Arhi SS|New Year's Resolutions|LastPart- B&C p130 *complete!* - Page 60

god this is such a beautiful story. found it today. read all 7 parts in one go... very descriptive and soul rendering.. keep updating regularly..

I'm new to your stories and have to say this is a treat. the way you have penned the complex workings of the mind is amazing.

I recently had been watching the previous episodes of the serial, especially arhi scenes and watched three or four times or maybe more of the scenes leading to payal and akash proposal to New year and the wedding preparations. when the serial was running I was more drooling over it and was curious about what happens next. but seeing them now, I believe that particular scenes had more intensity than what the director or actors had expected.

so much transformations and changes of heart happened over these scenes.

and your pen had captured all that complexities and transformations of mind so beautifully. its so interesting to see the mind working.

Ah N I am so glad to have discovered this SS! It has been such a joy reading all seven chapters! I have always mentioned this to you but it doesn't hurt to repeat myself now does it? I just Love, love, love the way you cover Arnav's remorse and redemption. I simply can't seem to get enough!

FINALLY, an update!! I've been wanting to write NYR for AGES, and since I have only one exam left, and I'm pretty ok with it, I thought why not? But I'm a bit unsure as to how it turned out- I really hope I didn't mess it up :s Please let me know if you find it disjointed or anything, I'll see what I can do!

Updates will be much more frequent from tomorrow onwards because 1) I finish my exams tomorrow 2) I'm going home on vacation!! So loads of free time to indulge, I'm so excited!!

PLEASE TAKE NOTE of the times and dates in the chapter below as the story skips back and forth through time. For instance, the first part of this chapter takes place more than 12 hours AFTER the second part.

Really hoping I didn't mess this up!

*Part 8*

"Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

6^th January, 2012, 12.03 a.m. (midnight)

Arnav was by no means unfamiliar to crippling migraines, but there was something vicious about this one. It seemed to transcend beyond physical pain- as though his spirit and the soul he had been certain he did not have was being compressed and asphyxiated, fracturing under the pressure. The heaviness of his head had suffused into the rest of his body, but it was the persistent twinging in his chest that chagrined him the most- the pain that he seemed able to do nothing about.

For the nth time he studied the oblong, dark violent box he had been examining for the past couple of hours. For the life of him he could not determine exactly what had compelled him to get it- what he hoped to achieve through it, how it would help- but he had taken the plunge at that moment, remembering vividly how desperate he had felt, scrabbling at the edge with his faltering energy.

But it had not helped.

He was not nave enough to believe it would solve everything, but a tiny part of him had hoped that it might assuage a little of the guilt unravelling him from within. But there was something wrong, something off, that he could not put his finger on, and it was driving him spare, occupying his thoughts tenaciously, refusing to budge or give way for other considerations.

He needed another cup of coffee.

Reaching for his mug and grunting as he realised he'd drained it down to the dregs, Arnav laboriously pushed himself back on to his feet, rubbing his palm against sleep-heavy eyes before heading toward the kitchen with the intention of brewing perhaps his fourth cup of caffeine for the day.

And he needed a distraction. Badly. Even if it were as menial and mundane chores as fiddling through cupboards for the coffee-tin and flicking on the percolator's switch, he needed to occupy himself with something other than the vibrant recollections of the previous day replaying within his head, before his sanity finally let go of him.

It was too painful to remember, too painful to think about...

Ensnared as he was in his troubled thoughts, he did not instantly register the rich aroma of coffee drifting out the kitchen doors already before he was partly through it.

Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the unlit interior, Arnav felt his eyes go wide in surprise, and heard his own voice croak, "Akash?"

5th January, 2012, 3.42 p.m. (afternoon)

The trill of the doorbell might easily have been lost in the medley of mundane noises perfused in the air, but he picked it out nonetheless, and long before his brain had settled on its course of action, or even what it intended to do, his legs had picked up the scent and were hounding their way toward that sound.

