Chapter 50 : Thunderstorm 

Ruhaani stormed out of the building into open air. On the way out, she had impulsively taken a glass filled with some sort of drink off a waiter's tray. She didn't know what it was but she had hoped the bitter burning taste of the liquid would help the pain in her heart feel less. It hadn't.

She tried but failed to stop her tears. She didn't just want Aadarsh in her life as a husband. She wanted his affection, his feelings, his attention, his everything! It was stupid, really. She was keeping expectations. Those that were the root cause of disappointments in a relationship.

She wiped her tears, standing in an isolated spot beside a tree. Her face turned to the bark of the tree, so that no one saw the tears in her eyes. She was stronger than this. She hated how she was reduced to this. Crying in public? What on earth was wrong with her? She had literally seen the worst. But somehow the pain was nothing less this time.

A few minutes passed as she tried to comfort herself, to make herself see reason, to ignore her stupid heart.

Siddhi was beautiful, Ruhaani would never stand a chance to win a competition against her. She looked so freaking perfect. Her hair was jet back styled so sophisticatedly. Her gown a beautiful red that instantly drew the attention of people around her. She was like a freaking Barbie princess. The only domain where Ruhaani outshined her was height. She was taller than her. However, Siddhi's shorter height made her look cute with Aadarsh. Tears stung her eyes. She never looked that perfect with him. She probably never would.

She wanted Aadarsh, for herself. She wanted him to feel all that he felt for Siddhi, for her. This was so stupid. This was crazy. She was acting like her four-year-old daughter. Being stubborn. Being unrealistic. Being unwise.

She wiped the fresh set of tears that had started their journey down her eyes. Her phone, inside the grasp of her hand buzzed calling for her attention. She lowered her gaze to find Aadarsh's caller ID.

Her gaze softened. Why was she calling her? Wasn't he still with Siddhi? Weren't they catching up on all that they had missed on each other's lives? Weren't they telling each other how much they had missed each other?

She slowly lifted the call.

"Where are you?" He asked urgently.

Ruhaani took a deep breath, composing herself. "I..." she pressed her lips together. Her voice sounded a bit low, a bit nasal, a lot heartbroken, almost giving away that she had been crying.

"Hello! Ruhaani? Can you hear me?"

"I am outside. Came out for some fresh air." She answered, her free hand dabbing her handkerchief around her eyes and cheeks, wiping any remains of her wreck.

"I am outside too. Near the valet desk. I don't see..."

Ruhaani had turned around and looked towards the valet desk. She had spotted him in seconds. "I see you," she interrupted whatever he was saying and walked towards him. She slowly ended the call when she saw him look at her. She made her way down the cobbled path of the lawn towards him. With every step, her heart thudded louder than usual. He looked restless.

Was he going to tell her about Siddhi? Was he waiting to tell her that they were done? Why was he so impatient?

She managed a small smile, that took so much effort. "I.."

"Can we leave?" He said sounding a bit edgy.

She blinked, a frown coming upon her face. "Dinner?" She had eaten enough starters to fill more than half her stomach but she wasn't sure about him.

"I need to...avoid...someone. Can we please leave? I will take you to any restaurant you want. Just don't want to be here."

"We can go home. I have had enough starters but I am not sure you..."

Aadarsh's gaze which was refusing to stay on her eyes suddenly flitted towards her eyes and stayed there. He gazed at her for a beats longer. "Let's go home," he said softly.

"Sir, your car is here." The valet walked up to him and handed him the keys.

Aadarsh turned to him and nodded with a quick, "Thanks!" escaping his mouth.

Ruhaani quietly made her way to the passenger seat of the car. They sat in the car in complete silence. It was all a lot to process.

Aadarsh couldn't believe he had seen her again. It had been over a decade since he last saw Siddhi. Seeing her in person had knocked him off his feet. It was like he was seeing a ghost. A ghost of his past.

Just seeing her had triggered so many memories. All of them bitter, dark and hurtful.

"Aadarsh, can you please slow down?" Ruhaani said warily. He had been driving a bit recklessly. "Do you want me to drive?" She offered, although she was hardly in the mind to do anything. A worry was clawing her insides mercilessly.

Aadarsh glanced at her and then at the road. "Sorry," he mumbled focusing on the road, putting his attention on driving.

"Aadi, please understand. It will never work out. You're not being practical."

Aadarsh blinked, grasping the steering wheel harder and looking at the road. He couldn't block out those hurtful memories. It was like a avalanche. It had been triggered and there was no stopping it.

