IshRa SS - Crossroads Chapter 15 Pg 88 *CONCLUDED* - Page 47

Originally posted by: ek-paheli

Lovely update.
Hope Ishita's insecurity gets cleared soon.

Originally posted by: rk654

Originally posted by: super_cutie

Awesome update yaar

Hope they confess their feelings soon

Want ishra together

Continue soon

Thanks for the pm

Originally posted by: nrn1486

Sorry.😃

One or two more sad updates, and then it'll get better..!

Originally posted by: -Prithi-

nice update
thanks for the pm

Originally posted by: neethuMG

Awsm...
Pls updt soon...

Originally posted by: ranisa123

sorry for late reply🤔.i tried so many times to reply but due to some errors i couldn't send them😭,but i read updates.thank you very much for pm❤️.i love this story very much.plz update soon.waiting.

Hello,

Another emotional update guys, and I really hope you don't hold it against Ishita for behaving the way she does in this one😃

But the highlight of this chapter is that Subbu is back..!

Really hope you like the update. As always, please let me know through your comments😊

"Come on, Ishita, pick up the phone, pick up the phone.." he muttered but his call went unanswered yet again. He threw his phone across his bed and raked his hand through his hair in frustration. It had been three days since he had been trying to reach her, but for some reason, she had been avoiding him, and now he couldn't take it anymore. He knew something was off and cursed himself for having let her go that night without knowing what it was that had upset her. Deciding that it would be fruitless to sit and worry, he got out of his home and into his car, and drove towards Ishita's house.

He parked outside the gate to her complex and paced around for some time, hesitating to go inside, when, suddenly, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Raman?"

He turned to find Vandita standing behind him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him with a smile.

"Hi Vandita. I was wondering if I could meet Ishita. Is she home?" he asked her expectantly.

"Ishu? No, Raman, she's not at home and she'll probably get late. You should have called her," she informed him, wondering why he looked tensed.

"That's what I've been doing since the past three days but she hasn't picked any of my calls, or answered my texts. I only came here to check if she was alright. Anyway, did you say she'll get late? She must be at her clinic. I'll go see her there."

"Raman..." she called out to him before he could leave. "She's not at the clinic.."

"Oh. Then?"

"She's out with Subbu," she informed him, and knew from the look on his face that he hadn't expected to hear that from her.

"Actually, he just arrived today, and with only a few days remaining for the wedding, he had some urgent shopping to do, so Ishita went along with him, and I don't know what time she'll be back," she tried to explain, but she could see that he was in no mood to listen to her ramblings.

"No worries, Vandita. I'll catch up with her later," he said heavily, and got into his car and drove off without sparing her another look.

****

Vandita waited in Ishita's room along with Bala, determined that she wouldn't leave without speaking to her. Ishita had been very secretive over the past few days, and Vandita had been eager to ask her if she had taken a decision regarding her relationship with Raman. But then Subbu had arrived, and Ishita had behaved as normally with him as possible, and that had puzzled Vandita to no end. And now, after speaking to Raman, she couldn't help but get angry with Ishita. She failed to understand why Ishita was avoiding him, and going around with Subbu instead, when she could clearly see how much Raman pined for her. The entire situation had confused her so much that she had confided in Bala, and together, they had decided that they would confront Ishita to know about her intentions.

"Jiju? Akka? Why are you waiting inside?" Ishita asked them, surprised, as she entered her room.

"We want to talk to you.." said Vandita, keeping her voice low, making sure that their parents don't overhear their conversation.

"What is it?" Ishita asked them, curiously.

"Don't pretend to be ignorant, Ishu," Vandita began angrily, "What is going on with you?"

"I don't understand what you're saying," said Ishita, trying to avoid Vandita's piercing gaze.

"Don't you? Well, then let me give you a clue. I met Raman, and he said that you've been avoiding his calls. He was worried sick about you while you were out enjoying with Subbu," said Vandita without mincing her words.

Vandita saw the pain that flit through Ishita's eyes but she was quick to compose herself.

"You know how busy I've been, akka. Don't worry, I'll speak to Raman later. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to freshen up and change."

"Oh no, you don't," Vandita snapped at her, and held Ishita by her hand to stop her from walking away. "Tell me the truth, Ishu. Why did you change your mind about Raman?"

Bala sensed the anger in Vandita's voice, and walked over to pull her away from Ishita.

"Relax, Vandu. Let me speak to her," he said to her, and turned to Ishita.

"Ishu, you know that I've always supported you more than Subbu, even though Subbu is my brother. Even now, if you want to stop this marriage from happening, I'll stand by you. Don't think about anyone else, Ishu. If your happiness is with Raman, then go ahead. We'll support you no matter what."