Perhaps it was because he was far too tired- drained and fatigued from surviving on too little sleep and too much to think about. Perhaps his alertness and self-control had been jaded by the battering his conscience had repeatedly subjected him to.

Perhaps four days of nothing but regret and remorse had stripped away any notions of pride or ego, and left only his barest of impulses.

Whatever it was, he obeyed that mindless urge, for once not pausing to question causes and consequences.

An uneasy mix of nerves and anticipation coiled and writhed in his gut, both hot and cold, thrilling and queasy, spurring on his movements as he quickly scaled the long corridors and took the steps two at a time, feeling his pulse magnify behind his ears and in his skull, feeling his lungs constrict until he was light-headed and a little giddy.

The entire time, his mind was curiously blank, determinedly blocking out thought, a curious and inscrutable hum buzzing in the farthest reaches of his brain that was impossible to hear over the chaos everywhere.

And then, just as his foot landed on the bottom step, his eyes, the corners of which stung from another bout of sleeplessness, had swept up and found her.

In an instant, everything quieted, cooled, slowed down, and Arnav froze on the bottom step and stared unapologetically.

It had been four days.

Four days that felt like forever.

***

Anjali's hands stilled in the process of piling another set of velvet-bound cases on to the dining-table, the unsteady, rapid pounding of feet drawing her attention until she glanced up at the long passage leading toward the landing near the stairs, eyes rounding.

"Chote?"

He did not appear to hear her, and if he did, he did not heed her.

One quick glance-over at her brother and Anjali felt a fresh wave of blistering worry course and ingrain itself into her veins, bewilderment and misgiving tumbling round in her head in a clumsy bid to make sense of what she was seeing.

It was unnerving, unsettling- like watching something as stout and robust as a fort, protective and impenetrable, beginning to crumble.

Her brother, always so stalwart and immaculate, exuding the steely coolness of control, now looked as brittle and breakable as unrefined iron. There was a roughness about him that she could hardly recall seeing before, a haggardness that was scribbled everywhere from the way his clothes seemed to hang limply from his frame to the disarray of his hair.

But it was not his appearance that bothered her.

It was the dents in that metallic facade he so easily wore- the creases and cracks that were as unusual as sunlight at night, stars in the day. His face almost appeared sallow and sunken, the shadows beneath his eyes ample evidence of insomnia, his normally formidable height slouching almost imperceptibly beneath some invisible weight she could not fathom. It ate and needled at her, relentlessly, anxiously, her concern scrambling up multiple notches as she went over all the lines of reasoning she had already exhausted and worn out over the past few days. Akash had already assured her that he had checked in at the office and with Aman, and as far as he knew nothing seemed to be out of order on that front. And if it was not work that was slowly making Chote disintegrate like this, Anjali dreaded imagining what would.

She had tried speaking to him, and pleaded and even consorted to emotional blackmail as she stood outside his door with trays of food or coffee-cups and sometimes nothing at all. But all she had received were curt and clipped assurances that he was fine, that she needed to stop coddling him, needed to stop overthinking.

The cracked and wavering tenor of his voice had not helped the case one bit.

Lost in the troubling meanderings of her thoughts, her worry-worn eyes following Chote's harried progress down the corridor toward the stairs, she did not notice NK until he literally poked her shoulder.

"Wha- oh-oh, it's you NK Bhai..."

NK furrowed his brow in mock offense and pouted. "What, Di? You were not paying attention to me at all, all this while?"

"S-sorry," she tried to smile, feeling the muscles of her jaw spasm with the effort before abandoning it, "It's just that I'm...I was thinking about Chote..." her gaze flew over to him again, just as he reached the bottom step, before snapping her attention back to NK, "You spoke to him right? Yesterday? Did he tell you what was bothering him?"

For a moment, NK appeared to consider her questions, and impatience and desperation set Anjali's teeth on edge.

"Not per se..." he finally responded, slowly, quietly.

And just as Anjali's shoulders drooped in defeat, he added, But I have my theories.'

Her ears perked up, her eager inquisitiveness revived and tingling. Theory? What theory?'

