Arshi FF: Entwined(T2)-- Completed! - Page 52

I have just finished reading 31-33 chapters and its awesome story. I hope Kushi comes out her tragic past with the help of Arnav and his family. I think there will be an attach by Singhanias on Arnav and Kushi and I hope there won't be huge damage. Really waiting for the complete revelation of past.

Note: Hey guys!!!! How are u all doing??(like I've been lost since ages :P)

Anyway, so, this whole journey of these Entwined souls, has been divided into phases or rather parts, though I've no idea if it had come across in that exact way, nevertheless I'd like to think, it did...

So, I'd like to welcome you all to our another new journey----n finally towards the past; so journey it is and it will follow the Entwined tradition, but everything will come gradually and no delays n no fillers or nonsense...I promise... so as usual keep coming with me, with your amazing patience(trust me you guys are awesome, if I were the reader, I would have bashed the slow pace like anything)

The reason for this sudden blabber is that, in theory I did think it was just a bit more, but spending the last two days in analyzing, arranging and planning the time-line loop, I realized we do have a little longer path left.. so Anyway! :)

Confession: Its been a while no? Okay there is a small typo in dates that were mentioned in the very first chapters, which is now corrected and all is well! oh yes did I tell you I'm pretty clumsy again? :D

Finally, Entwinies and all the ones who have joined me recently!! Thank you so much for all your lovely comments, they make me think I might be doing something read-worthy..! Love you all!

***

Entwined:

Chapter-34:

"The illegal activity in which Singhanias are involved is Sex Trafficking--------selling girls to prostitution' Arnav and I'm sorry, I'm positive Khushi had been the victim here..."

Though the message ended long back, with the now silent phone clutched in her hand, the words just continued to echo in her mind...

"Sex Trafficking--------selling girls to prostitution'"

Her mind had been stuck at the words, the mere reality of her life, or so she thought.

And just like that her mind took her back to the times she had been refusing to look back...

To the memories she had been refusing to remember...

To the long forbidden truths, she had de-associated with herself, at least in her illusion...

"Eat your food before you go out Khushi..."

"-------It's getting late ma, I'll eat on the way..."

"Who asked you to sleep late, you are getting so reckless each day..."

"------I love you too dad..."

"Khushi!!"

**

She squeezed her eyes shut, allowing the droplets that were continuously filling in her almonds to cradle over her cheeks and in process brushing the visions away, but the visions now had become too prominent and her feeble efforts could no longer resist them.

"I'm in love with you, since so long now Khushi--------"

"Marry me, please--------"

**

This time she tried closing her ears to see if that would work, but little did she know, her mind was already a goner, deep into the roots of those uninvited rush of memories.

**

"Everything about you is my own very property, is there any rule as such?"

Her eyes squeezed shut even more, with her hand clutching her ears as the amount of sudden self-disgust, the scary voices are putting her through clutched at the walls of her heart, the ache and heaviness inside her chest increasing with every passing minute.

"You've such creamy smooth skin, did anyone ever tell you, Love?"

"I...I've never..."

"-----oh no problem, you will get used..."

**

A sob escaped her throat just as the images started to become more and more prominent, as she bent down on the floor, the stitches in her head starting to ache making her head heavy, owing to the sudden stress her mind is putting her through.

"YOU ARE NOT GIVEN A CHOICE HERE! DO YOU GET IT???"

"QUITE A STUBBORN ONE YOU ARE! HAVEN'T YOU LEARNT A LESSON YET??"

She squirmed at the high decibel of that yelling voice, though inside her mind, not at all failing to extract the very frightened reaction out of her, like it always have. And giving up, finally, she stumbled into a sitting position properly resting her back to the nearby wall, drawing her knees close to hug her chest, she made her head flat over the tangle of her hands residing upon her knees, as her eyes zoned out through the blur veil of her tears, into the distant past.

*****

Over a Two Years Ago,

April, 2011,

Delhi.

Encircling her one hand around the rod that was connecting the roof to the floor of a typical Delhi Metro train, watching the high buildings and trees running away from the direction in which the train was headed, with her one eye, constantly keeping track of computerized route map indication, her ear-phones plugged into her ears, Khushi nodded, tapped, and hummed along the song quite oblivious to the weird glances of a few people around. She would occasionally sober up, realizing her weird, quite involuntary antics but since they have always been just default occurrences, the process would resume yet again.

