-Omkara's POV-

"Jab milna tha toh kyun bichre hum(Why did we separate when we were destined to meet)?" I ask myself while making a sculpture without any idea of what to make.

I wish I could hate her when the innocence of her eyes betrayed me.

A year feels like an eternity to me. She walked out on me like I was nothing to her, I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't hurt when it did.

She knows that I hate lies and still she lied to me the whole time, made me feel much more alive than I was before and now I'm again a lifeless soul.

"Why Ishana, why? Was I too blind to see the deception of yours?"

As I finish the sculpture, I see that I had yet again made her face like the past year...I tear up before throwing it to the floor.

Remembering how my brothers tried to make me tell them about her but she was my secret. The secret I kept in my heart and because of that I shut them out.

The fault doesn't lie completely with her but I was at fault too for letting her in.

"To hate her I need to hate myself." I say when I hear her...

"Meri wajah se khud ko nafrat mat karna(Don't hate yourself because of me)." Here she is standing in front of me. I look at her and see that her eyes have lost their shine.

"What are you doing here?" I yell at her.

"To give you the clarity you need to become the righteous man you once were." She answers back while looking straight into my eyes. I want to believe but I cannot.

"You are lying," I say.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

I shake my head and say with anger evident on my face, "leave before I do something that I may regret!"

"No, I'm not going to leave you not like I did a year ago..."

"You con artists know how to fool anyone and make them feel good about themselves when they are a mess." I shout, not looking at her as I do not want to lose myself in her eyes.

"We don't make our victims feel good," she tells me, "we show them how big fools we humans actually are."

"So you are calling me a fool!" I exclaim as I walk towards her and pin her to the wall.

"No," she shakes her head, not looking at me but the floor, "I was the fool believing that love can heal any wound when I never was deserving of it."

"Why would you think that Ishana?"

"It's the truth," she says this time looking into my face, "people like me do not deserve love or rather a person like you." As she says that I can feel her breath on my neck.

I'm losing control over myself when I bend my head down and our lips are only a few centimetres apart. My feelings for her have always confused me somehow.

I close my eyes as our lips touch. I wish it is a dream because I cannot just melt like this and let her walk all over me again.

I push myself away from her before she starts responding to the kiss.

"This is wrong," I say as soon as she opens her eyes, not feeling my touch on her anymore.

"No, it's not. I'm right here where I should have been a year ago."

"What do you mean to say?" I ask her by giving her a hard glare.

She stiffens yet tells me why she left, "I couldn't live with myself Om, I never felt the emotions I felt with you and it was causing chaos in me. I wanted you to be happy with someone else!"

"That's bullshit," I'm not standing too far from her when I hit the wall behind her, "You know how much I hate lies!"

She nods while being scared of me, I can see it from her expression like she has gone through some kind of abuse...

I shake my head as I don't want to think of everything that may have happened to her because I was suffering and started taking drugs again to relieve myself from the pain.

She tries to say something but thinks better not to and is about to leave when something falls from her hand.

I pick it up and see that it is a full face mask the way she looked like a year ago.

Picture of the mask you'll see in the attachment and it goes in between these line!

"Ishana," I say and she turns around and I see that her whole face is covered with deep scars.

"H...how..did this happen," I ask as a cold lone tear falls from my eyes.

"My punishment for ruining your life," she replies back teary eyed.

I'm about to ask her again how it happened, when Shivaay comes inside clapping his hands with an expressionless face and someone else is by his side.

Seeing that person Ishana frightens and even shivers. He smiles at her in a wicked way.

"Seems like you have met my wife," he says and I'm rooted to the spot.

I look at Shivaay and ask, "how did you know about Ishana and how come she's married to Ronak?"

"I did everything for you." He replies back, making me feel angered.

I shake my head and tell him, "I wish I knew the truth before so I would have made sure that Ishana was safe.

"She is safe with me," Ronak tells me and asks her, "am I right darling?"

She nods and asks, "is it alright if I go and meet my father and sister?"

"Sure, but come home soon as my business partner is coming," he pauses for a bit, "wear your full face mask, so that he doesn't see your ugly face and wear something nice."

The tone of his voice makes me clench my fist and even Shivaay seems a bit uncomfortable. She leaves from there.

"Isn't she great," he asks us, "my business partner is going to love her." He smirks and pats his own back.

I look at Shivaay and my eyes tell him, "do something good and save her from that jerk."

