Silent Whispers
-CHAPTER FORTY-SIX-
Happy Endings
Khushi gloomily drummed her fingers across the silk laden table, her eyes scanning the elegantly decorated hall of the city's popular Marriott Hotel. After two whole treacherous days, it was finally the night of the sangeet, an event where both the groom's side and the bride's had the full liberty to be under the same roof.
But there was no point. As her eyes ploughed through the barely crowded room, she realized with a heavy heart that the face she craved for was nowhere in sight. And the reason was obvious:
He was ignoring her. Royally.
Of course, she deserved every bit of it. She had ample amount of time in the past two days to recollect the show she had foolishly put on during her brother's engagement party and not to mention, regret every second of it.
She knew he was just fooling around; she knew he didn't really have any intention whatsoever to force a lavish wedding on her; she knew he only cared about her happiness. So why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?!
Khushi wished she knew the answer. At least for the sake of the man she had fallen hard for.
"Hello girlfriend," greeted a chirpy voice.
Khushi looked up to see Lavanya set two glasses of wine on the table. "Drink up," she said, sitting down leisurely. "You look far too gloomy for such a happy occasion."
She shrugged. "Did you see Arnav?"
"Since when do I know where he is more than you?"
"Since the time he isn't picking up any of my calls. And I have made at least a hundred of them."
Lavanya narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?"
"Why are you so confident it's me?!" Khushi fired, feeling slightly insulted that her best friend did not hesitate even for a second about whom to blame.
Lavanya shot her a look.
"Right," Khushi muttered, sinking lower into her chair. "Because I am the crazy, irrational person here. Not him. Got it."
Lavanya's face softened, as pity took over her voice: "Maybe he is busy with the wedding arrangements? Did you trying texting?"
"Yes, a hundred gazillion times. I would have also barged into his house as option number three, except I was too busy playing bride with Anjali," she fumed, holding up her mehendi-clad hands.
Lavanya's eyes widened in astonishment as she inspected the intricate design.
"Don't," Khushi warned, tucking her hands away in the folds of her duppatta. "I don't want to hear a word about my mehendi."
Lavanya grinned, pulling one of the wine glasses towards herself. "Man, I gotta take some tips from Arnav. A year ago you hated the sight of mehendi and now you are getting the letter A written all over it - that's some serious influencing."
She ignored her comment and turned her attention back to the sangeet. If she weren't so caught up in guilt, Khushi would have probably enjoyed this ceremony the most. With an unlimited bar and an open dance floor -save for some occasional dance performances- it was her perfect definition of fun.
However, at that moment, all her thoughts were only on one man. It was when she was almost on the verge of giving up hope that she spotted him. Dressed in a bottle green sherwani, he was in a serious discussion with one of the guests.
"He's here!" Khushi squealed, instantly standing up. "I will be right back!"
And she sped off without another glance, dodging some familiar faces on the way, straight to his rather stiff stature. Realizing that she may not get the warmest response despite a whole two-day separation, she whimsically slipped her arm around his, and literally walked herself into the conversation.
Arnav looked around to her, startled.
"Won't you introduce me?" she asked in the sweetest voice she could muster.
His eyes flashed dangerously.
"Of course," he replied after a pause, his tone perfectly even. "Mr. Ghosh, this is Khushi Kumari Gupta, a new shareholder of AR Designs and Khushi, this is Mr. Sanjay Ghosh, a retired board member."
Khushi didn't miss the formality in his words. Gritting her teeth, she turned to Mr. Gosh, a bulky man with grey hairs and rimmed glasses. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said.
"The pleasure is all mine Ms. Gupta," he replied warmly. "If I had known Akash was going to write off his inheritance to such a beauty, I would have thought twice about retiring."
She laughed. "That's too sweet of you. If you don't mind, can I borrow Arnav for a few minutes?"
"He is all yours," Mr. Ghosh answered kindly, before leaving them completely alone.
Khushi steeled herself, before looking into Arnav's unyielding gaze. "We need to talk."
His reply was as cool as ice. "I have nothing to say to you."
"But I do!" she snapped, tightening her grip and tugging him towards the entrance.
She might as well have been pulling on a wall. Arnav remained as motionless as ever, swaying not even inch towards her force. More than frustrating, it was plain embarrassing.
"Arnav..." she begged, the plea in her eyes unmistakable.