He found it hard to focus on something as trivial as driving. He was momentarily distracted by Ruhaani putting on the music. 'Focus on driving,' he reminded himself.

Over the past decade there were so many times, he had just wished that Siddhi would come back in his life. She had now, but he felt nothing except hurt, anger, disappointment and regret. It was all too much. He hadn't felt so weak in days. It was like every bitter memory of the past was resurfacing. The worst days of his life were flashing before his very eyes..

Thankfully, the venue of the event wasn't very far from their home and they had reached home quickly. He had pulled the car into the parking spot by their house and got off the car.

Ruhaani stared at him confused. She grabbed his blazer from the backseat, which he had forgotten as usual, and stepped out of the car. He was waiting for her.

"I will be on the terrace. I need some ...quiet." Saying that he walked away after locking the car, towards the outside lift that led directly up to the terrace.

Ruhaani observed his retreating figure with a strange fear in her heart.

***

Ruhaani couldn't keep calm. It had been over two hours and he hadn't returned from the terrace. She had put the kids to bed. Ashvi had two of her friends over for a movie marathon and sleep over. Abhi was out partying with some of his colleagues.

She wondered if she should go check on him. Was he running away from his ex too? Like he did with her, when things became hard?

She had tormented herself drawing comparisons between herself and his ex. Somehow she was almost convinced, if given a choice Aadarsh would go back to her. Why wouldn't he? She thought.

The process of generating incessant freaking thoughts came to a screeching stop when he stormed through the doorway of the room and headed to the closet. She grabbed her phone from beside her and pretended to be busy reading something.

Minutes after, when he came out, he went to the desk. From her peripheral vision she caught him looking at her. She decided to confront him. She would go mad otherwise. Before her brain backed out she got on to her feet and quickly walked around the bed to the other side of the room where his work desk was.

"Aadarsh!"

She startled him, she could tell by the sudden jump of his hand.

"Hmm,"

"Is something wrong?"

He didn't answer. He just kept looking for something on his desk.

"Who were you avoiding at the party?"

"It's nothing." He mumbled. The last thing he wanted was to talk about her. He had spent enough time letting himself get dragged into thinking about the past.

"You should sleep." He said and began walking away. He wasn't in the right mind to entertain Ruhaani's curious questions.

" I saw her."

He stilled on spot.

"I saw you ex-girlfriend. With you. Is this about her?" She asked taking in a long breath. She didn't know if she would be able to come out untarnished out of this storm.

Aadarsh closed his eyes momentarily. He could freaking make out the heavy insecurity laced in her voice. He wanted to walk away. He had enough on his plate to deal with at the moment. His emotions were all over the place. He was a mess inside.

However he couldn't just walk away. It wasn't an option. Not when he knew she was probably giving herself a hard time. He slowly made his way towards her. "It's not what you are thinking."

"I saw you together." She said turning around slowly to face him. She gathered all the courage she could muster and looked up at him. "I know about her. I have seen that box of memories you keep in the storage room. I know what she meant for you."

"What box?" Aadarsh asked, his eyebrows drawing closer together, a frown falling over his face.

"You don't have to lie or pretend you don't know. I saw that box. The letters. The notes. The cards. The life plan of Aadarsh and Siddhi." Her voice sounded accusatory. She was spilling facts out but it was like she was accusing him of small crimes, of loving someone else.

"I don't lie to you, Ruhaani." He said with intimidating calmness.

She didn't know why her eyes stung as she looked at him. "Yeah right, you just hide stuff."

"Ruhaani," his voice was unusually tight and measured, like he was pulling in every thread of patience he could. "I have hidden nothing about my past relationship."

Ruhaani stared at him, emptily. He was right. He had told her, about his ex on the very first day of them being a married couple. But somehow every reason was unsatisfactory at the moment. "I saw you, Aadarsh. With her. Holding her. With..." she struggled to keep going on. Her hurt was evident in her shaking voice. "Her hands on you."

"Ruhaani," he said in a very incisive tone. "I don't know how much you saw. But I was walking when I, quite literally, ran into her. It was an instinct to reach out to whoever I had bumped into."

"Yeah," she said despairingly, "only that you were looking at her like the world around you was gone and she was looking at you the same way. Like you both forgot everything el..."

"Stop." He said brusquely. "You don't even know everything to pass judgements like that."

"Maybe I don't. But I saw it with my own eyes." She continued to argue.