Shivaay messages someone while I leave to look for Ishana as I need some more answers.

I look around and I then see her a few meters away from me, walking to some empty street. I follow her.

Soon she takes a turn to the left side and I keep following her until I see her going into a graveyard.

I walk inside too and see her going towards three graves. I keep a bit of distance but enough to see the names on those grave stones.

All of them had the surname Patel and then I hear her say, "I'm so sorry mom, dad and Mona, I failed you all," she is crying, "I couldn't save you three!"

She falls onto the ground and cries even harder.

"Why did you all leave me? Am I such a bad person to live with?" She yells in agony. I feel the tears pricking me as I realise that she is going through worse than me.

But that still doesn't give her a right to mess with other people's lives. As I'm wiping the tears away, she turns around, looks at me with fear written in her eyes...

"You should leave," she begins to say and one glare of mine shuts her up.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her a few seconds later.

"I could ask you the same question." She counters back defensively and I roll my eyes at her.

"Can't you just answer my question!" I say in a demanding way.

"Am I answerable to you?" She challenges me. I glare at her and she glares back at me.

I give her the mask I'm still holding in my hand, she immediately wears it, hiding all her scars.

"I know that I look ugly without the mask," she says and then pauses, "that's why you have been looking at my eyes or somewhere else."

I gasp as I realise that my so-called indifference is hurting her. I do not intend to hurt her as I can see she's suffering more than she should be.

Yes, I wished that she'd go through some pain to know how it feels to be hurt without knowing the fact that she already has lost everything.

"No," I shake my head, "you are never going to be ugly to me. You still are so beautiful just like the first day we met!" I tell her everything that's in my heart.

"You are lying," she shouts, "just like Ronak."

I walk closer towards her while she tries to move backwards but cannot as she'd fall right onto one of the graves.

"Never compare me with that jerk who's hurting you intentionally and plays with your self-respect."

"He isn't not doing anything like this to me." She blatantly lies, I just grab her arm and pull her towards me.

"Don't lie to me," I bend down and whisper into her ear.

"I'm not," she lies again.

"Then why did he tell you to wear something nice," I pause for a while, "which means something hot."

"Uhhuhummmh..." she starts talking gibberish while I raise an eyebrow at her.

"When he says to wear something nice, then he means to tell me," she pauses as she is collecting the words she could say, "that I should wear a saree."

I nod even though I don't believe her at all. She scrutinises me with her look.

I try my best not to laugh, she walks towards me, kisses my cheek and says as I close my eyes, "goodbye Omkara,"

When I open my eyes, I see that she is gone. For some reason I look at the gravestones and what I see leaves me stunned...

"Here lies Ishana Patel, a soul that never wanted to betray anyone but circumstances made her!"

I couldn't regain from the shock and fell unconscious.

"Om wake up," someone shouts in my ear, I slowly open my eyes and glare at my younger brother Rudra murderously until reality strikes me...

I sadden as I say, "she is dead,"

"Who is dead? You mean Bhabhi?" He asks and I look at him in a confused way.

"I can assure you that Gauri Bhabhi and your newborn baby girl Ishana are healthy," Anika Bhabhi says, "but you seem to have the same dream every day and night."

I'm slightly shaken but nod anyways.

"It's my fault," I say, "all of it."

"No," they say, "there wasn't any fault of yours and neither hers. You both were not meant to be for each other."

"I truly loved her," I say.

"And she loved you too," Shivaay says while the rest nods.

"Bade bhaal wale bhaiya, Bhabhi apko milna chaahati hai(Sister-in-law wants to meet you, long haired brother)." Saumya says as she comes running towards us.

I run into the direction she came from a few seconds ago and meet my wife and newborn baby.

"Isn't she beautiful?" My wife asks and I nod while looking at my munchkin.

"What are we going to name her?" I ask and this time I'm looking at Gauri.

"Ishana," she replies back with a smile and then asks, "didn't Rudra tell you?"

I shake my head, then I remember that he had mentioned it and nod while she slaps her forehead dramatically.

"Aap paagal ho(You are crazy)."

"Woh toh hoon main(That I am)."

We smile at each other and begin to laugh.

I'm lucky to have her as she accepted me with my past and flaws.

I smile, walk towards them, kiss her forehead and then our baby's forehead.

I look up and smile whispering, "rest in peace Ishana."

The End!