The Girl Nobody Loved
Chapter Three - Ravaged
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She stands in the rain, just to hide it all.
If you ever turn around,
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After three days of silently watching her Abhi knew that he had allowed himself as much time as he could. Talking her landlord into giving him a key hadn't been difficult either, for the right amount of money people would do just about anything. Sending his PI to finalize the deal and bring back a spare key had been highhanded, he admitted, but there wasn't any other way.
The alternative would be to have this confrontation outside, in public or on her porch with an avid audience, and that he refused to do.
Abhisheikh Prem Mehra, had sold enough of his soul and sacrificed enough of his privacy. He refused to do the same with hers.
Besides, he didn't want to burn any bridges for her.
Being identified as the runaway bride of a Rockstar, wasn't going to help her keep up her little charade.
He heard the soft click of the lock at the same time she disappeared from view.
Shifting silently away from the heavy curtains, Abhi waited seemingly stoically as the hardwood floors rang with the soft scuffle of her footsteps.
Abhi had always been told that at times like this time would slow down. Like during a guitar solo in a sold out stadium. They were wrong. It didn't slow down.
Instead like a rising tempo, it was as if everything was happening all at once.
The foyer light flickered to life. She swung her heavy bundle of scripts up on the clearly old settee pushed up against the wall, one hand pushed back the curtain of her hair, the gesture forcing her to finally look up - at him.
And in that moment Abhi knew instinctively why time hadn't slowed down.
It couldn't.
It had already stopped.
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I won't let you fall down now.
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It was happening again.
Her heart faltered for the briefest of seconds as she fisted her hand to keep herself from physically reaching out to him.
He was dressed in staid chino's this time. A crisp white shirt, and rolled sleeves completing the look.
He looked so different from the other times, Pragya couldn't help but draw her brows together in confusion. This wasn't him. Her Abhi had been faded jeans, dog tags and too tight T-shirts.
Her Abhi.
Closing her eyes as she swiftly turned away, she bit brutally down on her lower lip, knowing the pain would vanquish what her heart couldn't bear to, as for the millionth time, the tears she had sworn not to shed gathered treacherously at the corners of her eyes.
For a second, she'd almost let herself believe it was real.
She always did, she admitted with a no small measure of self-loathing.
It wasn't until months later that she began to question her sanity.
For a while she had even reveled in her insanity. It was like playing pretend with Bulbul back when they were young. Oh, what she wouldn't give for those lost moments of reckless abandon.
So lost was Pragya, in those faded memories, that she almost didn't hear the tortured voice that whispered her name.
And in that moment, her eyes flew open.
Not because of the ragged prayer it had been whispered as, or the harsh agony contouring that once oh so familiar voice.
No.
This time it was not a vision or a whisper in the wind.
This time, they flew open because at that same moment, hands rough from the taut strings of his prized Gibson Les Paul, had gripped and turned her around, while a gaze haunted with near violent remorse bore into her own.
"Abhi?"
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I swear I'll find your smile,
And put my arms above you,
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For a long moment, as Abhishiekh Prem Mehra, stood petrified in the shadow of the dimly lit foyer, his eyes hungrily drunk in the vision of perfection before him
Eyes filled with unshed tears, tore at him behind the wall of her glasses.
Until one stray tear, cascaded down the flawless curve of her porcelain cheek, only to fall into the trembling fault lines of her lips.
Powerless to stop himself, Abhi watching as if an automaton as he reached up, his thumb brushing with aching tenderness across the corner of her lips her tear had fallen into.
And in that instant the world stopped.
The past twelve months ceased to be.
And all that he could see was the blessed benediction he so desperately wanted to claim as his own.
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And make you unbreakable.
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Abhi.
He was here.
He was truly here.
It wasn't a lost prayer, or another broken hearted delusion.
He was here.
His eyes held hers, gently, reverently, almost as if they saw past their rich chocolate depths.
She barely felt the tear that escaped down her cheek.
Barely noticed the ragged breath he drew as his callused thumb came up to the corner of her still bruised lips.
But she did and the pain she'd inflicted on herself only moments earlier did what nothing else had.
It reminded her of the past she was trying so hard to forget.
He was here.
"No." She whispered, her denial mingling with desperation, as she pulled sharply away, wrenching her arm from his slackened grasp.
She couldn't do this again.
She had barely survived his demented vendetta last time.
Not again.
Never again.
Her eyes falling shut once more, Pragya repeated in anguished defiance, "No!."
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I'll make you unbreakable.
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Author's Note:
Hello again! Once again thank you guys SO much for the outpouring of love and support, each and every like and comment makes me want to finish the next chapter a little quicker and make sure it's just that much better. In short you lot are my Muse! <3
P.S. - Buddy for Updates.
Much Love,
- A
Edited by advena - 10 years ago
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