He let out a frustrated sigh, before following her to the main entrance of the hotel, filled with guests.
"Do you have any idea where you are going?" he asked scathingly when Khushi looked around the foyer, searching for a secluded place for them to talk.
She didn't reply, not wanting to admit that she was as unprepared as he had presumed.
Arnav gripped her still-entwined hand and began to lug her back into the hall.
"What are you doing?" she hissed, throwing a pretentious smile at some prying waiters. "I don't want people to hear us!"
He ignored her and swiftly kept walking, cutting through the vast hall of the sangeet, past the stage erected for the dance performances planned for the night, through a set of magnificent French doors before finally stopping at the edge of a darkened pool, surrounded by mounting pillars all decked with fairy lights and flowery vines.
Releasing her hand, Arnav indifferently crossed his arms across his chest. "You have five minutes."
Khushi gulped. Five minutes? What could she possibly say in a mere five minutes? The guilt tormenting her for the last two days was beginning to blanch next to the coldness emanating from him.
"Now four," he said, checking his watch.
Khushi cleared her throat, knowing that he would very well walk out uncaringly the moment her timer ended. "Umm, okay..." she said meekly, taking a step back from him and holding up her palms. "How do I look?"
He stared incredulously at her, his eyes not leaving hers even for a second, before saying in a perfectly controlled voice, "Beautiful... is that what you wanted to say?"
Her heart sank as she said in a small voice, "But you didn't even look at what I am wearing."
If the situation wasn't so dire, Khushi was sure she would have earned his smile by now. Except, it was dire, much more than she had anticipated. So instead of his signature smirk, she got his brooding back, as he icily turned on his heel, walking back the way they came.
"No, wait!" she cried, grasping his hand. "I'm sorry! You are right, this is not what I wanted to say at all... I was just trying to lighten the mood. Please don't go!"
He apathetically turned to face her once again.
"I know you are mad Arnav," she continued rapidly. "And you have every right to be. But please just hear me out okay?"
Silence.
Taking than as an affirmative, she pushed on: "I am sorry! I shouldn't have snapped out like that... when you were talking about all those plans, I just panicked. It was stupid, dumb and plain careless... but believe me, I didn't say it out of spite."
He kept his lips stubbornly sealed.
"So can't we just... you know, delete everything I said that day and go back to being normal?"
His eyes flickered to a deadly shade of black. "How?"
"W-what do you mean how?" she asked, baffled.
He menacingly took a step closer to her. "You told me to delete whatever you said out of my mind and I am asking you how I am supposed to do that."
Khushi bit her lip. "I just meant-"
"What did you mean? Because lately everything you say has some meaning or the other, except the obvious one."
"I know I messed up, okay? You don't have to be difficult-"
"Difficult?!" he snapped unexpectedly. "You think I am being difficult?"
She gulped, feeling as if she was threading on very thin ice.
"And what about all the excuses you have been dumping on me every time I take a step forward and try to understand what goes on in that brilliant mind of yours? Or all the silly pretexts you have been making up to hide what you really feel? That's not called being difficult at all is it?"
"I am not hiding anything from you-"
"Don't lie to me Khushi!" he interrupted harshly. "Do you really think I haven't noticed your hesitance ever since I asked you to marry me?!"
She shrank under his towering form.
"Everyday is a new excuse to run from this engagement, a new pretext about why you can't accept the goddamn ring. And after weeks of evading me, it finally came out of your precious mouth exactly how much you detest this proposal! What do you expect any sane, rational person to make out of that?"
"I said yes," she retorted, hating the accusation in his eyes. "Going against my better judgment, I agreed to marry you. So instead of nit picking at some stupid thing I said without thinking, why is it so hard for you look at the bigger picture?"
"Bigger picture?" he repeated incredulously. "What bigger picture am I supposed to be looking at? The fact that even though you have said yes, you have done nothing but express your displeasure over it or the fact that even though it has been months since we have been together, our relationship is nothing but a just thing for you?!"
"You know that was just colloquial! I call everything a thing'!"
"No, I don't know Khushi!" he fumed. "I don't know anything about you! And if you cannot find better words to address what we have, then maybe it's high time we stop looking at the bigger picture and instead look at the things that matter!"
Sudden, irrational anger was beginning to overtake her senses. "And what exactly would that be? Writing poems about undying love for each other? Or giving each other priceless gifts?"
His nostrils flared.
