Chapter 8

It was almost as if he felt his life come to standstill. What would he do if he lost her? He had only just found her and this was the moment he was going to lose her again. No! He wouldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t lose her, not this time, not now.

Arnav had just walked out the mall with shopping bags full of Sanjana’s stuff. He had just crossed the threshold of the door when he thought he had a glimpse of her. He changed direction walking towards the girl he thought was Khushi instead of his car. He could feel the tiny droplets of rain and knew it was going to pour soon. He was a few metres away from her when she stopped and seemed to be looking for something in her handbag. It took only a second. He heard the car rounding the corner and coming in their direction. He jumped out of the way throwing the shopping bags down realizing that the girl was standing in the car’s path and it wasn’t going to stop for anyone. She turned around upon hearing the car and that was when he saw her properly. It took him a split second. He ran towards her pulling her out of the way knowing she wouldn’t move herself from past experience. He felt her grip around him tighten and he did the same. Arnav had closed his eyes, relief washing over him. He had made it just in time, had he stalled any longer she would have been gone and he would have never survived. He felt her move and opened his eyes to make sure she was still there, make sure she was safe. He could see the fear and relief in her eyes but there was something else… something he was missing and just couldn’t lay a finger on it. They were drenched in the rain still not moving, still looking at each other as if it would satisfy that longing to see each other, as if it would make up for the 8 months they had been away from each other.

Even if she had hurt his Di, even if she did have an affair with his brother-in-law nothing was going to change the attraction he felt towards her. It was almost as if she was a magnetic force that always pulled him towards her and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t repel. She was the first girl he had fallen for. He had dated Lavanya for so long and had never felt anything for her but Khushi… Khushi was different. His heart seemed to beat faster when he was with her, he could hear his heartbeats increasing but never really understood why. After Aakash’s wedding he seemed to be realizing and he could tell she was reciprocating. “Tumhare saansein ruk jayegi,” he had laughed at his sister when she told him that one day someone will come along whom he won’t be able to live without and when he’s away from her he’ll find it difficult to even breathe. That day he couldn’t believe his sister, he passed it off as her usual ramblings little did he think that he’d be in that situation one day, but he was…

It was when Khushi was still working in AR. At that point he had hated even looking at her so he sent her to work in the old guesthouse that was under reconstruction. She had been there the whole day while construction was going on and Arnav hadn’t known that the house was so dilapidated it was going to cave in. Khushi had been in the guest house all day and the workers had decided to stop the reconstruction because they could see it was going to cave in so they locked the exit doors and left not knowing Khushi was trapped inside. The building had started crumbling from the far side and Khushi was in danger. “Help!!! Is anyone there? Open the door!” Khushi screamed banging on the door. There was no one there and her pleas went unanswered. She was trapped in a dilapidated guesthouse with no phone signal and not a single soul knowing where she was besides Arnav Singh Raizada. Khushi sat against a pillar with tears streaming down her cheeks thinking about how worried her family would be. At nine o clock the phone rang in Shantivan. Anjali had picked up the call and everybody had gathered in the hall because of the panick stricken look on her face. “Di, what happened?” aksed Arnav worriedly. “Payalji phoned and said that Khushiji hasn’t reached home yet or called. Everyone is very worried because she never does this she always calls if she’s late. They wanted to know if she was still in the office,” Anjali said sounding very distressed. Everyone had tried calling everywhere they thought she could be including her house to check if maybe she had reached home since Payal called but they still hadn’t heard from her. Arnav tried her cell, “This number is not available at the moment. Please try again later.” It seemed at that moment Arnav had suddenly had a realization and sprinted out of Shantivan.