Aadarsh took another troubled breath, momentarily closing his eyes and looking up to muster his patience. He didn't know how to explain the situation to her. He understood where she came from. He understood her insecurity. If he was in her place, he'd be mad too, madder perhaps.

"Ruhaani," he stepped still closer. "It was nothing, okay? I told you once and I will repeat another hundred times, I am over her. You have nothing to worry about. Please, trust me."

"You love her still, don't you?" she said helplessly.

"I don't." He defied her words sharply.

"You do Aadarsh. Who are you lying to? Me or yourself?"

"I don't Ruhaani. You're just stretching this. Just calm down and sleep over it. Okay?" His voice sounded a bit agitated this time around, but there was an earnest request in it. She somehow refused to believe the earnestness in his voice.

He gently touched her hair and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Sleep, okay? Stop overthinking. There's nothing to worry about."

He contained the urge to hug her. He was losing control on his feelings, on his emotions but couldn't afford to lose control on his actions as well. He turned around swiftly before he did something he couldn't redeem.

His lips parted, letting out an enormously heavy unsettled sigh. He didn't know how to survive this. Too many feelings in too little time. It was like a volcano—that was supposed to be extinct—had suddenly interrupted. He wanted to stay and reassure her as much as she wanted, but he couldn't without slipping. Tears sparkled in his eyes, akin to the light from a burning house.

"Am I in the way? Of your happiness?" Her tone bordering a whimper, that stopped him when he reached the door.

"Ruhaani, you're overthinking." He said rather pointedly, his hold on the door tightening.

"You just have to tell me, Aadarsh. I will go away."

That was it.

Snap.

His patience puffed into air and the hold he had on himself slackened. He hurled the door away angrily causing it to shut with a thud. He turned around and covered the distance between them, angrily charging towards her. "Do you even hear yourself? Do you understand what you're implying?"

Ruhaani held back her sobs. Tears pricked the edges of her eyes. She had known Aadarsh enough to know he'd put family before himself. He would choose her over Siddhi. Not because he wanted to but because he had to.

For his siblings, for Pari.

"I know you love her. Maybe you're not over her, Aadarsh." She said, swallowing the hard lump down her throat. "Today you looked at her in a way... like you loved her. Anyone in the room could tell that you both..."

"Ruhaani, don't." He warned, cutting through her words like an extremely sharp sword cuts through flesh.

"Think of it Aadarsh. Why haven't you moved on? People lose people they love but they eventually move on. But you haven't. Maybe the time wasn't right back then. What if it is...now? From the way she looked at you, maybe she loves you too. Maybe you know that deep down too, that's why you ran from there. Something you always do.

How much will you run from your own feelings? It's the most stupidest thing to do. Your feelings are in here," she said fattening her palm against his chest. "If you love her, you'll never be able to run away from these feelings because they are a part of you."

Aadarsh stared down at her. No. He didn't feel anything. He didn't want to. Yet, when her hand touched him, he felt all the pain that he saw in her eyes. She was the one being stupid and stubborn. Not him. He wouldn't let those feelings for her consume him. He would keep running till he could.

She couldn't see it yet, but he knew what he felt for her, not Siddhi, not anyone else. He had to keep his feel for her hidden. If she discovered them, it would only be matter of time until she pushed him to accept him. She was one hell of a determined woman. And he wasn't ready to fall for her. Not when he knew how deeply one got hurt by falling in love.

"We'll figure it out. It's not like we have anything real here." She said every word like it took an excruciating amount of effort. Her hand frantically moving between them. "It's a marriage of convenience, Aadarsh. We have nothing."

His gaze hardened, the muscles of his jaw clenched like he was holding himself back from shouting. He had stiffened like he was holding back a hurricane.

He hated that phrase—marriage of convenience. This was not convenient in any which way.

"It was never convenience for me. Maybe it was for you." It was a clear taunt.

His words continued to be unexpectedly composed despite the tornado that lurked around the corner, ready to destruct. Like he felt nothing. But his dark eyes, they showed a fire in them. A fire that threatened to burn anything it touched.

"Yes, it was. It was nothing if not convenience." She replied sourly. In a way, that seemed to be poking a dangerous animal to attack.

Aadarsh stared down at her, hard, angry, irritated, hurt. He didn't know why it felt like she had punched him right in the face. Like she was pushing him off a damn cliff. Abandoning him.

"We don't have anything, Aadarsh...but with her..."

"We have a family, Ruhaani." He said as calmly as he could, cutting her bullshit short. Tears threatening to fall off his eyes, his words browbeating to be hurled. It felt like a wildfire inside.

