Chapter 7
The response to the last chapter was overwhelming! I can't really get it into my head how much you all seemed to love it! Thank you SO much for your views, votes and sharing your favorite scenes and lines.
I really hope I made you shed a tear or two. Lol. And without any further ado...
Enjoy! xo
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"I wanted to apologize to you but I didn't know how you would react so I waited for you to come back after your first year at Oxford because what I did was so wrong on so many levels and you deserved an apology with me standing in front of you. But you didn't come. Year after year after year, I waited but you never came. I tried to send you a friend request but I was scared that you just wouldn't feel the same anymore so I did something else. I wrote you letters, so many of them, and birthday cards that I never mailed because I chickened out. I have 10 years worth of memories stored in a box for you so that when the time came I could give to you but then something happened one after the other and I couldn't do that too. And now here we are, standing on the terrace confessing what I should have ages ago, had I just had enough strength." I finish with a sad smile.
I look up to see his face one last time to find absolute devastation. I need to hug him rises once again but I stop myself because this is not what either of us needs. We need to feel the pain of our doings, me more than him, to get over it and maybe, just maybe we would find each other once again at the end of the tunnel.
He takes a small step away from the cot. Another step. One other. Until he spins around and walks down the terrace and out of the house. I see him in the driveway, walking to his car. He looks up once and finds me looking at him before he sits in the car and drives away from Tiwari Killa.
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I am back in my room; bone tired of everything that has happened today, I am exhausted physically and mentally. The window is open and I can feel a slight breeze make its way in the room, making the wind chimes chime a sweet soft sound. I move to my cupboard and take out my night suit to change into.
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Unfolding the blanket and covering myself with it, I feel my body slowly giving out as my eyes droop with exhaustion.
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You know when you're having a nightmare that someone is chasing you and you are running away, yet your legs don't seem to move they just feel like they are stuck to the floor? You're screaming at yourself to run faster and faster and it's no use because your legs won't work, your feet won't co-operate and just as the enemy grabs you from behind you wake up in a cold sweat? Well this exactly how I am feeling right now - except I don't wake up... Not until it's too late.
I am sleeping peacefully but subconsciously I know something is not right. I feel my blanket sliding down my body, the window is still open and the cool breeze is wafting in the room and goosebumps break out all over my skin. I am moving my hand around to feel for the blanket when suddenly hands are grabbing me. I don't know if it's just one person or multiple but I startle awake and I start kicking my legs in an effort to shirk them off me. I can't breathe anymore. I can feel the tears streaming down my face and I am opening my mouth to scream when a hand covers my mouth and pins me to the bed. My head starts spinning because of the lack of oxygen and slowly I fade away into nothingness...
I wake up with a loud gasp, breathing heavily. As I try to get my breathing in control I take inventory of everything: the window is still open and I am thankful for the cool breeze as it moves over my face cooling my heated skin. The blanket is still covering me and nothing seems to be out of place. I am trying to make sense of my nightmare when I feel strong arms pulling me back. The fear kicks in once again and I am gearing to thrash my legs and scream at the top of my lungs when I smell the familiar scent. I try to calm down my racing heart once again when I feel lips on my ear and the sweetest sound.
"Shh... It's okay. It's me. It's me." The voice says in a soft soothing tone.
"Shravan?"
I feel the arms tighten around me in response. "Hmm"
"What... How... What are you doing here? How did you get in? What time is it? What in the hell are you doing here?!"
"You've asked that question twice." He states as a matter-of-fact.
I turn around and I feel his arms loosen around me before holding me tightly in his embrace again. I pull my head back to have a good look at his face and I see his bloodshot eyes.
"Shravan..."
"Shh... Kitna bolti ho."
"Par -"
"Bola na chup." He says in an exasperated tone. "Kabhi bhi meri baat mat sunna, hamesha aise nahi ho sakta. Not fair, Sumo. Future mein to tum mujhe kuch bolnne hi nahi dogi. Ladai bhi karni hogi na, toh one-sided hogi because, as usual tum chup nahi hogi and then as usual mujhe tumhe manana hoga. Aur- kya? Aise kyu dekh rahi ho?"
A small chuckle escapes my mouth and my lips turn up in a smile at his question. "Nahi bas yeh dekh rahi hu mujhe bolte ho ki mein zayaada bolti hun air khud ka kya, haan? Khud chapad chapad kare jaa rahe ho."
