Chapter 12:
The tales of despair and desperation:
(Author's note: mihika is not ishita's sister/cousin in my story. Though she will be a very close friend of ishita in future)
Raman's desperation:
A man sitting in balcony with his 7 months old sleeping daughter is desperate. He is desperate to make everything alright. He is desperate to find a way to make ishita better, desperate to make ishita forget all that happened to her. He is hell desperate to punish those two bas***ds 😡. His desperation is taking a toll on him.
Looking down at his sleeping daughter, he finds his oasis of peace and happiness . His desperation takes a back seat for a second 😲. But, boy that desperation fights its way back to the front seat in his mind as well as his heart as soon as he hears muffled cries coming out of the bedroom 😭.
Ishita's despair:
(all of below mentioned events is part of ishita's nighTmare)
After almost 2 days of being bed ridden, ishita is still sleeping, going thru a chain of subconscious thoughts, thoughts playing a slideshow of what happened to her last night and some fears embedded in her mind. She feels being slapped and pushed. Her hand automatically goes to her head. She brings back her hand and looks at it. It is covered in blood. She feels someone sitting on her stomach, smothering her. It is getting hard for her to breath. She is fighting hard to push that someone off of her🤢. Her eyes automatically darts towards the door and she sees Ashwin standing there😡, watching all that is happening. She feels a bright light behind Ashwin. She squints her eyes and finds raman standing there with a giggling ruhi in his arms ❤️. Next she finds herself sitting on the floor with someone's head lying on her lap. She is frantically putting pressure on that person's stomach. She raises her hands only to find them dripping in blood. She looks down, her cloths are soaked in blood too. She adjusts her eyes to see the person's face and she sees raman lying on her lap, bleeding out. She feels being dragged away for him, back to the bedroom and hears a door being slammed.
She is screaming her lungs out in her sleep
"let me go. Chhodo muje. I will kill you, you bas***d 😡. Raman... Please stay awake. Raman...don't close your eyes😭. Get off of me you jerk. Someone please save raman. Please help me raman, get up...leave me you asshole 😡..."
This is how raman finds her. She is screaming hell in her sleep. She startles our sleeping princess ruhi as well as the nurse who had dozed off. Raman hands ruhi to nurse (she leaves the room) and goes to ishita.
He slowly sits down by her and starts patting her head.
"ishita, aankhe kholo. I am right here. Look. Nothing has happened."
Ishita jerks open her eyes hearing his voice. She sits up suddenly, wincing in pain, and pats raman's stomach. She is checking to make sure he is ok. Raman is looking down at her hands on his stomach, wondering what she is doing. She looks up at him and hugs him relived of finding him alive and says
"woh khoon, kitna sara khun beh raha tha raman. Aapko to stiches bhi nahi hai. aap think to ho na? aur ruhi? Ruhi kaha hai? maine bohot koshish ki thi, par main kuch nahi kar payi. I am so sorry. Meri vajah se, you had to go thru all of this. Aur phir kya fayda hua??? They took my everything raman. They made me a dirty woman. A bloody bazaaru aurat."
Raman's blood is boiling. He wants to hit something so hard, someone perhaps. He tries to get her to look at him.
"ishita, idhar dekho. Meri taraf dekho ishita."
Ishita is still clinging to him. Shaking her head in his chest, denying to look up at him, feeling ashamed.
Raman jerks her out of him and raises his voice.
"I said look up at me, damn it."
She finally looks at him. He cups her face and says
"vo sab bas ek bura sapna tha ishita. Jaisa tum soch rahi ho, aisa kuch nahi hua. You have to be strong. Nothing happened besides your injureis. You were saved before anything. he didn't even lay his finger on you after you came to my door. do you remember coming to my door ishita? hmmm?Aur mein aur ruhi bhi safe hai. humein kuch nahi hua. Dekho..." saying so he gets up, giving her a 360 view of him by twirling around to assure her😳.
"raman, I am scared. What if they come back? What if they come back to hurt you and little ruhi?"