"Exactly Aadarsh. We just share a family. Nothing else. There's nothing between us. But you might have something with her. You had something with her. It still might be there somewhere inside you. Maybe you just have to search. And if I am in the way... you need to tell me. You need to ...tell... me, Aadarsh." Tears rushed down her cheeks like rivers with the dam gates thrown open. She wiped her cheeks, looking away, furious with herself.

She was crying, shaking, unable to say out words clearly. What a horrible mess she was! She had never been such before anyone before. No one had seen her like this. She didn't intend to show it to anyone.

Aadarsh fisted his hand and kept it under leash by his side, when his fingers wanted to reach out her face and wipe those tears off her face. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" He asked with an odd restrain on his words. He had no bloody clue why she was hurting both him and herself by saying all of this.

She turned away completely. She wanted to cry out loud. She loved him.

He was right. Why was she doing this to herself? The bitter fact that he had to ask, was like acid being pushed down her throat. Didn't he bloody understand it? Was he so naïve?

She was doing it for him, because she bloody loved him and loved him so much. So much more than she loved her own happiness.

She took a minute and he let her. He hoped she'd find sanity in those few rushed seconds of silence. He counted on her for it. He couldn't see her go on doing this—hurting herself. However, she proved him wrong shortly after.

"Aadarsh, all I am saying is do something for yourself. This marriage is nothing in reality. We can always find an alternative arrangement for still being a part of each other's family. You can still co-parent Pari... and I... I promise I will be there for your siblings whenever they need me. At every beck and call." She spoke, her eyes looking everywhere but at him.

"Enough!" this time his voice was like a loud boom. Like a loud thunder that disrupts the sky and silences the earth.

She slowly raised her gaze to meet his. His usually dark eyes appeared fierce like a leopard's.

"Not a word more." He warned, his voice sounding deadly. He took a small step towards her, intimidating her further with his stance. " You have discredited our marriage enough. No one's going anywhere. Pari is staying right here and so are you. Clear enough?"

At first, Ruhaani could barely find the courage to say anything. His hot breath fanned her face. He was angry, she knew him well enough to know that. "You love her, Aadarsh." She said her eyes unwilling to meet his.

"NO." He snarled angrily at her, taking another small step still closer and diminishing all distance between them. She looked up at him, letting out a small gasp.

Irritated she looked up at him, "Stop lying to your...."

His hand raised halfway in the air to reach out to her face. To clamp her stupid mouth. But he just couldn't. Not when she was shaking and crying like that. Not when she looked so helpless. The strong woman he admired had suddenly disappeared. All he saw was a woman weakened by her feelings.

"Please, for your own sake, shut up, Ruhaani. Stop saying it again and again. I don't love her." He said tersely, his hand gently held her arm.

She looked back at him fiercely, "Aadarsh, you loved her so much. You ..."

Tears unexpectedly rolled down his cheeks. It was too much to hold onto. Especially when she kept scraping his wound. Reminding him of the one thing he wanted to forget forever— loving Siddhi.

"Please, Ruhaani. Stop. Leave it." His voice was suddenly low. Like he was begging her.

A bit shocked, a bit confused and a whole lot worried, she reached for his arm. Her fingers grasping his upper arm. "Aadarsh, Please. I can't....I can't stop thinking about it. I don't want to be the one standing between you and your happiness, between you and your love."

His hand flew to touch her cheek, finally. His thumb wiping the fresh tears rolling down her cheek. "You're not. I promise, Ruhaani. You're not." His voice became a coaxing whisper for a bit. "I don't love her anymore. You're not in the way of anything. I swear. You're not in the way of anything."

At this point Ruhaani didn't know if she was being stubborn or he was. The scene of him looking at his first love flashed before her eyes.

"Why did you look at her like that then? Like she made you feel a hundred things in just one moment." She demanded, not willing to give up. Not when she had got so close to figuring out what he wanted, what he needed, what made him happy.

Aadarsh shook his head stepping back suddenly. His hand slowly slipped off her cheek. "Because she did." He shouted his honest reply.

Something broke inside Ruhaani in that very moment.

However what followed next was not something she expected.

"She made me feel hurt all over again. She made me feel regret. She made me feel stupid. She made me feel anger." He stepped back from her and kept moving back. The traitorous tears cascading down his cheeks. His emotions tumbling out all at once. The clinkers from his past, still felt hot, like he had lived them hours ago.