Arnav was driving at high speed trying to get to her as fast as he could. Had he known it was so dangerous he would have never sent her. He stopped the SUV inn front of the guesthouse and could see it crumbling slowly. He broke down the door and shouted for her but couldn’t find her. He was really hoping she was on this side of the house. He was about to open the door to the only room he hadn’t checked when a wooden beam fell in front of him pushing down the door. Arnav was crouched behind the fallen beam when he looked in the room and saw Khushi sitting against a pillar where the roof was going to cave in. Arnav ran to Khushi and pulled her up and holding her by the arm dragged her out of the room seconds before the roof caved in. Once they were out of danger in a safer part of the house Khushi stopped in her tracks and Arnav realizing stopped in front of her still holding her hand until she pulled out of his grip. He turned around to look at her and could see the anger in her eyes. “I didn’t know…” Arnav started explaining when she cut him off. “You didn’t know? How is that possible? You’re god, you know everything!” Arnav now turned to face her. “Listen to me…” Arnav said but was cut off again. “No Mr Arnav Singh Raizada. Khushi Kumari Gupta has heard enough! Now it’s your turn to listen and if you’re not in the habit of listening then get used to it. What do you think? I don’t feel hurt? I don’t have any self-respect? I don’t have a family? I DON’T HAVE LIFE? No you don’t! Because you don’t think about anyone besides yourself!” Khushi burst out and pushed Arnav away. Arnav’s anger was increasing by the second he grabbed her wrists and pinned her against the wall not realizing how hard he was holding her wrists until a tear escaped. He loosened his grip and moved his hand only to find pieces of broken bangles falling to the ground and blood dripping down from Khushi’s hand where the bangle had pierced her skin. Khushi’s hand fell limp and she slipped into unconsciousness. Arnav had carried her to the car and had taken home that day.  He didn’t want to leave but he knew she was with her family and they’d take care of her. Arnav couldn’t help but blame himself. He didn’t know what he would have done if anything had happened to her. He would’ve died that day. It was also the day he had finally realized what his sister meant and she was right.

They let go of each other and stepped backwards, all without breaking their eye lock. The rain was pouring down and everybody was either inside the mall or in their cars taking cover oblivious to the two souls standing outside drenched. Except for two people, Sanjana and Karan had arrived at the mall to find Arnav leaving. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing he hadn’t seen Khushi until she saw everything that followed. “This is exactly what I wanted to avoid,” Sanjana said flatly. “As long as they don’t say anything to each other it’ll all be fine,” she said taking a deep breath. Karan nodded his head in agreement, “Can we at least get home before they do? You know how inquisitive they both can be and I really don’t feel like being cross examined by my best friend after almost watching her get run over.” Sanjana knew he was right, “You’re right. We should leave now but I’ll call you later once I’ve thought of a fool proof plan. I need to test it first just to make sure the idea works.” Karan raised an eyebrow, “It better be good because if this backfires it’s both our lives on the line.” Sanjana nodded her head in agreement and set off for home.

Khushi looked at Arnav once more before she turned away from him. “Khushi! Khushi wait,” he called after her retreating figure. She didn’t stop to listen to him. She increased her pace as she walked away from him. How could this happen every time? Whenever she tried to stay away from him he always found her. She had worked so hard over the past 8 months to get over everything that happened and it seemed like slowly everything was going to get undone. Every time she saw him and looked into those honey coloured eyes she could only remember the hatred she had seen in them that day. The day that changed her life, no both their lives forever. Khushi got into the car and drove back home as fast as she could before anything else could happen. Half an hour later Khushi stormed through the house racing past Karan who had been waiting for her and headed straight for her room. She threw the keys on the bed and still in her rain drenched clothes huddled herself in the corner of the room wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her head on her knees. She had a lot of time to think about whatever had happened in the last few days and she couldn’t hold it back anymore. She just let the tears flow down her cheeks. It was almost as if there was no end and they would never dry up. It was the eight months worth of pain and suffering that she had hidden all this time but couldn’t anymore. Was it possible that she still felt something for him after everything he had done? Was it possible after hating him so much? Could he still have a place in her heart? Was he still there? Had he been there all along? Most importantly – Did she ever really forget him? Did she still love him?