Hopping out of the train, climbing onto the escalator on her way to exit the over-the bridge metro station, she had spotted him yet again, standing at the outer stair case of the station, waiting for her, and straightening when she walked along as if anticipating her arrival. But all Khushi did was give him one confused glance and walk-away into her little computer institute she had been working in since the past one year, right after her graduation.

Initially it was just a job of her summer earnings and later on she went ahead persuading a diploma in animation course in the same institute. A few months later, when her family was suddenly subjected to a financial crisis, khushi gave up her plans for further education and joined back in the same institute as a computer tutor.

As naturally as it comes to her, she had become quite the charmer in the place, just like she had been all through her Delhi University days. The natural aura of happiness that she carried around her combined with her physical attractive appearance, made her prone to male attraction, and after initial invasion and a bit of having fun' with the attention, she was eventually bored and nothing at all had appealed to her later on.

"Yeah right, you have got great friends really, commendable job! So much for the trust lecture you give? Going out at late night with almost unknown friend to illegal parties, roaming and playing along with guys"

She smiled at the vivid memory and as vivid as it was, she definitely had let his judgmental views influence her until today even after all these days causing her to self-learn more matured ways of dealing with new people, her trust factor and even with the opposite gender for that matter.

"Oh the Romeo is here again!" Payal, her not so good friend commented walking by her, along the little corridor of the institute making khushi to shift her glance from one of the computers to the road in the exterior through the glass doors. Tired of being stalked in this weird way since over a week now and determined to give that person a piece of her mind, Khushi slammed the books in her hand on the nearby table and started walking towards the stair-case.

"Running into his arms?"

"Jealous much?" she retorted throwing a dirty look at Payal before turning around and descending the stair-case.

"What do you want?" she asked the first thing, as she approached the person crossing the road dressed in her colorful kurti and jeans looking like the epitome of cheerfulness, all over.

"You..." the person answered meeting her eye causing Khushi to groan throwing her hands in air. She took a moment composing her anger and looked back to meet her determined eyes with that of his quite distinctive black orbs, which looked back at her with an unreadable expression.

"Look..."

"Rohan..."

"Yes, Rohan, I work here okay? What are you trying to do? I'm not a very good fan of such kind of behavior; I mean this is annoying and I..."

"------I love you Khushi..."

"What???" she asked completely baffled and stumped. "You don't know me at all! This is insane!"

"No its not, its love at first sight rather, you are exactly the one I've been waiting for, all these days Khushi..." he said getting in his mock cheesy tone, quite evidently.

"Was that supposed to impress me or something?"

"So, are you impressed?"

Khushi rolled her eyes again and looked at him pointedly. He was a good looking man, indeed, she noted. Standing precisely at 5 feet 10 inches above the ground, the shadow of him hovering over her in bright afternoon Delhi sunlight, a whitish fair complexion and a thin stubble elevating his broad chin, dressed in his black casual shirt thrown over a loose-fit pair of jeans, leaning onto his CJ-jeep, he looked positively impressive, but something about him definitely put her off, she didn't know what it was.

"Listen, I don't believe in such stuff, I don't know you at all... Uh, you are wasting your time, really. You look good and seem like you are from a good family even, this kind of behavior really doesn't go down well with me, so, I'm sorry, I hope you understand, you better go, I don't like being talked about in this way, are you getting me?"

"Err, you want me to approach in a much decent way, is it?"

"Huh?" was all she could say, trying to figure out if she was supposed to be annoyed or not.

"Alright Khushi, I'll be back.." he spoke turning around, keeping his eyes on her every now and then as he walked towards the driving seat of his jeep.

"Whoa..wai...wait! I didn't say that!"

"See you Khushi!"

"Wait!"

And he sped away leaving her almost baffled and more than anything else confused. After that little incident she hadn't seen him again, for quite a few days. Just when she thought she was being spared finally, he proved her wrong. And it only caused her to look on being stumped yet again, when she had seen not just him, but with him there was what seemed like his whole family sitting in her hall, talking with her parents, the mere sight of which bestowed her, to say the least.

"There she is, Khushi, meet Mr.Singhania and his wife Mrs.Sighania, and you must be knowing him Rohan?" her father spoke and trailed off at her bewildered look, but ignored it instantly, plastering a smile while her mother nudged her from the other side, causing her to join her hands into a Namaste.

"Hi Khushi.." Rohan spoke, and she looked at him in complete astound. Nevertheless she forced a smile and excused herself from the hall-way marching away directly into her room.

"Khushi.."