"Well," the look NK was giving her was positively sly; the beginnings of a smirk played at the edge of his mouth, but what piqued her interest was the fact that it was not one of his usual flippant or mischievous smirks. It almost looked knowing, almost cryptic, as though he knew a secret and he was testing whether she could figure it out.

But Anjali did not have time for riddles.

"Well?" she pushed, conscious of the slight bite of impatience to her tone.

"Well," NK repeated, flashing her a boyish grin and swinging his head to the side in the direction of the staircase, Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?'

Recognition trickled through her like the cool splash of water on a warm, summer's day, but it was followed instantly by a surge of shock so potent it knocked the breath out of her.

"Love?"

And as her high-pitched exclamation peaked and faded out, and her eyes sought out her brother again, she felt her mouth drop open slightly at the look she saw carved plainly into his face.

***

Time seemed to slow, grow unhurried and tranquil, like floating Autumn leaves drifting on the still surface of water.

For the first time in days that had dragged and crawled past, with sunsets and sunrises and seconds growing indistinguishable and meaningless, Arnav felt a measure of peace.

There she was.

All sound seemed to get sucked into vortex of nothing, until he could hear only their echoes somewhere far, far away. He was conscious of movement happening around him, conscious of thuds and bumps as of furniture being moved round, of feet moving, but for the life of him he would not have been able to distinguish and decipher them.

All his senses, deprived and starved, feasted on one thing and one thing only.

He watched her every move, drinking them in, memorising them, engraving them into eternity as though afraid he might never get another chance.

Watched how her nose crinkled with a smile as Hari Prakash led the way out of the hall and into the living-room, watched the broad warm smile she bestowed on him as she chatted away with him like one of her oldest friends.

Watched as she looked over her shoulder before clasping onto her sister's hand, tugging her along as she skipped further into his home.

Watched as she spotted his sister shuffling toward her, and how she hurried over to her with a bright "Namaste, Anjaliji!" that sounded dulcet and melodic to his ears, a blast of sunshine after days and days of rain.

***

She could feel him standing there.

The moment she had stepped through those doors, she had felt that undercurrent of awareness zooming in the air, charged little volts of it zigzagging their way around her. Nerves pooled into her stomach and squirmed there, and it had taken a massive dose of courage and the reassuring feel of grasping her sister's hand in hers before she had been able to muster a steady smile and pass through when all of her instincts were screaming at her to run.

Ignore him. Don't look at him. If you see him just say Namaste' and leave it at that. It's not like he wants to talk to you. Ignore. Don't look. Don't turn.

Her brain chanted instructions diligently, but her heart trembled and tittered in her chest in a manner that was oddly beseeching- as if it were asking something of her, something to ease the soreness that was embedding itself bone-deep into her with every step she took, something she could not comprehend.

Or did not want to.

She saw Anjaliji come toward them, and in a desperate bid to resist that tiny rebellious voice urging her to look round, she scuttled over to her.

"How are you, Khushi?" the older woman inquired, laying a fond hand on hers as she gently guided them toward the dining-room.

"Great!" she piped up, hoping to goodness that her voice did not falter, adding as if trying to convince herself, "Just great!"

"Good...", Anjaliji murmured, and though Khushi was trailing right behind her, she had a good enough view of her face over her shoulders to discern the anxious shadows passing over her normally beaming, exuberant self.

"Anjaliji?" she probed cautiously, glancing over to look at Jiji to check if she had noticed anything amiss, only to find her preoccupied with scanning the halls with an expression that, were it not for the matter at hand, she would have relished teasing her mercilessly with. Laying a hesitant hand on Anjaliji's shoulder she asked, "Is everything alright? You look worried..."

"Ah...," she watched the woman, who had grown to be a sister-figure to her in this house, rub tiredly at her eyes as the three of them wound round the pillars flanking the dining-room, "No, it's just that...for the past few days I have been a little concerned about Chote...he's been a little off lately, you see."

