ArShi FS: My Savior - Note | Pg 15 | 06.22.2017 - Page 3

ArShi FS: My Savior

Chapter 2

Khushi Gupta, the daughter of late Suraj Gupta and Raima Gupta, was adopted by her Uncle, Shashi Gupta at the age of 10 after her parents passed away in a car accident. Needless to say, she was given all the privilege, from her basic needs to anything and everything she wished as a child, never discriminating her from Shashi's daughter, Payal. But that remained only until Shashi took his last breath. As days passed, Garima started becoming more and more harsh towards the 14 year old Khushi, opposing her every decision, denying all her wishes, using her to complete all the household chores that she was capable of doing at her age and sometimes beyond. The sadistic pleasure had reached to such level that even Payal had joined the gang, refusing to share the bed with her, deliberately ruining her work, and when Khushi were to complain to Garima or Buaji, all she would get in return were taunts, few slaps, a thin stick that would be broken by buaji at the end from beating her if she tried to oppose and a wicked grin from her sister , Payal.

However, due to society reputation, they had to send Khushi to school and to university for higher academic studies, just so no fingers are pointed at them. This was probably the only thing they had no hands in, otherwise, Khushi would have been called an orphan who was very conveniently made a household servant of the Gupta Family.

As obvious as it is, Khushi had no one to share her pain except Lavanya who she met only in the last year of her high school. And by that time, she had learned to be an introvert, to control her emotions, to bear her pain on her own, to get along and basically embrace her destiny. Although Lavanya would nudge her to share whatever it is that would bother her, and Khushi would share it with her vaguely if not everything.

Everything was in a decent shape and Khushi as well had got used to go with the flow until she met Siddharth in her first year. Unaware of the fact that he is known as the Casanova in his world, she had fell in his trap with all the false promises he had made to her, not knowing he had made the same promise to another girl or many, for that matter. Although Khushi would stay reserved and wouldn't involve herself into any physical intimacy, Siddharth had managed to capture a photo during their 3 days field trips where she was changing her T-shirt and had used it to blackmail her to spend a night with him to which she had slapped him in disgust. When khushi had calmed down and decided to talk to him about the matter to sort it out without involving any third person, he had turned the table and accused her that she had offered him to pleasure her for a night at a hotel and released a few pictures that he took screenshots of when Khushi came to talk to him about the matter and released it on the Facebook group page as a proof that she had indeed come to his house with the offer. khushi had tried to defend herself when all her so called friends had started giving her disgusted looks however, couldn't as it would mean that she will have to reveal her half naked picture incident that Siddharth had captured on his phone. As fingers started pointing at her, not only from her university friends but also from her family, not that they didn't do enough at treating her at the cruelest level, to the point that buaji had beat her black and blue after the news had gotten to her ears. For many days, her body was sore and she had high fever, resulting in her incapability in moving.

Everyone had turned their back towards her, except Lavanya. However, the damage was already done. All these happened in first year of university and since then Khushi had lost that tiny smile that she would still dig up from deep within despite of the ill treatment from her family. After these incident, she had not only lost her family and friends but her self-respect and dignity in people's eyes. She was just...isolated from everyone and everything, making her lose interest in her dream - to be a doctor. Her grades started dropping, she started talking less and less with the passing days, her smile deemed to have permanently vanished, and she started having sleepless nights.

Khushi kept tossing and turning as yet another sleepless night took over. She had started hating these nights. She has always been a person who could only take a breath of relief when she completed what she is supposed to complete, be it some assignment in her university or sleep. At least, during the day time, she has the privilege to make a choice over whether she wants to do the assigned work or not. But these nights just leave her with no choice but to be wide awake and think about every harsh reality of her life. well, except that she didn't know that this night would be slightly different than the usual.

Her brows that were knitted together till now due to all the stressful time that she was repeating in her head, had started smoothening as today's session started playing at the back of her head.

"What crap is this Mr Raizada?!", Khushi barged into Arnav's cabin, looking furious.

Arnav who was in the middle of signing a document looked at her surprised before throwing his trademark charming smile at her and went back to what he was doing, but not before politely asking, "Mind waiting 5 minutes on the sofa, Mr gupta? This won't take long, I promise"

As Arnav quickly finished off singing the papers and instructed the nurse for his next surgery that will take place in an hour, Arnav closed the door behind him and came to his seat, as he gestured Khushi to take the chair.

"How're doing today, Ms Gupta?", asked Arnav

"What the hell was this assignment?! Do you think I'm a fool?", asked an outrageous Khushi.

"Ahh! The assignment. Did you do what I asked you to do?"

"The song does not make sense! I told you, they're just nonsense. Bullshit! I mean, stick my picture to your heart with fevicol glue? What the eff!", spatted khushi.

Arnav bit his inner cheeks to refrain the roar of laughter that threaten to burst any moment as he continued, "hmm, I see you have attempted in understanding the song quite well. What else did the song say?"

Khushi gave him a death glare before moving her gaze on the new paper weight on his table. She was about to throw it when she remembered something.

10, 9, 8, 7...

Dammit it's not working!

...6, 5, 4, 3...ughhh!

And the paper weight was royally smashed on the metal floor as it shattered into million pieces.

"My poor paper weights!", Arnav said looking at the pieces on the floor as if he came to the funeral of his best friend.

Khushi kept breathing heavily looking at him, her temper still not tamed down.

"Okay, calm down fireball!"

"Don't call me that!", said khushi throwing daggers at him.