"What?" she continued lividly. "You think I am being sarcastic? Well that's because what you are expecting me to do is ridiculous! For god's sake Arnav, we are not teenagers!"
"So then why have you been acting like one?"
Her eyes narrowed in anger. "Look, I just panicked! There was nothing in what I said for you to be so angry! So please, just let it go!"
"To do what? For you to continue taking me for granted? Or for us to go back to pretending this is a healthy, functional relationship?"
Khushi couldn't believe her ears. "When have I ever taken you for granted?! I have been telling you since the day we met that I am the wrong girl for you, that being with me will not be a fairytale! Did you honestly think I was saying those things just to look cute?!"
"And I told you since the day we met that I don't want a fairytale," he growled, equally furious. "I want a life with a woman who loves me, not someone who has panic attacks every time she considers the idea of marrying me!"
"So what would you like me to do instead?!" she bellowed, feeling like she was drowning in icy waters. "Be grateful and delighted that the ever so perfect Arnav Singh Raizada decided to marry me overlooking all my faults and weaknesses?! Sure, why not?! It's not like I have self-respect or anything, right?"
Arnav stared at her hard, before saying in a pointed voice, "So you think marrying me is equivalent to loosing your self-respect?"
Khushi felt the illogical rage and desperation clouding her mind suddenly burst with an inaudible pop. As she looked on in horror, quickly realizing that this time she walked into a greater pit than the last, she saw Arnav deliberately take a step back, letting the pounding air in between them turn cool and unwelcome.
He was going to walk away.
"No, no, no," she gasped, not failing to understand that if he turned away now, there would be no coming back. "That is not what I meant!"
Arnav didn't pay her any heed.
"Look I know how screwed up I am!" she said desperately. "I have long since accepted that I don't deserve you. All I am saying is that I can't give you the happy ending you are looking for because... because that's just not me! I can't take random vows that mean nothing to me-"
He turned his back to her frantic rant, her words seemingly bouncing out of his ears.
"And if that's too much for you," she murmured, her heart dropping heavily to see his indifference. "Then I get it. You don't have to stick around to make me see the other side of the coin. You are free to find someone else who can give you that fairytale wedding and happily-ever-after."
Arnav suddenly whipped around, his face unruly. "What did you just say?"
"I-I know you can't stay with me-"
It was as if a dam had burst open, such was the rage contorting on his face as he murderously caught her shoulders and roared:
"I have gone against every damn thing that I believe in just to be with you! I accepted your every decision, your every choice without stopping to consider, even once whether it was right or wrong! I didn't force you fall in love with me, I didn't force you to be with me and I sure as hell didn't force you to marry me! In fact I have never done anything to change you or your irrational beliefs!"
Khushi shuddered under his storming gaze as her stomach knotted in fear. She had never seen him so angry, not even when he had cornered her in an elevator for disobeying his instructions during an important meeting.
It was downright frightening.
"And all for what?! For you to tell me that this is nothing but utter bullshit for you?!"
"I-I didn't say that," she croaked.
"THEN YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAVE!" he thundered. "Because hearing that would have been a hundred times more bearable than hearing you say that we are a mistake, or rather, I am in your life!!"
A ringing silence filled Khushi's ears as his bellows rippled across the darkened pool. She was ensnared in his grip, his fingers digging through her netted sleeves. But she couldn't feel any of that; in fact she couldn't feel anything.
She was numb.
"Who the hell gave you the right to tell me to walk away from your life, huh?" Arnav snarled, shaking her frozen frame. "I am here, because I want to be, not because you told me to be. So how dare you insult me and everything I feel for you by telling me I am free to find another girl?!"
Khushi wished she could avert her eyes, for anything was better than scorn she was seeing in his eyes. But no avail; she was hopelessly trapped in his outburst.
"Do I look as a spineless as that disgusting man who gave birth to you?!"
Her eyes widened in astonishment.
"That's what it has finally come down to, isn't it?! You see yourself as the living print of your mother!"
Khushi couldn't answer, too shocked with his blatancy to respond.
"But you know what?" he said scathingly, releasing her from his clasp. "I am just about done trying pass your tests. Because up until now, I thought you just needed time and that if I was patient enough for both of us, you will be convinced one day or another that we are nothing like your parents. But I was wrong. You don't need time Khushi, you need an excuse... to defend your belief that you really are flawed and undeserving of a happy ending.
