SS: For Better or For Worse (Shivika) Ch 2 Pg 5 - Page 3

Anika stared at her old flip phone and the one SMS that could turn her heart over to this day. It was from the day the only man she had ever loved left her. Those three words haunted her to this day:

I am sorry

So what if you're sorry?

So what?

You left her alone with your child still inside her.

You left her.

So what if you are sorry?

Sorry doesn't change a thing.

Sorry is to make you feel better. You don't deserve to feel better. You deserve to regret this every day that you wake and find yourself still alive.

And when you will finally meet the woman you love enough to marry, you will remember the knot you unravelled years before. You will never love her enough to fill the gap of your first love. You will find yourself helpless just like the woman you left behind.

And when you finally have a child you want, you will remember the one you didn't want. You will think about the new life you made and what could have been. You will feel your heart will cry in pain because no matter how hard you try, your love for this child would never be as pure as it deserved.

You will never love like the first time. You will never live like the first time. You will never again be pure. You are cursed.

Anika closed the lid on her memories and yelled for her little girl.

"Rudra baccha, let's go. It's time to pack up. We're moving to the new house in five minutes and if you're not here by then, I am leaving you with the new owners".

"No mummmyyy!"

Named after the uncle she had never known, the ever dramatic Rudrakshi was like a mini Ekta Kapoor soap opera in a five-year old body. Every minute felt like a TRP shot with her.

Little Rudra came running down the stairs, whizzing past the boxes for the movers and jumped straight into her mummy's lap.

"I don't have a daddy and I am not adopted so you can't return me", she said with all the conviction of an innocent child. Anika felt her heart in her throat. No, she couldn't and there was no way she would give back her precious bundle to anyone, but especially not to the sperm donor. The man had no right to call himself a dad, not that he ever would. Anika would make sure of it.

Five years, ten months and three days ago, Shivaay's life had fallen apart. He was still picking up the pieces of the fate he had shattered. He had never gathered the nerve to fly back to Regina where she still lived. He'd heard she had a daughter now but he could never bring himself to learn more. He could only close his eyes and imagine a round smiling face and a button nose just like her mom. Maybe she had his eyes, or his hair. He hoped Anika knew that he loved her, he hoped she had told her daughter about him. He wanted to exist in their lives, even if he was never allowed in again. But he could only hope.

Anika waited in the airport lounge as her daughter ran back and forth from the snack table to her lap, gathering up all the chocolate goodies her little arms could handle. She was like a marauder claiming loot and Anika could hardly contain her laughter.

"When will you eat all this baby?"

"On the plane".

"But your tummy is so small. Just pick one or two".

"I know", she perked up as her eyes fell on a fellow flyer busy on the phone. "I will share it with that mister".

Oh no! Oh, no, no, no! She was going to disturb the stuffy gentleman barking orders on her phone. And then he was going to yell at her daughter. And then Anika would have to commit murder because she just could not let that pass and then she would be charged and sent to jail. All because she could stop her little menace for two seconds.

"Rudy, freeze! Rudy", she ran after Rudrakshi trying to catch her before she spoke to the stuffy man.

Shivaay could feel the hairs on his neck standing up. Something was about to happen in this airport and he didn't think he was going to like it. He heard the pitter patter of little footsteps rush and then stop behind him. Two tiny fingers tugged on his coat sleeve.

"Mister", he heard as he turned to look at the culprit.

It was all a blur from there. The mother of the child rushed toward her and picked her up and away before he could react.

He knew this scent, this voice, this face. Here she was after all those years of hoping against hope, praying, begging, there she was. His Anika.