CHAPTER 44 (B)
Anjali and Siddharth were in the dark room. Suddenly the room lit like a stadium and they looked around.
Siddharth was confused. He wondered whether they had entered the wrong room at the wrong time.
For Anjali, it was as if she was revisiting her first anniversary. Ballons, ribbons, colour papers and lights filled the room. The images of Shyam betraying her, him hurting Khushi, Arnav hurting Khushi, Khushi lying on the hospital bed flashed before her. The images which stood out from the rest was of Shyam cheating on her. She closed her eyes and caught the table next to her for support.
Siddharth noticed her from the corner of his eyes and rushed to her side.
He touched her shoulder and said, "Anjali!"
She opened her tear filled eyes and saw him.
When he saw her tears and the raw pain, he pulled a chair and made her sit on it. He knelt on one knee in front of her and caught her hand.
"Anjali, kya hua? Kyun ro rahi ho?" [Anjali, what happened? Why are you crying?]
Her hold on his hand tightened.
"Yeh decoration'. First anniversary'."
He understood what she wanted to say.
"Kuch nahi hoga tume. [Nothing will happen to you.] He is not coming back. I will not let him come into your life again."
"I thought he was a nice man, Siddharth. But he lied to me. He wrecked a lot of lives. He promised me that he would make me happy. He said he loved me. When dadi told me about him, I didn't want to accept. My heart didn't let me say yes. She saw my hesitation and told me that my parents would have been happy with the choice of such a man. She spoke about my parents and I couldn't deny. I said yes. You were my only true friend in college. When I came to get my TC, you weren't there. Your classmates told me they didn't know where you went."
She caught his collar and asked, "Where did you go, Siddharth? Where did you go when I needed you? Where did you go when I wanted someone to stand beside me and support me? Why weren't you near me to stop me from making the biggest mistake of my life?"
Tears formed in his eyes but he blinked them back. His heart ached to see his only love break apart in front of him and he realized that it wasn't the right time to tell her why he wasn't there in college.
"Shyam was always immersed in his work. He would always go to one place or the other due to some work. At that time, I didn't realize that he was a lawyer and not a police officer and that his work did not really order him to move around."
She wiped her tears and fresh tears fell.
"He broke me completely, Siddharth. He broke my trust. He destroyed me and I don't know what to do. I try to be strong and independent. But still at the end of the day, his betrayal comes to haunt me. It hangs over my head like a black cloud. Is it so wrong to have trusted the man I was married to? Why did it happen to me? Don't I deserve happiness? Why do the people in the Raizada family face such brutal situations? Maa killed herself due to my father's affair with another woman. Nani doesn't know what happened to mausi. Chote lived a life with a stone heart and was filled with coldness for nearly twelve years. Why does this happen, Siddharth?"
He enclosed both her hands in between his and said, "Life is not a path of rose petals, Anjali. It also has thorns in the middle. Shyam is cruel. He hurt you. He broke you. But he did not destroy you. He can never destroy you because he was never able to touch your heart. He tried to show his fake love by giving you materialistic things. You weren't able to differentiate his smooth words from his fake love. Your heart did. It was able to recognize him as the worthless man that he is. That is the reason why you are trying to be strong. You are trying because you know you can."
He wiped her tears.
"One day, you will find true love, Anjali. I promise you that. You will get your share of love. And when you find it, you will know what I am saying. Because the day your heart recognises someone's love for you, you will not be able to step away from it. If that person breaks you'. That will never happen. But still, if it happens, you will not be able to breathe. That time, you will be destroyed. Now, you are not."
"Do you think that someone can glue all my broken parts together and I will be as good as new?" She shook her head. "The scars will always be visible."
"Arnav was a cold and stone hearted man for almost twelve years. But a simple, innocent, happy, fun loving Khushi shook his foundation. She breathed life into his heart. She took his heart and carved it into a beautiful masterpiece. Arnav loved Khushi but still he hurt her. Do you think the way he hurt her didn't leave behind marks in him? They have come a long way from where they started. Do you think they don't carry scars of their past?"
She wasn't able to answer.
"There is a lot of difference in the Arnav you saw in the past and the Arnav you are seeing right now. He speaks what is in his heart. He is laughing. He is happy. He is not frightened to put his heart in the line. Am I right?"
She nodded.
"There is one thing that you people don't know. He lives through every second in fear that someday Khushi might remember everything and leave him. Yet, that does not make him retreat into the shell where he once was. It is not stopping him from laughing or loving or living. Even though Khushi doesn't ask him about it, she knows about his fear. She tries to wipe away that fear with her love. The scars do not matter, Anjali. The feeling, the emotion you share with the other person is what matters. Their hearts may be broken and the lines where it is glued might be visible. Still they are incomplete without each other."
After a short pause he said, "Arnav always tries to make ways to be with Khushi. It was his idea to let us spend all our waking hours in office or at your home. It is not because he is possessive and always wants her near him. The real reason is they find solace with each other. During the past week, Khushi has disappeared from office a lot of times and even you have noticed it. Do you know where she goes? She goes to Arnav. Why? Just to sleep in his arms where the both of them can hear each other's heartbeats."
She looked at both their hands. He placed his finger under her chin and made her face him.
"That is the difference, Anjali. The difference between the one you truly love and the one who married you for all the wrong reasons. You are yet to experience love and when you do, it will take your breath away. Your father betrayed your mother and she killed herself. She should have stayed strong and showed him how she would have lived her life with you and Arnav. Instead she chose what she thought was the easy way out which turned out to be disastrous for all of you. I have faith in destiny, Anjali, but only to an extent. According to me, we have to see what destiny has in store for us and rewrite it with how we want it to be. It does not mean I don't have faith in God. I do. At the same time, I believe in my own hands. We are our own creators and destroyers, Anjali. I told you that day. It is upto you to decide whether you want to forget everything and be happy or stay buried in your hurt and die everyday."
After a long silence, she slowly asked, "Will I be able to forget?"
He gave her a faint smile and said, "Yes. I will help you forget everything."
She closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands.
"Do you trust me, Anjali?"
She removed her hands from her face and nodded.
"Then don't be frightened. Don't be frightened to extend your hand towards your destiny when it walks right in front of you. Don't be frightened to embrace the feelings you get when your heart tells you. Never be frightened to catch hold of the person whom you think will never let you go. And finally, don't be frightened to hope, to love and to live again."
He entwined his fingers with hers and said, "I am right beside you. I will not let you go. I will not let you fall. I will not let anybody hurt you. I will not let your fears conquer you. I will always be with you and make sure you get all the happiness you deserve."
He had directly or indirectly stripped himself bare and laid down his true feelings in front of her. Shyam's betrayal had clouded Anjali's vision and she wasn't able to realize that whatever she had heard were the true feelings of a man who loved her for the past ten years and was still in love with her.
the usual request guys...
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precap : arnav taking her to see his first love [first love -> remember the conversation they had on her birthday in the morning?]
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