Raman wants to tell her that they will never come back. He wants to share with her how all of that is being taken care of. He feels the need to tell her that her contribution will be needed to put them behind bars. She will have to testify against them.🤢
But, he feels this is not the right time. She is badly shaken up and is not in her senses.
Ishita ke liye asliyat or bure sapne ke bich ki lakir dhoondhali ho chuki hai😭
She is unable to cope up with the despair. Her condition is miserable right now. And he doesn't want to make it worst. An idea struck his mind and he texts the nurse to bring ruhi back in.
He takes ruhi from the nurse and lets her go for the night and walks back towards ishita who is staring down at nothing.
"ishita, dekho to, mein kise laya hoon?"
Ishita looks up hearing the giggling sounds.
Her eyes sparkle seeing the ever smiling little princess. Her vision getting hazy as tears come knocking on her doors (eyes).
Raman extended his arms with ruhi to her and put her in ishita's lap. Within a fraction of a second, she forgot all of her pain, all of her fears.🤗
Little ruhi is as happy as she can be by being back in the lap of her favorite lady, who is kind of looking weird with the bandages and all.
"HER THERE MY FAVORITE LADY. GIRL, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE? YOU USED TO BE PRETTY. JUST KIDDING NOW. DON'T START CRYING LIKE A LITTLE GIRL. OH, WAIT THAT'S ME. SORRY. BUT I AM UPSET WITH PAPA.😡 HE IGNORED ME FOR WHOLE FIVE MINUTES. I SECRETLY DROOLED OVER HIS SHIRT SLEEVE TO TAKE MY REVENGE, PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP. SHHH...IT IS OUR SECRET😉. RAM KASAM KHAO KI APP PAPA KO NAHI BATAVONGI?"
Suddenly ishita realizes that she is not in any hospital or at her apartment or at raman's. She notices that it is somebody's bedroom. She looks at raman, getting ready to ask him and like reading her mind, he answers her
"I didn't want to take you to the hospital. So I brought you over to my bunglow."
"raman, to phir yeh marham patti??"
"I had the doctors make a home visit." Raman said
"Oh..." is all she can say.
After a while, the silence is prevailing in the room, with all three of them sitting on the same bed, with a very happy ruhi in the middle😉, ishita breaks the silence. She wants to ask a question that has been clouding her mind for the last few minutes.
"raman, voh Ashwin or voh aadmi ka..."
Raman doesn't let her finish, "wahi hua jo aise logo ke saath hona chahiye.😡 Khair we will talk about that once you feel better. Kuch khaogi? You have been on saline since last night. You must be hungry"
Mihika and Mihir had come back with dinner. Raman goes and brings the soup for her. She could only eat couple of spoonful due to her dislocated jaw.
"raman, I can't eat it. My jaw hurts. 😭I will try to sleep. Ummm...can I ask you something?
"yes, of course"
"Can I keep ruhi with me here? I mean...if you don't mind?"
"only if she can be in her crib. You have four broken ribs ishita. I don't think it's a good idea to strain yourself. And what if she accidentally kicks you? After all she is my daughter, a college soccer team captain. And she kicks like all hell in her sleep 🤣."
"I have no problem." Ishita nodded obediently
"umm.. one more thing. I might have to be in this room as well. To make sure ruhi is ok, if you are ok with it?" he wanted to stay over to watch over her, but used ruhi as an excuse 😳.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING PAPA. USING ME AS AN EXCUSE, HMMM. ADD THAT TO THE LIST OF FAVORS I WILL BE DOING TO YOU. THE LIST WILL GETTING BIGGER DAY BY DAY. I HOPE YOU WILL PAY UP. OR ELSE I MIGHT HAVE TO PUT COLLECTION MAFIAS BEHIND YOU." Squills ruhi .
He goes and brings ruhi's crib in ishita's bedroom. Lays ruhi in it and helps lay ishita back down. Covers both of the ladies and goes to fetch food for ruhi.
Ishita's despair is disappearing for the time being due to raman and ruhi and raman's desperation is getting lesser seeing a smile on ishita's face.
What the future hold for this trio is still unknown to me, the writer and to you all, the readers.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK MY LOVELY READERS😊
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