Even before she could have finished the sentence, Khushi's head had flipped to the side so quickly her signature plait had flown off her shoulder, pom-poms bouncing in the motion.

Her brain screeched rebukes, but her heart was thundering too loud to pay heed.

***

The pulse at her temple ticking furiously, Anjali attempted a desultory glance in Khushi's direction, hope the magnitude of which she had had rare occasion to feel all but bull-dozing her off her feet.

It turned out she need not have bothered with discretion.

Because Khushi's attention was firmly focused elsewhere.

Excitement, abrupt and spontaneous, sprouted its tiny head and began to grow with rapid enthusiasm, twisting and winding its way up, like grassy-green creepers obscuring all else, all her trepidations and doubts and unformed fears, from view.

There could be no mistaking the abject concern on Khushi's face. Concern that was plain in the pinched frown of her mouth, the edges pulled down, or the tight wrinkles across her forehead.

And especially the narrowed, focused stare with which she was suddenly regarding her brother.

And while on another day, Anjali might have passed it off as normal, passed it off as a mere manifestation of Khushi's kind, all-encompassing heart, of that nameless relationship of amity that at times existed between her and Chote...today, she let entirely new perceptions colour and tint her views.

Because she had seen that look on Chote's face, and it was even more revealing than Khushi's could possibly be.

He had looked...entranced.

Charmed.

As though he could not believe what he was seeing.

As though it was too good to be true.

The hope that had been swelling inexorably within her burst its banks and spilled all over her, engulfing her, and suddenly dizzy and uplifted and dazed by the onslaught of a realisation that had been waiting to happen, she looked to the side to catch NK's eye, who was grinning broadly at her with a thoroughly pleased-with-himself expression crinkling his features, before he moved to intercede and whine loudly, "Khushiji, aren't you even going to say hello to me? Everyone is ignoring me today!"

She watched Khushi start, stammer, trip confusedly over her apologies as she greeted him- counted the number of times her gaze seemed to stray over to the person who had seemed rooted to the spot a distance away at the edge of the hall, his stillness a complete antithesis to the unholy rush with he had charged out in the first place-

-and she recalled the ring of the doorbell just before that, and another epiphany lit up like a tiny little light-bulb, steadfast and unwavering, in the midst of all the havoc her brain had been spinning since she'd clapped eyes on him.

Caught up in the high of her emotions, in the revelations that were even now in the process of unfolding themselves, Anjali did not even bother to smother the grin unfurling across her face as she called out loudly, "Arre, Chote! Waha kyun khare ho? Idhar aao na!"

***

NK, strategically positioned right beside Khushi, managed to catch the hitch in her breathing and definite nervous lilt to her voice as she rushed out an awkward "Namaste" the moment Nannav's (not so co-ordinated) feet breached the dining area.

Nannav, for a moment, looked as though he had just seen Laxmi walking on her hind-legs and speaking fluent English.

"Uh- hi," he managed to respond, his own voice tight and strained.

Smooth, Nannav. Very smooth. NK could not decide whether he wanted to roll his eyes at this usually eloquent man's sudden ineptitude at the art of speech, or just give in and burst out laughing at how much he resembled an awkward teenager approaching his crush.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The blackmail will be delectable.

Glancing up, he caught Di's eye. She was practically beaming, alight with the newfound realisation that Nannav might actually be suffering a chronic case of lovesickness, almost bobbing up and down on her feet with bottled excitement, and he mentally thanked her for her move in calling him over just now.

He was glad he'd taken the risk and nudged Di toward the blooming romance struggling to happen in front of them. From the looks of things, despite the advice he had given his cousin and the man's questionable understanding of what he needed to do, both Nannav and Khushiji needed all the help that they could get to walk this road straight, and preferably, side by side.

***

Khushi nursed her tea-cup, paying only half an ear to Nanheji, who was animatedly chattering away beside her, contributing a forced smile or a monosyllabic answer every now and then when he seemed to expect it, but not even knowing what he was talking about. Her thoughts were tangled and inextricable, and they all revolved around one person.