His eyebrows come down in a mock frown and his squints his eyes at me and next statement makes me laugh. "Sab tumhara kara dhara hai. Tumhari sangati ka aasar hai. Kahan mein bhola bhala baccha jiski zabaan nahi chalti air ab deko"
A loud laugh escapes me before I clamp my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.
Our shoulders shake because of our muffled laughter and it slowly subsides as we stare at each other. I take in his face - his almost perfect eyebrows, the brown eyes that held so much depth and emotion, my favorite feature of him, his sharp nose, his lips - pink and soft. He is single-handedly the most amazing person I've had the pleasure of having in my life and I don't ever want to let him go.
Shravan's P.O.V
She is my life...
Her eyes are bright with laughter, her face soft with happiness, something that I wasn't able to see because I was blinded by the "betrayal". Her lips are pulled into a soft smile as she stares at me, taking me in as I take her in and commit her face to my memory once again like I've done a thousand times before, but now it feels different.
Slowly lifting my hand, I brush the back of my hand across her cheek. Her close in at the sensation and I can't help but bring my face closer to her until our nose touch.
Her eyes open slowly and there is something in her eyes that I never saw before. Adoration, respect and above all love. There is so much love in her eyes that I am momentarily left breathless with the emotions that hit me.
"Sumo," I whisper not wanting to break the serenity that has engulfs us.
"Shravan." She whispers back, understanding the moment.
"I never gave you the answer."
Her eyebrows pull down in question, wondering what question she might have asked me that I
didn't give an answer to.
"I love you, too." I breathe.
Her face relaxes, her eyes have a shine like never before and the most breathtaking smile appears on her face and my heart misses a beat at that look.
"I've loved you for the last 11 years and I haven't been able to shake you away no matter how much I tried," I whisper.
"I don't want you to shake me away." She whispers back with a small smile.
A small chuckle leaves me with that statement. "I don't have it in me to shake you. The thought of you is in every breath I take and it is impossible to forget you. Believe me, I tried, oh god did I try to forget you and move one but Suman Tiwari you are like a drug to me."
"Are you saying I'm bad for you?" She says in mock anger.
"Yeah, you are. Because it doesn't matter if you are around me or not or if I am not talking to you or not you are always in my mind. You, my love, are the best kind of distraction."
"Yeah?" She murmurs with a closed-lipped smile.
"Yeah." I murmur back with my own smile.
"Okay. I'll take it and live with it."
"Good, because I have no plan to let you go for the rest of my life."
"Well, I wasn't planning to go anywhere without you."
The sense of peace and serenity that engulfs both of us is so overwhelming. After months and months of pain and torture, we are here, me in her bed, under the blanket with her in my arms. This is the best feeling in the world and one I never want to live without.
We're quiet for some time, both of us taking each other in, reveling in each others presence and all the things that happened today.
"Shravan?" Sumo calls out in another whisper.
"Hmm?"
"Tum kahan se aa rahe ho?"
My eyes snap open at that question. My arms tighten around her not wanting to give that answer.
"Nowhere, Sumo. I just went out for a drive and as usual jab kuch samajh mein nahi aa raha tha toh yahan chala aya."
"Shravan, tumhe lagta hai tum mujhse kabhi jhoot bol paogay?"
"Sumo..." I try to refute that statement.
"Toh koshish bhi kyu karte ho? Chalo ab sach sach batao kahan se aa rahe ho?"
Her fingers go up to my hair, running them through it and I melt into her embrace. I put my forehead on hers and just take her in.
"It's not important, Sumo. Can't we just stay in this moment?"
"I wish I could freeze time Shravan that way I would spend so much time with you-you would get sick of me." She whispered with a huge smile on her face.
"I'm never going to be sick of you."
"Not even when I drive you to madness with my actions?"
"Not even then."
"Good. Now tell me the truth. Where were you before you decided to make room here?"
"I was mad at you about what you said about Papa so I went back home and... And I told him everything you told me." I finish in a single breath.
"Oh, Shravan..."
"No Sumo. Please don't."
"But Shravan "
"I don't want to talk about it." I interrupt her because I honestly don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about how my father, the man I looked up to, worshipped the ground he walked on would do something like that to me, his own son.
"Shravan but we do. We have to talk because all of these things wouldn't have happened had we just opened up and talked to each other."
