Part Eleven: Empty Corners, Heavy Heart
The Poddar mansion had never felt this hollow.
It wasn't the silence—it was the absence. No soft humming from the kitchen in the morning, no subtle perfume of Abhira’s presence lingering in the corridors, no light laughter echoing in the garden as she played with Daksh. She was gone, and with her, something inside Armaan had gone quiet too.
He sat in his room that night, the yellow lamp casting a warm but lonesome glow across the pages of a file he hadn’t turned in twenty minutes. His pen rested idle in his hand. His mind? Nowhere near work.
He got up and wandered to the balcony. From here, he could once see Abhira reading on the swing in the courtyard below. Sometimes barefoot. Sometimes pretending to argue with the plants about which one deserved more sunlight.
His lips twitched at the memory. Then fell flat.
His eyes scanned the yard. Empty.
He leaned against the railing and exhaled slowly.
“She’s not coming back tonight,” he whispered to the wind.
Madhav entered quietly behind him, placing a hand on Armaan’s shoulder. “You didn’t stop her.”
“I couldn’t,” Armaan said hollowly. “She needed to go. And I…” He clenched his jaw. “I needed her to be okay more than I needed her near me.”
Madhav’s eyes softened. “You’re not wrong. But letting her go won’t ease the guilt. You’ll have to live with it. Every day.”
Armaan gave a bitter laugh. “I already do, Dad. Every room in this house reminds me of what I broke.”
He walked back to his room, stopping by the drawer he hadn’t opened in months. Slowly, he pulled it out. Inside lay small things—insignificant to the world, precious only to two people who once dreamed with reckless hope.
A movie stub from their first court date.
A tiny handmade card Abhira had made when he won a tough case.
A photo—blurry, rushed—of them trying to bake together. Her face smudged with flour. His smile real.
His fingers hovered over it.
“She was so full of life… even when I turned cold,” he whispered.
He sat on the edge of the bed, holding the photo like a fragile thread.
How did I not see her breaking?
How did I let her carry the weight of my anger?
He remembered her silent cries in the bathroom. How she’d hide her tears and still come out smiling. How she’d try to reach him with love, when all he gave her was distance.
Now… she was gone.
And yet… even in her absence, he felt her everywhere.
Her laughter was still trapped in the walls. Her touch echoed in every room. Her absence screamed in every silence.
And Armaan Poddar—for all his composure, for all his status—curled on the bed that night with a heart that had forgotten how to beat without her.
But he knew this much:
If she ever gave him another chance…
He wouldn’t just love her better.
He’d never let her question her worth again.
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(END OF PART ELEVEN)
“If She Ever Comes Back”
If she ever walks through that door again,
I won't just open my arms—I'll fall to my knees.
Not in weakness, but in reverence,
For the love I never deserved with such ease.
If she ever meets my eyes again,
I won't look away—I’ll let her see
Every sorry, every scar,
Every part of the man who’s learning to be.
If she ever laughs in this house again,
The walls will remember what joy feels like.
I’ll stitch her name into the silence,
Let her dreams bloom wherever they like.
If she ever lets me hold her again,
I won’t just hold—I’ll cherish, protect.
I’ll whisper every day: you matter, you shine,
And mean it with all my regret.
If she ever believes in us again,
I won't waste a second, a smile, a breath.
Because loving her isn't a promise anymore—
It's the only thing I have left.
❤️🩹
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Anupamaa