Him.

There was no point in pretending that she was not concerned, because she was. The sharp sting that had pierced through her chest when she had landed eyes on him, for the first time in four days...that image of him had all but burnt itself into the backs of her eyes and into her retinas, and nothing would shake it out of her head.

He looked so...broken. Not the Laad Governor she was used to seeing, all prim and proper in his crisp dress-shirts and slacks, without a hair out of place. Now he looked...dishevelled. As though he could not be bothered about his appearance, to groom himself, and he did not care.

And there was an air around him that made panic bud and then bloom within her, an air of volatility but not the usual kind, not the kind that signalled his temper ticking until it would combust.

This volatility was different. As though he were about to implode- fall in upon himself, into himself.

As though he was a minute short of harming himself.

And it frightened her.

And what drove that fear harder and deeper into her bones was that look he'd worn in his eyes when their stares had met.

They were the eyes of a haunted man. A man who had lived a nightmare.

What could it be that had done this to him? What could have affected him to this extent?

Could it be work?

Could it be something personal?

Is he thinking about his parents again? Is he missing them?

She wanted to know. She wanted to find out.

But it was not that that had her mind on high alert, its strident little alarm bells ringing in shrill dissonance.

It was the fact that she wanted to make it better.

The need, gathering like a storm within her, deep in her marrow and her flesh and her blood, to make it better. To smooth out the lines across his forehead, swipe away the dark smudges beneath his eyes.

The intensity of that need frightened her even more.

Maybe, she told herself, unfocused eyes trained on Nanheji as he went on at length about something she was barely paying attention to, Maybe I could ask Nanheji. Maybe he would know...

Maybe, if she found an inkling of why, this sudden scorching need would find some relief.

But while she was busy gathering her bravado and making sure to avoid eye-contact with the person scarred into all her thoughts and sitting all off two metres away from her, Nanheji had turned to Anjaliji to ask, Di, what's in those boxes?' He pointed at the boxes in question, stacked up on the end of the dining-table, where Nani and Mamiji had joined them for afternoon tea before the choreographer came in.

"Oh, that!" Khushi was careful not to look at Anjaliji as she spoke; she was right next to him and Khushi did not trust herself to look at him and then be able to look away. To keep the questions boiling against her tongue to come cascading out, "Those are just some ornaments I really liked, that I got our family jeweller to send over. I wanted to show them to Payal and Khushi...you know, so we can choose which ones would go best with the sangeet clothes and so on..."

"Oh, you didn't have to do that, Di..." Payal piped up from her other side, soft-spoken and earnest as always, "Go through the trouble of getting all of these, I mean...just a simple set would be alright..."

Somehow, when she would revisit this moment afterwards, Khushi would think that she had almost known something was going to happen just then. As though her sixth sense, having seen her in that position all too often, had already foreseen the inevitable and warned her of it. But right at that moment, all she was aware of was that bolt of misgiving that had shuddered down the back of neck, her hand automatically reaching for the edge of the table to brace herself, even before Mamiji had started to speak.

"And what, let the guests think we can't even afford to deck up our daughter-in-law?" she sneered, and Khushi did not have to look up to imagine the blatant distaste that must be written across the woman's face. A sharp "Manorama!" sliced through the air, but Mamiji continued, undeterred, "We're going to have difficulty explaining our choice in bahus to them anyway...might as well make you look worthy of being a Raizada, at least."

"Enough!" The order cracked out like the lash of a whip, and almost tangible silence followed. No one spoke. No one even breathed. Awkwardness and embarrassment invaded the spaces around and about them, uncomfortable and impossible to overlook.

There was the scrape of a chair pushed back, followed by the firm thumps of retreating feet. Murmurs broke out, and Khushi could distinguish Nani's voice, then Anjaliji's voice, and then Nanheji. Speaking, reassuring, apologising, lamenting. Could hear her sister's quiet assertions that she was alright, she did not mind, even though Khushi could hear the inaudible inflections of hurt beneath her words.