"Fine. Let's talk then." I say pulling away from her arms and sitting up against the headboard.
She sits up as well but across from me, crossed leg with the blanket wrapped around her. I don't like the distance between us so I hold her arms and drag her beside me and put the right arm around her shoulder and the left across her front after I've wrapped the blanket around both of us. Her head rests on my chest and I rest my cheek against her head.
"It hurt. It hurt so much Sumo when Papa told me the truth. I mean, how could he? I am his son, his son and he knew how much I craved for my mother, how much I wanted her around, knew how much I was suffering and he turned a blind eye to everything I was feeling and if that wasn't enough, what he did to you... Sumo, I am so sorry you had to go through that and I am also sorry that we were at a place where you thought you couldn't come up to me or tell me the truth because you knew I wouldn't hear anything against him. I'm so sor-"
"Shh." She hushes me running her fingers up and down my chest and the calming effect this woman has on me doesn't cease to amaze me.
"What are you sorry for?" She tilts her head back to look into my eyes. " You didn't ask for any of this and neither you planned any of this. You were a victim, Shravan. More you than me or Nirmala aunty for that matter. You were the one who was always caught in the crossfire and hurt time and again and I am sorry that I couldn't help you before and failed to do that now too. Had I just been honest and taken the first step rather than waiting for you then maybe it would have been us getting married." She finished with a soft smile, her eyes full of remorse and love.
"Why are you taking all the blame? It wasn't your fault."
"I might not have planned all of this but unknowingly I have hurt you more times than I wanted to. Every time I thought I doing something right I ended up hurting you. It was later that I realized maybe I should have spoken to you but then realized that was a moot point." She laughs.
My lips pull up in a small smile. "Hmm. True. Tumhe toh pata hai na mera dimag thoda kharab hai."
"Bas thoda?"
"Haan. Baaki toh tum ho kharab karne ke liye." I wink.
"Shut up."
We are silent for a while taking each other in once again when Sumo breaks the silence.
"You know what was our problem? We thought we knew each other better than we knew ourselves when the truth was that we never knew each other that well. Well at least this version of ourselves. Shravan, we were apart for ten years, that is very long time to be apart from someone especially when there was no communication. We assumed we were our old selves and the fact was that we have changed so much that sometimes when we stare at ourselves in the mirror we don't recognize the person looking back."
What she says hits me like a ton of bricks because what she said is right. I was so stuck on the way she was ten years ago that even when I saw glimpses of the new Suman I couldn't focus on it because for me, with me she was always the carefree one.
"I know exactly what you mean. We just assumed how we would have been that we forgot who we were now which wasn't this. We never did sit down and talk, we never rediscovered ourselves with each other."
"Because we so badly wanted to be our old carefree selves. We wanted to go back to the time where things, even though weren't perfect by any means, were simple and easy because we had each other and that was more than enough for us."
"We were so dependent on each other, we were, are each other's safe haven and I really hope that never changes."
"People might come and go but Shravan Malhotra, you are going to be a constant in my life that I will always go to when I need someone to guide me or just someone to vent to without any question asked."
"And you will always be the constant that I will seek whenever things are not right because I know my Sumo Wrestler will stand beside me and when needed in front of me to protect me from any harm."
"You would protect me too."
"We both will always protect each other," I claim kissing her on the top of her head.
"So..." She stretches.
"So?"
"How about we get to know each other all over again?"
"Hmm. Sounds like one of the most amazing suggestions I've heard in a while."
"So shall we start with our happy-ever-after?" She questions.
"Yes. I think it's time we get our happy-ever-after." I confirm.
Not wanting to wait any longer, I cup her face and tilt it up and bring my lips down to her and we kiss and kiss and kiss until we can't anymore and then in the early hours of the morning we lose ourselves to sleep with smiles on our face.
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Phew. I am so very sorry for the late update but anywho, here it is! I hope you have enjoyed what I've written, and I REALLY hope I did some kind of justice to Shravan's point of view. I really did not want to drag out the Shravan-Ramnath showdown because it has been done so many times in so many points of views, I didn't want to add another and anyway, this has more to do with Shravan and Suman more than anybody else oh and a wedding ;-)
As always let me know what you thought and more importantly, don't forget to VOTE!
Until next chapter...
Edited by BloodRune - 7 years ago
CID
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
