So basically, this is a TS some people may not understand or even like. But I really liked this concept from a film I watched in my flight, because things like this happen. And I want to give Arnav and Khushi a shot with it. Just wrote this randomly because I'm so jet lagged. I'll update Serendipity soon, and update the second part of Her Lady Supreme soon as well. Thank you to all of you who read.
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Zee.
Part One
They sat together at the edge of the gentle ocean in an easy silence, watching the shifting sand beneath their toes succumb to the strength of the pulling waves. He glanced over at her. The peculiarly large sunglasses, the bright green bikini he did not quite approve, the worn leather copy of 'Catcher in the Rye' perched upon her knee. She had her mother's long nose and glowing skin; his wavy brown hair and light brown eyes. He noticed a few young men throwing lingering glances her way, and he stared them down menacingly until they reluctantly shifted their attention elsewhere.
Juhi was beautiful. Her mother had named her after the early flowers that blossomed on the trees on the warm spring she was born. He loved his daughter, immensely. From the moment he held her in his arms, and knew nothing could be more fragile and delicate than a little baby girl in her daddy's strong embrace. And now his little girl had turned 24, bartering her love with another man and abandoning every dependency he had taken for granted.
"Dad."
Arnav stirred as her voice broke their soothing silence and his steady train of thoughts. He shifted his attention to his daughter, carefully removing the sunglasses from her nose and placing them within her novel to bookmark her place. She met his questioning eyes directly, and sighed as though deeply disappointed with a pestering child.
"Dad. You need to stop this. Enough is enough."
He gulped anxiously, knowing what would follow, his gaze shifting hesitantly to his feet, as he drew useless patterns in the wet sand.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Juhi."
"Stop it Dad! Just. Stop it! You're killing yourself!" She sighed, trying to reel in her anger at his immaturity and insistence. She put a reassuring hand against his before she continued.
"She's not coming back. If she wanted to, she would have done it already"
"No. She will. I know she will. She just needs a little bit---"
"Don't you get that what you're doing is mentally insane?! Watching her and her husband from the window? Sending blank calls to hear her voice? Setting another place at the dining table? She's a bitch, Dad. No. Don't look at me like that, because she truly is in every sense of the word."
"Juhi, that's no way to---"
"I heard it with my own ears! Saw it with my own eyes! When Sanjit asked her about her husband , she said it without a second thought. 'I don't care'. She doesn't give a shit about you, Dad. It's been ten years. You need to move on."
It hurt. Every word of hers hurt and pierced the raw wounds that refused to heal. His divorce with Khushi had quite literally, killed a part of his soul. Sleeping in a bed without her warmth, waking up to silence instead of her laughter. He could not stand to be without her, despite her shattering his heart and spending a night within her colleague's arms.
Juhi never trusted her mother after that incident. Never talked to her, never looked at her, ignored her incessant phone calls and emails. Her mother was dead to her. And her hatred propagated her to engage in casual sex and indifference, her beliefs in love and marriage and happily ever afters shattered and destroyed. Until, she met Kunal and slowly decided to trust again. She channeled her energy through her writing, penning novels about the turns of her life and the evolution of her beliefs. About falling in love after falling so dangerously out of it.
Khushi married Sanjit after the divorce, but Arnav knew it was out of obligation and not love... from the way they bickered and fought and failed to share passionate moments outside their bedroom. Yes. He had a mental illness, watching her outside her window when the loneliness became too hard to bear. But it reassured him that she was indeed coming back. She had to.
And Juhi had to understand why he was waiting... why he hadn't let his happiness go. For Arnav was not weak. He was not a coward. He sighed, trying to place his muddled words. "Juhi. There's something I should have told you." He silently apologized to Khushi for revealing the secret he promised he never would, because sheltering it in the dark had hurt his daughter and her mother long enough.
Did you like it? Hate it? Either way, please let me know with a comment or like 😃
PART TWO: PAGE THREE
Tum Se Tum Tak
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