"And what if Raman's happiness is not with me?" Ishita spoke up.

"What do you mean?" Asked Vandita, trying hard not to lose her patience with Ishita. "Ishu, you love Raman, damn it!" She exclaimed, fuming. "For starters, will you admit that?"

"No, akka! I only met Raman a few months back. But I've known Subbu since years. He loves me and I'm only meant to be with him," she said, trying to convince not only Vandita but also herself at the same time.

"Don't be foolish, Ishu. Nine months ago, when you planned to get Subbu back into your life, you ran into Raman. Now, you plan to marry Subbu... and BAM... you run into Raman again! Why is it that you meet Raman every time your life is at a crossroads? Take a hint, Ishu!" Vandita tried to explain to her what was obvious.

"Akka, please don't say such things." Ishita said to her tearfully, and turned away. "When Subbu had left me, I was strong enough to accept it and move on. But now, if Raman rejects me for the same reason, I won't be able to take it," she admitted unwillingly.

"But-" Vandu tried to explain but Ishita interrupted her.

"Akka, aren't you aware of my condition? How can I jump into a relationship with Raman, knowing that I cannot give him or his family what they will eventually want from me? Anyway, once they find out, do you think they'll welcome me into their family? No, they won't. No one will. And that's what makes Subbu different from the others. In spite of all our differences, Subbu has accepted me along with my disability."

Vandita couldn't take it anymore and stepping closer to her, she placed a comforting arm around Ishita.

"Oh, Ishu, what are you talking about? You had an illness, and yes, the doctor had said that you will not be able to conceive, but how can you use that as a reason for not being with someone you love?"

"Especially when you haven't even told him anything about it." Bala tried to reason with her. "Just talk to Raman once, Ishu. He's a good man. Maybe he'll surprise you."

"I've already made my decision," she said to them, her voice unwavering. "I don't know about Raman, but I do know that Subbu supports me, and I'm grateful to him for that. I'll make it work with Subbu, akka, because he has chosen to remain by my side even though he knows the worst about me, and that confirms how much he loves me." She said with an air of finality and walked out of the room, while Vandita and Bala looked at each other defeatedly.

****

Raman spent the next couple of days in turmoil, his mind so preoccupied that he couldn't concentrate on his work at all. There had been no news from Ishita, and now he had given up hope that she would call him. Had he misinterpreted her all along? He could swear that he had seen his love reflect in her eyes as well, and couldn't understand why she was trying to run away from it. The mere thought of her spending time with her fiance all but killed him on the inside; he didn't know how he would handle himself if she married the guy. He wanted to confront her and hear from her why she was putting him through this hell, but at the same time, he was afraid to find out the truth. He closed his eyes in frustration and massaged his forehead in a bid to clear the anger and confusion that clouded his mind.

"Bhai?" Mihir called out to him through the door.

He walked in as Raman nodded towards him, and observed how worn out Raman looked.

"What's the problem? You look terrible."

Raman sighed, and unable to hold it in any longer decided to confide in Mihir.

"It's Ishita, Mihir. Her fiance is in town, and now she refuses to talk to me. I don't know what she's up to. I can't believe that after all that's happened, she's planning to go through with the wedding."

"Bhai, I'm sure it's only a misunderstanding. Ishita won't do any such thing. Don't worry, I'll talk to her," said Mihir reassuringly, confident that Ishita would never betray Raman, but he saw that Raman looked unconvinced.

"Bhai, I'm telling you. This is Ishita we're talking about. She'll never hurt you. Come on, now. We have a meeting at The Plaza Hotel in half an hour, and we need to leave," he said to him, and gathering their belongings, he dragged Raman out of his cabin.

****

Bala pulled a chair for Vandu as they, along with Subbu and Ishita, sat at one of the tables at the luxurious Plaza hotel.

"Beautiful place, Subbu!" Bala exclaimed. "Nice selection."

"Isn't it?" Subbu remarked happily, "I love this place myself. It's nice and quiet.. reminds me of London. Otherwise, the noise in India is too much to take."

"Subbu, you've lived in India all these years" said Ishita, laughing, "and now it's too noisy for you here?"

"Well, it is!" He tried to explain to her. "You'll never know because you've been stuck here all your life, Ishu."

She looked at him, offended, but decided to drop it, not wanting to argue with him in front of her Akka and Jiju.

****

"This place is great," Mihir remarked as he walked along the hallway with Raman. "We could host one of our parties here sometime"

"Ya, whatever. Let's just get out of here for now, shall we?" Raman snapped at him, not bothered about the hotel or anything else at the moment. The meeting was done and dusted, and now all he wanted was to go home and rest, if at all his mind would allow him some.