But she did not look up. She remained sitting where she was, her hand still clasped at the edge of the table in a white-knuckled grip, tears that she fought to not let fall burning in her eyes and smearing her vision.

And she berated herself, and scolded herself, and demeaned herself, for forgetting the very reasons she had vowed to stay away from Arnav Singh Raizada in the first place.

After all, what was her aukaat, to worry about him in the first place?

***

She had looked at him.

She had spoken to him.

He had hardly been expecting her to glance in his direction, let alone acknowledge him. The memories of New Year's day were still fresh in his mind.

But she had acknowledged him.

She had turned round, and she had met his eyes, and there had been something so intimate and personal in that moment that he had almost felt his knees buckle from the impact.

Because, he had realised, that up until that moment he had not believed he would get the chance again. To breathe the same air as her. To occupy the same space as her.

Moments of isolation, with a private collection of regrets to nurture, can blacken all possibilities to the darkest shades of grey.

But she had looked at him, she had greeted him, and for the first time in days Arnav had glimpsed a sliver of light shining through the perpetual storm his life had become.

And he had almost believed that things would be alright again. Could be alright again.

But before he could even begin to believe in that silver lining, reality had reared its head, and it had smothered hope before it could begin to form.

And now he could do nothing but watch her, unnaturally still, unnaturally silent, her eyes downcast, her head bowed, a study in submissive defeat.

And it was so damaging that that knife that had been lodged inside his heart had plunged straight back in, through the tender, unhealed bruises, pain lancing through his body with even greater magnitude than it had before, and suddenly he was disgusted in his own skin, repulsed to the point that he wanted to tear himself out of it, free himself from the confines of his own body.

Because he was disgusting. Because he was loathsome.

Because he had stabbed at her, buried so many thorns into her flesh, that the poison was now infused and at one with her, and she had actually lost the will to fight.

To prove him wrong.

I wish I knew why he despises me so much...is it really because of my aukaat? Because I don't have his wealth or his position or his fame?

No, he wanted to tell her, NO! he cried in his head. But he could not say it. He could not say it, he could not comfort her, he could not tell her to heed any of the ridiculous, resentful, caustic words Mamiji had just uttered because she would not believe him- because he had never given her any reason to believe him.

He remembered how he had disgraced and degraded her- every single time that he had disgraced and degraded her. He remembered every instance he had questioned her aukaat and mocked her for it, remembered wielding his power as her employer over her, wielding her debts over her, throwing money at her face. He remembered buying that necklace that had struck her fancy and lacing it round Lavanya's neck just to spite her- spite her because she had gotten engaged, spite her for settling for something less than she deserved.

Because she had settled for something other than him, he now realised.

And he remembered how, yesterday, he had wanted to find her, trap her, shake her foolish notions of being the one to blame out of her and he almost laughed, bitterly, pathetically, hysterically as he looked at her now: small, fragile, and yet braving the world and all its prejudices without a word of complaint, shouldering responsibilities she would cave under with a smile on her face, while he went round moping and feeling sorry for himself.

As though he were the victim, instead of the perpetrator.

He understood now why she had said, not so long ago, that sometimes it is better to live in fantasies than in reality.

Reality was painful. Reality hurt.

But he also understood that he could not give up. He could not just accept her cordoning herself away from him.

Taking herself away from him.

Because that hurt even more.

She was one of the only good things he had in his otherwise tainted, blemished existence.

And he would make it up to her. He did not know how, but he would.

Because she mattered.

She mattered more than anything.

Really into the mood for writing this story...I'll try and see if I can update again tomorrow after my exam...

Let me know your thoughts please? Pretty pretty please??

And I'm SO SORRY for the wait!!

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

Originally posted by: -doe-eyes-

RES for part 8

Eyes popped out!! 😲

heart wenching

Thanks for continuing the story. 🥳

Okay will get to it in while

Nothing gave me joy as much reading this story after so long. At last, she matters and that is all that matters, isn't it? Liked this part. Hope to read the next one soon.

Am so happy that u updated!