But I hope you do realize that by pushing me away, you are not proving that you are broken because of the horrors you went through as a child. Instead, you are proving that you are crippled by your own way of thinking."
A slight breeze suddenly passed through the air, gently ruffling his perfectly combed hair. Khushi felt her knees buckle under her weight as the truth of his words sunk into her bones.
"I am sorry..." she finally whispered, knowing that her crime demanded much more than an apology and yet having nothing else to say that came even remotely close to what she was feeling. "I am so so so sorry..."
Repeating that like a mantra, she pressed her quivering frame into his chest, her head nestling in the hollow of his neck. His arms didn't come up around her like they usually did and neither did he make any move whatsoever to acknowledge her embrace.
But Khushi didn't care. In that moment the only thing that calmed the fire within her was the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her ears.
When had things become so knotted? Wasn't it just two days ago that she was marveling at how close they had grown over the last year and half? So then, how did their difference escalate so much that the mere basis of their relationship was being questioned?
Because of you.
Khushi wished she could take back everything she uttered to him tonight or at the very least, find a way to make him forget. Because she crossed a line today; a big one. In her haste to prove herself right, she disregarded all sense of reason and hurt him in the cruelest way possible.
It was a miracle that he hadn't pushed her arms off.
"Meeti?"
Khushi jumped, startled to hear a familiar voice call through the dimmed lights. She grudgingly stepped back from Arnav and gazed at the French doors they came through not too ago.
"Nanaji?" she called.
Purushottam Raj Gupta, a lanky man with an ancient face, stepped into the light. Dressed in a white dhoti and kurta, he was leaning heavily on a walking stick, his eyes travelling straight to his granddaughter and her proximity with the man beside her.
"What are you doing here?" Khushi asked, hurrying to him before he asked the obvious question - her grandfather, after all, was known for his blatancy. "The sangeet is in the hall."
"There is no bloody bathroom in this place," Purushottam answered irritated. "I don't get what's the craze with hotels these days... marriages are better done at home if you ask me."
Khushi nervously glanced back to see Arnav's face soften considerably. He was back to his warm, gracious self both as a host of the event and the brother of the bride.
"But what are you doing out here?" asked Purushottam.
Her eyes snapped back to him. "Erm nothing... I just needed some fresh air and Arnav here was giving me company."
Purushottam peered at Arnav, who immediately stepped forward and touched his feet in reverence.
"God bless... you are Anjali's brother aren't you?"
If Arnav was surprised to hear her grandfather accurately connect him to Anjali, he didn't let it show. "The oldest one Sir."
"Yes, I know. I met the other one... Akash, isn't it?"
Arnav simply smiled in response.
"Well aren't you a proud man today... Watching your sister finally settle down. Shyam told me everything about your family. I am sure it wasn't easy bringing up two kids given your situation."
"It wasn't," Arnav replied earnestly. "But if I was given another chance, I wouldn't choose anything different. I would still choose them over everything without a second thought."
"So young for so much responsibility."
"Age is just a number."
Purushottam chuckled. "I see what Shyam sees you."
Khushi looked between the two men, more astonished than relieved to see the ease with which they were getting along. While she knew Arnav had a talent with people, she was shocked to see her overly strict and hard-to-please grandfather respond so warmly.
"Now where is that bloody bathroom," Purushottam said, looking around. "I really don't understand who-"
"It's this way Nanaji," Khushi interrupted, deciding it was best not to push her grandfather's amity too much. "Come, I will take you."
"Go ahead," Arnav added. "I will join you both later."
Slightly disappointed, for he purposefully avoided her eye, Khushi began walking back to the hall. It was when they were through the French doors that Purushottam spoke again:
"He is charming that one."
"Who? Arnav?"
"No need to play dumb with me Meeti... I may be old, but I am definitely not an idiot."
She pressed her lips, her cheeks coloring in embarrassment.
"You know a lot about a man by seeing how he treats the women of his house," he continued. "And I haven't heard Anjali talk about anyone but her brother tonight."
Khushi kept quiet, picturing the pride of Arnav's face should he ever hear this.
"I am glad you had more sense than your mother. I never approved of that Shashi-"
And much to her disbelief, her grandfather added a string of abuses that she would have never even imagined him to know, forget using them for his ex son-in-law. He finally concluded by saying:
"But this Arnav? He seems decent. He has his heart and mind in all the right places."
That he does...
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