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'Mama!'
A young girl ran into the room rudely interrupting an important business meeting taking place in there. 'Look,' she exclaimed as she gleamed with happiness, 'I won!' The mother grinned at the child, dismissing the meeting she took the girl in her arms as she whispered sweet nothings, the girl hid her face in her mothers embrace wrapping her arms around her mother while her younger sibling stood at the door holding trophy that had 'First Place' engraved in to it.
'I'm home!' screamed the older girl as she flung her bags across the room comfortably hugging her older brother who twirled her around as the girl erupted into fits of giggles. Their parents signaled the help to take the youngest child away while they joined each other for dinner.
'You're unwanted, Ishita! Don't you get it? No one ever wanted. You're an imperfection mother and father was forced to bring in to this world. Mother would have chosen to give birth to you, but she didn't. You're unwanted. The earlier you understand it, the better it is. So stop being a nuisance and quit it with the drama,' her elder brother snarled at her as he held her by her shoulders and pushed her against the wall ignoring her wince in pain, 'Just die,'
'Oh, Ishita? She's a toy. You know, to be used. I demanded a sibling and my parents decided the right thing to do was hand me a living doll but sadly, she's ugly and totally not a doll. I can't wait to get rid of one of us only my parents will choose me and not my toy,' sighed Vandhana as her friends painted her nails. Ishita, come here! I need to test this bleach Papa purchased,' then seventeen year old Vandhana screamed across the room as she waited for an grinning pushover ten year old Ishita to appear and when she did Vandhana chopped off a chunk off Ishita's treasured long hair while the younger one smiled in return.
'They love me,' Ishita sighed to her Nanny, They're just sad that Di is sick. They can't love me openly because it will hurt Di, right? They love me. It's just that di is sick.'
'Di is sick. They love me,' she told herself every night as she drifted into a world of dreams and fantasies. They loved her! Oh, they didn't. They hadn't loved her. They never loved her. And she? She almost ruined her life trying to prove that they did!
'I'll marry you. Go through the procedures. I'll marry you instead of her. I don't care of the outcomes, just save her. Please?' he held her hands as he sat across her not attempting once to hold back the tears he shed. 'You know, I'm pregnant,' she wanted to say to him, What about me? What about my kid? How can any of you'll ask this of me?' she wanted to scream at him.
Why did she do it, she had wondered the night she packed her bags. She had just wanted someone to love her never once thinking of the price she had to pay. She had wanted to snatch something from Vandhana like Vandhana did to her all her life. She had chosen wrong. He would never love her or leave Vandhana. She hadn't known what she was doing that night but she knew one thing; she could never let her child live in the shadows of the life Ishita lived.
'You're a bitch,' he had said to her that night, You're worthless. You're a worthless piece of shit that everyone wishes was never born,'
'I know,'
"Mommy!' Ruhi burrowed her head into Ishita's tummy, "It's morning. Wake up. We need to paint. You promised we'd be painting today. And then we have breakfast and lunch to eat. And baking class followed by cooking class. And we have a date too! Waaake up,"
Ishita stirred awake as she held Ruhi closer placing little kisses on her tiny body. "You have too much energy for a two year old, Roo," she mumbled pulling her body closer and tucking her in a blanket.
"Three," the younger one scowled at her mother.
"Okay, baba. Three!"
As Ishita placed Ruhi on the washroom counter and as Ruhi flashed her baby teeth to Ishita signaling her to brush them for her Ishita smiled at Ruhi remembering how much she wanted someone to do the same with her as a child. Instead she had been handed over to a wet-nurse as a child and nannies as a kid. She had learnt to dress on her own at the age of two, began brushing at one and was spanked at any signs of tantrum. Her parents hadn't ever hugged her and neither had they ever shown nor told her that they loved her. She didn't want that for Rooh. She wanted Rooh to grow up the way she had wanted to. She wanted her to live the way she wanted to. She wanted everyday to seem like a vacation and she wanted them to be happy. That was all she wanted in life.