He was about to walk through the exit when he thought he glimpsed Ishita in one of the dining halls that he had passed by. He swiftly retraced his steps and entered the hall as soon as he had confirmed that it was her. But he froze the instant he realized whom she was sitting next to.

He didn't realize when Mihir had followed him into the hall and placed a hand on his shoulder, or how his feet moved of their own accord towards their table. All he knew was that he wanted to see for himself if all of it had been nothing but a lie; and if Ishita had never really cared for anyone else but the man who sat beside her.

Ishita looked up from her plate, and was shocked to see Raman and Mihir approach their table, with Raman's steady gaze fixed on her.

"Raman?" Vandita addressed him, glancing nervously at Bala. "What brings you here?"

"I had a meeting just next door. Saw all of you here, so I dropped by to say hi," he said, keeping his tone as casual as possible.

"You must be Subbu." He held out his hand towards Subbu, "I'm Raman Bhalla and this is my brother Mihir. We're Ishita's friends,"

"Hi." Subbu shook hands with him. "Why don't you guys join us? We were just about to order dessert."

Ishita hoped and prayed that Raman would refuse, but he didn't, and sat across from her at the table, along with Mihir.

"It seems that you already know me," Subbu spoke to Raman. "But I'm afraid Ishita hasn't told me much about you both."

"Oh, Me and Mihir? We're insignificant... but you're very important to her. In fact, since when you've come back, she hasn't had the time for anyone else," he remarked.

Ishita cringed at his words but Subbu smiled widely, completely missing the sarcasm in Raman's tone.

"You're right about that. Ishu does love me a lot," Subbu said, placing an arm around Ishita's shoulders.

"I'm sure," Raman stated, but looked away, unable to bear their closeness.

"Err... Raman, have you had your dinner? The food is great here." Bala interrupted them, trying to keep the situation under control.

"Oh, we had our dinner during the meeting. And yes, the food was great. Actually, this is one of the best rated hotels in Delhi. So overall, the services here are pretty amazing" Raman replied.

"Told you, anna. In fact, we should have booked this place for the wedding. My colleagues from London will be coming down for the function and this hotel would have been perfect for them. Don't take me wrong, Ishu, but the hall that your Appa has booked is a bit...simple and middle-class, if you know what I mean."

"Subbu, there's nothing wrong with the hall we've booked," Bala said to him, irritated by his rudeness.

"Subbu, don't mind my saying this," Raman intervened, "but Bala is right. Your friends from London would enjoy even more if you kept things as Indian and as simple as possible. After all, there's beauty in simplicity." He repeated the words Ishita had said to him once before. "Besides, I'm sure even Ishita would like it that way."

Ishita looked at Raman, amazed, but he refused to look back at her, unable to let go of his anger towards her for the way she had behaved with him.

"Well, when you put it that way, it does sound like a better option. And of course, I know that about Ishita." Subbu said with a laugh. "Rest assured, her tastes will change once she spends more time with me; I'll see to that." He added and winked at Ishita, while she smiled back at him reluctantly. Ishita was used to Subbu's egocentric behaviour, but she noticed that his sense of self-worth had inflated to twice it's size since he had shifted to London.

"Have you been to London, Raman?" He asked, and Ishita sighed in exasperation.

"Twice or thrice. Nice place," he replied .

"Yes, it is! I'm sure Ishita will love it too once she moves there with me."

"I'm moving to London?" She asked Subbu, not bothering to hide her shock.

"I thought it was obvious," he said to her, surprised.

"No, it's not!" She retorted.

"Ishu, I have an amazing job there along with good research facilities. I can't let go of all of that. Besides, you only run a clinic here. You could open one there as well. I don't see what the issue is," he explained to her calmly.

"We'll discuss this later, Subbu," Ishita said to him softly, trying not to feel insulted by his words. "Now is not the right time or place."

Raman stared at Subbu, enraged. Since the time he had met him, the man hadn't uttered one word that would convince him that he was the right guy for Ishita.

"Bhai, aren't we getting late?" Mihir spoke up, and Ishita glanced at him, suddenly realizing that he had been silent right from the time he had arrived.

"But you haven't finished your juice yet," Subbu pointed out to him politely.

"Didn't like it," he replied curtly, and throwing Ishita a dirty look, he got up from the table.

"Bhai, please come," he urged Raman, who obliged, and saying his goodbyes to Bala, Vandu and Subbu, followed Mihir outside, completely ignoring Ishita.

"Oh look, Raman forgot his phone here," Subbu said, as he spotted a phone lying on Raman's seat.