"I didn't leave her Ruhaani, she left me. I didn't choose to lose her. She decided to leave me... at my lowest." He scoffed looking away. "I don't love her, not anymore." He looked back to meet her eyes. "I can't. I won't. I shouldn't. I couldn't. I wouldn't. Never."

Ruhaani blinked processing his words, processing his state. If she thought, she had already seen him at his lowest during Holi, she was wrong. She gasped and leapt forwards as he slumped onto the wooden floor of their room when the back of his knees hit the bed.

"After all these years... seeing her." He sighed. "It was like relieving the worst days of my life again. A fucking nightmare, only that it was as real as it could be."

She slowly shuffled to his side and sat beside him on the floor.

He turned to her slowly after a long pause. "I don't love her, Ruhaani. There's no love for her, anywhere inside me. Today was just the confirmation. I didn't feel...that...that feeling inside me upon seeing her. The one that had always been there. It was dead."

"Why did she leave you?"

"Long depressing story." He belittled, looking away.

"I have all the time in the world."

He steadily turned back to her. His gaze drifted to her hand that reached out to hold his. He didn't want to dump his issues on her. He didn't want to be some broken mess before her.

He didn't need her. A part of him disagreed.

He had never had someone who'd sit by his side and listen to what he felt. Not in all these years. Not when shit had hit the roof. Not when his life had taken a nasty turn and taken him down some road he never wanted to go. Not when he needed someone the most.

But he had now. Someone who was able to see his pain. Someone who cared about what made him happy, about what he wanted. For once, he wanted to selfishly lap on to all the attention he got, especially hers.

"I guess it was the worst year of my life. The same year I had looked forward to with so much enthusiasm was the year fate chose to wreck me." He stared at the photo frame on the wall unit, the one photograph that had his mother and him. She was standing behind him and squeezing him in her over-enthusiastic momma bear hug, pressing a kiss on his temple.

"The year you lost your mother," Ruhaani said softly, following his gaze.

"The year Maa, left us all." He nodded, new tears blinding him. "It was a tragedy." He paused and then spoke again. "It was supposed to be a happy event. Maa had left with my Papa in a rush for the hospital. It was more than two weeks before the due date. I was glad. I didn't want to share my birthday or my birthday week with anyone. We were all so damn excited. Me, Abhi, Ashvi, Dai Jaan, Bua.

We had all decorated the house. We are just waiting for the good news to come and the mystery to end. Would it be two boys or two girls or we'd have both—one sister and one brother? We all had our guesses in place waiting to see who was right."

His voice then suddenly dropped into a painful silence. "Never even thought we would never see Maa again." He bit down hard on his lower lip, trying to not cry or groan. The relentless pain twisting through his being.

"She...she never came back." He said in a voice that had lost it's decibels and was soaked in difficulty.

She gently squeezed his hand that she still held onto. Their fingers intertwining. He turned to her. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks wet with tears, and the face of a man who had seemingly lost everything. She saw pain in those eyes. It wasn't hard to see his pain. Especially, if the pain was that of losing someone. She knew what that looked like. Her own eyes glimmered with tears, it was so harrowing to see the otherwise composed man so vanquished.

He shook his head, looking away. "That was the beginning of... a mess. It felt like the end of the world for all of us. My Maa, she was..." he choked on his own tears.

"She was a beautiful person, Ruhaani. If only you met her...you'd know. She was like...a lifeline, a life force. She was the one who made us a happy family. We used to be a very happy family. The kind they show in movies. Maa and Papa had a love story. They married. They had us. It was their happily every after. They used to joke about it." He shared fondly, remembering the happy times. "It was perfect..."

A pause occupied his narrative.

"until it all turned over. Maa was gone. Leaving behind not three but five kids. Papa was inconsolable. He had lost his purpose to live, his life had lost meaning for him. He didn't even want to see his own babies and his own kids. All of us were inconsolable. It took an awful lot of time to actually come to terms with it. Sometimes it feels like we still haven't."

After a long mourning pause of a few minutes he slowly spoke again.

"Maa's death broke Papa completely. He was a changed man. He turned to substance abuse, heavily. Few days after Maa...left, I turned eighteen, an adult. It was school's final years. Exams were round the corner. But we, all of us, could barely function properly. Badi Bua, Shelly Bua, DJ; they held the fort, but they could never replace our parents. Eventually, Phupha Ji took responsibility of Papa's business, made me the signing authority."

He fell quiet again. As though pulled into a maze of bitter memories.

"You had Siddhi, did you not?" She asked doubtfully after a long silence, wondering why he didn't mention her.