"I love you, Mommy,"
"I love you, Rooh,"
Ruhi jumped off the counter and raced to the kitchen where she promptly picked both the milkshake and yogurt placed on the table for her. Also sneaking a few chocolates into her fruits. She grinned at her accomplishments rushing to gobble everything down before her mother stepped out of the shower.
"Slowly, baccha," Ishita lightly patted Rooh's tiny head before she headed to prepare her smoothie, reserve a table for lunch and confirm their play dates. She then picked their outfits, loaded the articles and novels that needed revision, complete other mundane tasks while Rooh sat in front of the TV.
They had spent the day following orders from Ruhi Aggarwal. Ishita had just paid the bills when Ruhi demanded to and worked while Ruhi attended classes that did not require Ishita's presence. They had learnt to bake something new and painted a masterpiece (which prompted into a shopping spree for clothes). They had lunch at a upscale restaurant and evening snacks at a tiny caf Ishita chose to help out at while the older couple let Ruhi sleep in the spare bedroom while Ishita sort their accounts for the day, helped out when business was rushing in and worked when there were no customers.
At nightfall they had visited the Aggarwals where Ruhi and Ishita helped Mrs. Aggarwal prepare dinner as they waited for Nikhil to return home. Ruhi had waited at the door snacking on frozen cookie dough as she waited for Nikhil to return home. He had taken her in his arms and twirled her around as they both got the dessert all over them. Rooh clung to Nikhil at dinner and had then fallen asleep in his mother's arms after which Ishita and Nikhil retreated to the poolside like they usually did.
They had dessert, chatted and complained to each other about annoying people. She had laughed reminiscing the memories they shared. Teased each other and discussed whatever came on their mind at that moment without any second thoughts.
"What is this?" Nikhil asked Ishita as she handed him a bundle of files.
She had smiled at him.
"Nothing is going to happen to you, Ishu, we promised each other that," he said as she held her hand.
"We both know it's a lie, Nikhil. I could pass away or be diagnosed with something drastic and we could do nothing about it," she said as she turned away, "And when that happens, if that happens, I just want to be assured that you'll be taking care of Rooh when I'm gone. I just want her to be safe, Nikhil, you don't have to worry about the cost of raising her,"
"It's not about the money, Ishita, it's accepting your paranoia. It's accepting the idea of losing you. None of us can do that," he said, "We love you. I love you. You are family so is Rooh. I am a her legal guardian. We don't need legal papers to insure that we take care of her. She's my daughter as much as she is yours,"
She nodded at him as she kicked the water in the pool, the moonlight reflecting on them as they spoke.
"I was never allowed to swim as a child," she started, "They worried that what if something happened to me. Not because they loved me, no, because I was their only shot as saving their daughter. I was a hand grenade - their hand grenade - one wrong move by any of us ,or one wrong medication, would kill us all. As a child I stood in awe as the PE teachers pulled me out of class. I didn't have to whine about PE like the rest of you'll. And she, Vandhana, came home from class one day. She had been pulled out of PE like me. I had smiled at her telling her that our parents loved her too. She instead had hit me with a basketball. Flinging it at me over and over again. They stood there, Raman and Veer, as they watched her throw all her anger at me. I was eight then and they had been eight years older to and Veer sixteen. He was supposed to protect me, he didn't. They hadn't,"
She wiped away the tears that wet her cheeks.
"I don't want Rooh to live a life like mine. I don't want to subject her to the same life I did. I don't want her to curse me for being selfish and giving birth to her. If anything happens, I don't ever want her to go back to Raman. I don't want her to go to live Raman and Vandhana or to my family. I was their biological child, not a love child or half child, and they never could love me. How can I expect them to love my child?"
He kissed her. He had seen her memories for far too long to question her now. He had seen her break down times and ever since they age they could understand things, which would have been beyond her comprehension.
"Make me forget, make me forget all of it," she whispered between kisses before submitting herself to him.
A/N Please add PM account for PMs.
Suggest a FF name.
And let's hope for the best.
Please read the story as it unfolds. It has a plot and isn't an angsty tale with a broken heroine.
Edited by -Ara- - 10 years ago
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