"Alright alright! Let's move the conversation, shall we? Tell me, how was your day at the university? What names did your friends call you today?", Arnav asked, looking genuinely curious.

And there he goes! At the end, everyone is the same! He ended up being the nosy one in her life, yet once again! He did want to know how her friends treated her, what names they called her, and of course, he would want to know eventually, what happened in her life! Of course, it was her first day, and he just had make a genuinely good impression on her, and therefore wasn't being too nosy. Oh well, he finally took off the mask.

That was quick Mr. Raizada!

She was going to answer his question not without giving him a piece of her mind except that she realized she didn't have any. She didn't remember what happened yesterday or today in the hallway. Or rather, she didn't listen to what they had called her because she was so engrossed in the so-called song, trying to get the meaning out of the crap. That's when khushi realized what Arnav did to her, that the song was just a way to make her forget about the society, the harsh and nasty names she's called by, to avoid the unimportant people who can nothing but harm her, to show her that she does have an option to avoid them if she wants to, that she does have an option to move on if she wants to and she has already taken her first step.

Her frown had smoothened and her breathing had come back to normal, giving Arnav the cue of her realization. He leaned towards her before he spoke, "Khushi, people can and will only destroy you if you give them the chance to. Everyone has the weapon and is ready to attack, but it's up to you whether you want to let them slice you into half or stand up and fight back to win the battle with whatever you have."

That was probably the first reality check someone gave that wasn't harsh by any means. Khushi smiled not realizing the reason behind it. It just felt too good to think anything beyond or reason out whether she should be smiling at such a critical point of her life. She just went with the flow. Grabbing the cushion beside her, she clutched it to her chest as an image of Arnav in back T-shirt and a jeans, hands in pocket, beard trimmed and of course, with his charming smirk standing infront of her, flashed infront of her eyes, making her blush.

But before she could proceed with her imaginations, her phone buzzed. Too engrossed in her imagination that she didn't bother checking the caller id, she picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Thinking about me?", came a husky voice from the other end.

Khushi's breath caught realizing who it is as her eyes became wider every passing second.

"Mr...Mr. Raizada?"

"Thank god! At least you recognized my voice. I thought you decided to crush my handsome image and voice in your hand along with those paper weights."

Khushi rolled her eyes as she bit her lips.

"Did I disturb you?", asked arnav, his voice now more serious.

"Oh no, not at all!", Khushi said quickly before he make up anything else of her silence. She needed to talk. She wanted to talk! it's been 5 days since their last session after all...

"Great! I called to ask if you're doing fine. I'm sorry I couldn't make time for yesterday's session. Having a very hectic schedule with tons of appointments as well as back to back surgeries!", came a low voice.

Khushi could tell he felt guilty...and probably slightly sad as well.

"Oh no problem at all, Mr. Raizada! I didn't mind.", said khushi as she crossed her fingers. She hated to lie, but she always ends up doing it to make people feel better. It used to be only for Lavanya in her case, but it seemed as if she added another one in the list.

"I'm glad...So tell me, how're you doing? How was your day?"

Khushi felt this unknown satisfaction deep within her at the question. She had always longed to share every small detail of her day with someone. She even tried a couple of times with Payal but either Payal would shut her up saying she had better things to do than listen to her crappy day or she would go straight to her buaji to complain about how khushi was distracting her from studies. When lavanya became her friend, she had tried to get khushi talk but she would consider it as a gesture of sympathy and not out of genuine curiosity because Lavanya started asking such question after the siddharth incident. Therefore, she never really felt like talking about her day with anyone. And now that someone genuinely asked her about her day to start off a random conversation, that too someone she has unknowingly started making a special place in her heart, Khushi couldn't contain her joy.

She sat on her bed taking the cushion on her lap before relying, "It was alright. Very hectic you could say. Trying to finish off this assignment but got stuck. All the class assignments are given at the same time. Our profs do this on purpose to fail us, I tell you!", khushi said frustrated.

A chuckle came from the other end.

"I can understand! Well, you have the benefit of having a surgeon as your counselor, and err... friend, if you consider me one yet! If you need any help with any of your assignments, I'm just a call away!"

Friend! Khushi s heart started beating fast, yet once again. Can she call him a friend yet? Should she trust someone she just met 1.5 weeks ago enough to call him friend? She wanted to say yes, but her bruised heart didn't let her. And she decided to avoid answering the question.

"Thanks so much, Mr. Raizada. I actually might just need to talk to you regarding this assignment. I'm honestly clueless.", said khushi, hoping he didn't catch her avoidance to the question. she didn't want to hurt him. He was too nice for her to flatly say on his face that she can't trust him, or anyone for that matter, so easily anymore.

"Of course, whenever you want to. Just give me a heads up through a text message so I can space up some time for you!", said Arnav, his voice nothing less than one of those professors who just genuinely want to help you to learn better.

Khushi smiled.

"Is everyone asleep?"

"Oh no no! No one is at home. Jiji, maa and buaji has gone to Delhi to attend a wedding. So I'm home alone.", informed Khushi.

"Oh really? Well, guess what? I'm just a few blocks away from your house. Came here for some important work. How about I drop by and walk you through the assignment for about..." arnav checked the time in his wrist watch before asking, "...45 mins?"

Khushi jumped and stood up on her bed as her heart started beating erratically.

"KYA? ABHI?", screamed khushi

"umm yeah? It's okay if you have any problem. We can always-"

" No no! no problem. No problem at all! You...you can come." , stuttered khushi, trying to control her excitement, and her heart that was pounding in her chest so vigorously that she was scared he might hear on the phone.