"I had her and still didn't. She understood. But she couldn't see me...all of us like that. It was a blow for her too. She was particularly fond of Maa too. Things just kept falling out of place. Especially because Papa also refused to his responsibilities. Someone had to be the strong one."

"And that was you..."

"And that was me. Maa always said, the elder one always had more responsibility. In her absence it was my job to make sure the little ones were taken care of. And now I had four."

"So you have up on your dreams? Your dream college?"

"I had too. I couldn't just leave. We all had lost too much to be able to take the loss of each other's presence in our lives. Nirvan and Mukti were so tiny. And I would never be able to live with myself, if I chose to be selfish and self centered then. Which also meant, all life plans I made with Siddhi would never materialize. To add, I did miserably in my exams. Failed in one, barley passed on another.

It was a disappointment. The first time I failed. There was no way a good college would take me in.

I knew I couldn't hold back Siddhi. She had her dreams and everything else in perfect place to live them. So I told her to give me time. To go live what we dreamed off without me and I would figure out a way to be with her after graduation. Told her we would manage a long distance relationship. That our relationship was strong enough to make it stretch over an ocean. She didn't think the same. She broke up.

Things were in a pretty bad shape at home at the same time. Papa's health was worsening, the substance abuse had made him frenzied, moody, difficult to be with. Abhi and Ashvi were not okay. The loss of a mother is a blow, but of both parents at the same time, is a bigger blow. Every day there were debates and arguments between Badi Bua and Shelly Bua about responsibilities. Five children isn't a small number.

I might have not been an adult, but I was smart enough to know it would eventually end with us being separated. I was eighteen just in time. I took their responsibility. Dai Jaan was always there to support me and take care of the twins. Shelly Bua moved in with us.

I did my best to convince Siddhi that nothing would change. That I would still love her. That I would eventually figure out a way to make our dreams come true, just not all.

She was stubborn. She said it would never be the same. That I would never be able to live for myself again, that my life would always revolve around them, that if given a choice I would always choose them. She didn't want to be my last choice.

Those were her words. I can still hear their echo in my ear." He chuckled dryly. "She left me for all the reasons, you married me for." He turned to her.

Their gazes met, through the sheen covering their eyes.

"She was stupid."

Aadarsh's lips moved a little but he couldn't smile. "I was stupid, Ruhaani. Loving someone should be a part of our life, not the reason we live or thrive. Loving someone mustn't consume you. I let it, because that's all I saw growing up."

A long silence filled the ticking minutes.

"I don't fucking love her Ruhaani. I regret loving her. I regret being stupid and naïve." We said bitterly after the silent time lapse. "I let her hurt me. It's on me." He pulled his hand out of her hold.

"You should sleep. It's been a long day and I just made it worse." He chuckled dryly, getting up on his feet.

Ruhaani sat frozen. There was so much to process. She felt bad for him. She had never imagined, the reason he was not with Siddhi, would be because she abandoned him. Left him when he needed his best friend and the girl he loved most.

She felt angry. How could she be so heartless to leave him?

"Come on, up. Don't want to fall asleep on the floor, do you?" He said mockingly. It was like his mask was back. The tears on his cheeks dried, the ones in his eyes gone as though hidden somewhere. He was suddenly acting like he hadn't just broken down before her.

She lowered her gaze to the hand he extended towards her. She took it and got to her feet. He was quick in leaving her hand and walking away to his side of the bed. She slowly followed him.

He looked up at her, as she approached him just as he sat on the bed. Her gaze meeting his. He felt exposed. She knew all his pain, all his wounds. She had seen his vulnerable side.

Shock wrote itself on his face when she diminished the distance between them and threw her arms around him. He closed his eyes, the second she engulfed him. Her hands gently caressed his upper back. He tried hard to fight the urge but he failed.

Tears rushed down his cheeks, sobs broke out, and his arms wrapped around her tightly. She swayed a bit under the impact but clasped onto him. His face rested against her upper chest.

He was like a small boy who was lost. He had finally found someone who found him, who saw his pain, who held him like he mattered.

Ruhaani closed her eyes, her fingers weaving through his hair, holding him close. She wanted to take away his every pain away. She wanted to be the love he deserved. She wanted to be his in every way and never let him feel abandonment again. She wanted to be his home, forever.

• — • — •

Looking forward to read your thoughts.

Finally, a hug at chapter 50! #SlowBurn Hopefully, worth the wait.

Next : Sunday (this week is work, work, work 🙃)

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—Anami!♡