"Ishu, why don't you go give it to him? You might still be able to catch him in the lobby if you hurry," Vandita suggested.

"No, akka, I think we should hand it over to the hotel staff."

"Ishu, just go and give it, will you?" She repeated, gritting her teeth, wishing desperately that Ishita and Raman would speak to each other once.

Ishita grabbed his phone and walked out reluctantly, dreading to meet Raman, especially after the painful encounter that they had just had. Luckily for her, she spotted Mihir standing alone at the entrance, and making sure that Raman was nowhere nearby, she hurried over to him.

"Mihir," she called out to him, "Raman left his phone at the table. Will you please give it to him?"

"Not again," Mihir closed his eyes and muttered, which didn't go unheard by her. "Look Ishita, don't expect me to help you in any way, ever again."

She looked at him, hurt.

"That's really unfair of you, Mihir," she said to him, her voice soft with pain.

"Oh really?" He laughed sarcastically. "And you're being all fair to Raman bhai, right?"

"I'm not entirely responsible for what happened, Mihir. I hadn't promised Raman anything," she tried to defend herself.

"But you led him on. You should have ended it long ago, if you were planning on marrying someone else all along. Did you think about Bhai even once? Did you spare a thought for his family?"

"I don't owe you any explanations, Mihir. Please tell me where Raman is, so I can give him his phone," she replied flatly.

"He's in the parking lot." he said brusquely.

She turned towards the exit when she heard him speak to her again.

"I thought you were different, Ishita. But you turned out to be just as selfish and manipulative as Shagun."

Unable to take any more of his accusations, she blinked back her tears, and walked away from there wordlessly, without looking back at him.

She walked through the parking lot in a daze when, all of a sudden, she heard his voice behind her.

"About time," he remarked, and stepped out of the shadows to come and stand in front of her.

"Now give me my phone," he told her, and she realized then that he had left it on purpose, knowing that she would come in search of him to give it back to him.

She handed it over to him wordlessly, and waited, realizing that she was trapped and had no way to escape now.

"Tell me something, Ishita," he began, and stepped towards her while she stepped back, afraid of the anger that was evident in his eyes.

"Why are you marrying Subbu?" he asked, his eyes boring into hers.

"You see, I've spent the last hour or so racking my brains over it. I spoke to the man politely... I was at my best behaviour with him, thinking that maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. But then he kept saying all those nonsensical things to you and I realized that I was right about him all along. Believe me, I had a good mind to punch him in the face, but I didn't. I kept my cool, only because I'm trying, really hard, to understand why you're letting this happen. So, tell me, Ishita.. Why are you marrying him?" He asked her again, all the while moving forward; but with each step that he took towards her, she took one backwards, until her back hit one of the cars parked behind her, and she had no room to move further.

"And don't say that you love him, because I can clearly see that that is not the case," he added, surprising her.

"So, tell me!" he repeated, as he cornered her, but she refused to utter a word in reply.

"Tell me, damn it!" He screamed at her, banging his fist on the car, making her flinch in response.

She couldn't take it anymore. She was already exhausted by the constant facade that she had to put up all the while she was with Subbu. But now, as Mihir's and Raman's words rang in her ears, all the guilt and grief that she had bottled up inside her resurfaced, and she slumped against the car and broke down, finally letting her tears flow.

Raman stepped back a bit, shocked to see her in such pain. He had expected her to argue with him, or fight back as she normally did, so the sight of her grief-stricken form left him shaken, his heart breaking at the way she wept before him.

"Ishita?" He called out to her, worried, but she ignored him, her eyes tightly shut, her body shaking from the sobs.

He hadn't meant to hurt her; he never could. Because he couldn't bear to see her in any kind of pain. So he stepped closer to her, and pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. He stroked her back and kissed her hair repeatedly, trying to calm her while she pressed her face against his shirt, lost in the moment, finding comfort in the warmth of his embrace.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that her sobs finally died down, and she realized the position that they were in. Her body stiffened against his, as she felt his touch on her.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled against his chest and tried to step away from him, but he held onto her, hands on her arms, not willing to let her go.

"Ishita, what is the matter?" he asked her desperately.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything," she kept repeating, finding nothing else to say to him.

He jerked away from her then, his anger resurfacing.

"Fine! I'm sorry too.. for letting you into my life... for trusting you," he said to her in a fit of rage. "Do as you wish, Ishita...go get married to that jerk... I don't care! But, please, do me a favour and don't ever come into my life again." He vented, not letting the pain that he felt in his heart show on his face, and stormed off towards his car, wanting nothing more than to get away from her.

"I won't..." she whispered and wiped her tears, as he walked away from her, leaving her alone and miserable.

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