been in hours.

When she came back ten minutes later, she found Arnav still sitting on the bed, legs dangling off the edge, absorbed in her copy of Oliver Twist.

Arnav opened his mouth when he saw her, but Khushi shook her head.

"I don't think we should talk about Akash right now. So put the book away. I brought Kheer. This is all that was left." She said.

Arnav considered her words and put the book back on the nightstand, careful with it.

Then he took the bowl Khushi handed him and began eating, the first proper meal he'd had all evening.

She watched him eat and Arnav raised a brow at her.

“Hungry?” He asked, turning the spoon towards her.

He watched as she shook her head but still leaned in and put the spoon in her mouth anyway, eating the Kheer.

Her cheeks turned red when Arnav took the spoon back and started eating with it again, unbothered, as though sharing a spoon with her was the most natural thing in the world.

"I would like to know what is going on in your head at the moment." He said, with a slight smirk.

"Sure you would! But all I am thinking is that it is very late, and I should be sleeping." She said, gesturing towards the water bottle on the nightstand, and lay down on the other side of the bed, pulling the sheet up.

"Good night." She said, and Arnav chuckled softly.

He finished the Kheer and drank from the bottle, setting it back down quietly.

Then he stood up and walked to her side of the bed. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake. He could tell from the way her breathing hadn't quite settled.

"Good night." He leaned down and whispered softly, his breath warm against her cheek.

Khushi held her breath, because she could feel him lingering there, close, unmoving.

"I love you."

Khushi's eyes flew open at the words, but Arnav was already kissing her, his lips softly brushing against hers. It was gentle and quick, exactly how she had done it that afternoon, the same brevity, the same weight behind it.

Her heart thudded violently when he pulled away.

She looked at him, but he was already moving, already crossing the room.

She lay on the bed, still caught on his three words, still feeling the ghost of his lips against hers.

She heard when he opened the windows softly, swung himself out, and then closed them again behind him, the click of the latch the only sound left in the room.

A few more seconds passed, and Khushi heard herself speak into the empty room, quiet, certain.

"I love you too, Arnav."

She smiled, and slept peacefully thereafter, the pendant no longer heavy against her chest at all.

~~**~~

When Arnav reached the Mahal and found his way into his bed, the smile on his face refused to leave. He felt a million times lighter, as though something that had been sitting on his chest for fourteen years had finally, quietly, let go.

Maybe it was a good thing that Khushi had stopped him from talking about Akash. He could deal with it tomorrow morning. Because he knew it was going to be one hell of a morning.

He would go up to his father and tell him that he loved Khushi.

And he would talk to Akash too.

Arnav could only wonder what that conversation would be like.

What would Akash say? Because his was the only opinion that mattered to Arnav in this whole damned house.

Tomorrow, he decided, and let himself finally, finally sleep.

_________________________________