Shubman's POV

"Shubman, we need to talk.", Smriti sighs as she gets into our room.

This was what I was afraid of.

"Um sure.",I tell her and she takes a seat on the bed next to me.

"Why didn't you tell me that you and Ananya broke up a month before we met?", she asked me.

"I just- I didn't feel like it was necessary.", I sigh, "on the other hand it was all over the news, so I thought

"You know that I stopped paying attention to all of the cricket gossip articles after they wrote articles saying that 'Shreyas Iyer's sister is dating his team mate and her childhood friend Ishan Kishan'.", she states,"You yourself used to tell me that reading those type of articles are a waste of time."

"Yeah you're right. I just felt like I was over her so it didn't matter anymore.", I tell her honestly.

"Shubman you fell for her even before you were with her remember? And you dated her for almost three years, you can't just get over in a month.", she shrugs angrily at me.

"But that relationship with Ananya was a mess, we couldn't handle the distance and just kept fighting so I felt that it was better if we just ended it.", I tell her as I rub my palms on my face, "The relief of getting out of that relationship made me feel like I was over her."

"But it was a three year old relationship Shubman! You've literally been acting so strange ever since we met her.", she tells shakily as tears form in her eyes, "How are we supposed to give 'us' another shot if you're not over your ex girlfriend?".

"Smri, there was nothing wrong for the two years we dated right? You loved me so much that only my happiness mattered and we didn't disagree over anything huge, we're perfect for each other, you know that.", I try to assure her as I place my hand on hers.

"There was something wrong though Shubman. Despite our relationship having no issues, you didn't love me enough that you left me for her four years ago.", she tells me icily.

"And I regret that! I realised that you're the one for me and I want things with us to be much better than it was before.", I confess.

"How are you so sure about that, you aren't even over her yet!", she lashes out.

"You should've accepted your emotions after your break up with her and sorted them out instead of running away from it. We wouldn't have been in this mess then!", she tells softly as she was close to tearing up again.

"Smriti, I am beginning to fall for you again. The whole fiasco with Ananya is just a small mess but I promise I'll sort it out soon.", I try to take her hand in mine but she pulls her hand back to her.

I look at her in confusion.

"I- I don't think I can trust you yet Shubman, I need some time.", she whispers as she looks away.

I broke her so much that she wouldn't even look at me, again.

"Like- like a break?", I ask her.

"Yeah.", she nods her head just left the room.

Why did I always ruin everything?

Smriti's POV

I fall backwards on the bed of the guest room and rub my face with my palms as I sigh in frustration.

The tears kept bubbling up but just wouldn't fall. I didn't know if I wanted to scream or cry.

My thoughts flew back to the time I met Shubman. I was just eighteen years old and he was nineteen. My mom had just been married to dad (Sheyas' uncle), so we had moved to Mumbai and I'd been introduced to him by Ishan when I'd gone for their IPL match.

We gelled along well soon and then spoke a lot over text, met each other once in a while. And gradually in a year, our friendship blossomed into love. He asked me out on a date and that's where it began.

The next two years were filled with us going on dates, which we called "hangouts" since I was sure my parents wouldn't be happy with me dating while I was quite young. We'd spend the distance over phone calls, sometimes at nights since he'd be out of the country. Even the long distance didn't ruin our relationship.

But two years later, Shubman had ruined it when he threw everything we had for someone he had just met. That someone being Ananya.

Ananya was so self assured about herself and successful at the mere age of twenty whereas my twenty one year old self was dependant on my parents and was just healing from the hurt my previous dysfunctional family had given me. Of course he chose her over me, anybody would have.

Although many arranged marriages were successful and smooth, looking at my parents' had completely ruined the idea of an arranged marriage for me. But when I saw the way Shreyas' uncle loved my mom and made her life so much better, I knew I wanted a relationship like that. A relationship which brought in happiness, peace and healed.

People fell out of love, it happened at many places. Which is why I thought that he never even liked me in the first place and whatever we had for all the years was just casual dating that people normally did in their late teens early twenties. Unlike me, who always looked for something serious although we were literally just nineteen when we started dating.

So I ended up telling him that it was okay, although it hurt like hell.

It was so hard to get over him. I'd watch cricket matches frequently and he'd be on the screen.

It would hurt although he was miles away.

Whenever I'd go to watch a match live to support Ishan, Abhay and Shreyas; I'd have to look around at all different sides since he would be arround.

The only way was to pretend he wasn't around coincidentally.

When he said we could give us a try again at the meeting our parents had arranged, my heart burst with happiness. I mean, there was nothing majorly wrong in our relationship while we dated before too. The arguments we had were just playful ones, the other ones were petty so we sorted them out soon. Who wouldn't want a relationship like that again?

It felt like I was going to be happy again, just like how I was with him when we were together for those years.

But he ruined things, again.

He said that he needed some time, that he was falling for me again. But how could I trust him again?

Author's note:

Long time no see again, I'm so sorry 🏃🏽‍♀️

Mannnn the angst in this chapter😭 I hope I bought the intensity, feels and did some justice to this chapter. It was kinda hard to write this one ngl.

The book crossed 3K reads! Thank you so much for all the support, it means the world to me🥺

Until the next chapter,

Lots of love,
Saisha

Published on: 21 September 2021