"---------What's going on Ma!!??" she blurted out the first thing nagging in her mind all through turning around swiftly to meet her stance with Garima, typically dressed in her pink Salwar Kameez, the dupatta of which crowning her head and she only looked at her daughter a little apologetically.

"They have come for your marriage proposal Chutki, your father tells me that they are very respectful people..."

"----seriously? And so I get married just like that? Ma! How many times have I told you, I don't want to get married just yet! I'm earning and saving to be able to study further, and you guys wouldn't stop with all these at all? I mean..."

"Chutki..."

"Nahin Ma!! Just talks were even fine, but getting people to sit like that in our house? What do we do now? Groom me perfectly and present me before them?"

"But Chutki..."

"Khushi!!!" Just when Garima placed her both hands on both of Khushi's shoulders trying to pacify her rage they heard the new voice in the small room, causing them to go silent almost immediately as Khushi shifted her angry gaze from that of her mother to her father who was standing at the door entrance.

"Pa..."

"-----just a moment" Shashi Gupta spoke in his even voice walking towards his daughter, as all Khushi did was look on at him hopefully.

"Garima, can you give us a moment?"

His wife nodded and left the room, leaving the father and daughter duo alone. Shashi then wrapped his hand around Khushi's shoulder and walked her towards the window of the little room, facing the both of them out at a typical middle class Chandini-chowk street; blocks of 2 to 3 storied buildings appearing like they were glued together, more than two, four-wheelers parked at each of the building, people walking by and greeting each other, children playing outside, the running underground water at one corner and a typical iron man at the other corner, small stores bearing milk displaying outside, middle-aged woman gossiping at one part of the street combined with the distant calling of the vegetable vendor filling in the back-ground, the mere normalcy of it all glaring back at them and Khushi flipped her head from the view to catch his father still looking out of the window keenly.

"Pa?"

"This has been our life Khushi..." he said not shifting his attention from the view. "All my life, I have only known to work hard and just harder, so I could join you in good school, get you top class education, good clothes and pretty good living, nothing less than the ones probably living in some other well-off part of this very capital city, but despite everything life just remains here, because this is what my education and my work is capable of giving me..." he said referring to his job of accountant in a Textile store.

"But you know what keeps me going?"

Khushi just lifted her eyes to meet his father's adoring gaze, her mind already registering where this conversation was going.

"You..."

As much as she tried to push it away, the sudden raw emotion engulfed her and her hazel eyes very much poured all that out. "You are my Angel Khushi and you deserve every happiness of this world, as much as your name implies. Or rather even more..."

That caused her to chuckle a little despite her little wet eyes, which Shashi instantly dried using his hands... "Happiness and nothing at all" he said bringing her closer.

"I did a fare job, at least I think I did, giving you all that you want, but even then today when you wanted to study further, you feel compelled to earn for it..."

"It's not like that, I've decided this for myself, I've always wanted to it this way..."

"But in the end, I did fail as your father Khushi didn't I? I couldn't do anything when you have decided this for yourself..."

"No Pa, please don't say that..."

"All I'm saying is Chutki, you deserve a better life, your life beckons you and its time you reach out to it. You have done enough for your family, its time you start your own family now and someday or the other you have to leave us right? Why not now?"

"NO!" she protested hugging her father, causing him to wrap his hands all too protectively.

"Love is something which you wouldn't knock on your door every other day Khushi, and when it does you have to accept it with all your heart. Rohan is a good boy, I've talked to him all that I want and he really does love you; you have better experience dealing with guys these days, how many of them would actually say I-love-you' and even mean it? As much as to convey it in the form of a life time promise? Does that tell anything at all?"

"But Pa, I don't know him at all..."

"One thing you can be assured about life is that, you will never be unhappy with the ones who love you instantly, for, your mother and I fell in love with you instantly, didn't we?"

That caught her off the guard and she was left bestowed yet again. Maybe her father was right...

Maybe it was time for her to take the next big step forward...

And maybe she fill fall in love eventually...

Despite the foreign feeling her heart had been stuck in, all these days...

"I'm in love with you, since so long now Khushi--------"

"Marry me, please--------"

She just looked down at the stretched palm of Rohan, and then at his distinct black eyes, as he waited kneeling down in front of her amidst both of their families.

Khushi finally smiled placing her hand in his...

**

Chapter-35

**

P.S: Getting little busy this month, might not be updating as frequently as I had been doing, I'll deffo keep up with my initial promise of two per week... :)