Chapter 2 A

Neha

@SurrealFantasy

Hola Peeps. 

Today's episode was so heart rending and sweet that I couldn't keep a smile off my face even when the evil step-sister did her usual ranting.

Hayye. 

Anyway, inspiration stuck so here's the next part. This is going to be Part 1 of a 2 part chapter. Considering how happy the fandom is, I'm sorry if the chapter is not up to the mark!

N.B : Not proof-read.

C H A P T E R  2 A

LAST UPDATE :

“That is all but fine, Mr. Singhania. We’d be happy to do anything to honour your mother.”

“Thank you. My mother’s name is ….”

“….Akshara.”

The words however were uttered not by Mr. Singhania, but Abhimanyu - his eyes filled with reverence and barely held back longing. 

His personal siren stood not ten feet away, her eyes confused and mimicking the emotion in his own eyes.

His Akshara was here.

NOW:

And then she was gone. In a blink of an eye, she had vanished. 

As he had whispered her name, Mr. Singhania had turned to him, surprised. “How’d you know?”

And that one second it had taken for Abhimanyu to look at Naksh, his salvation had disappeared.

Did he imagine her? Was she merely a figment of his imagination? Had he conjured her up from the deepest recesses of the need in his heart? 

He sat there looking into the empty space, not answering the older gentleman, just staring at the space he could swear he had seen his Akshara at.

“Coincidence. He must have read up on you, Mr. Singhania,” his father had haltingly added and then turned around to stare at him angrily. Abhimanyu didn’t particularly care about what he thought about his preoccupation. He had seen Akshara. 

Where was she now? Why did this house remind him so much of his Akshu? What were the chances that Mr. Singhania’s mother was named Akshara?

Although confused by the interruption, Naksh had simply smiled at the guests just as the servants announced that the food was served.

Abhimanyu got up with his family as they were taken to the open dining room and made his way to the table, all the while looking around for any sign of Akshara. His heart knew she was here.

                  ***********

It had been four days. Four days since Akshara Singhania-Goenka had come back to her mother’s maternal house. Four days of calm and peace though, had done nothing to quell the discontent and unhappiness that had made a permanent nest in her heart. No-one had pressured her to talk, content on simply letting her do her own thing, at her own pace. No questions had been asked, although she suspected that her aunt and uncle had already grilled her brother. At this point, Akshara didn’t really care. It was fine, she reiterated mentally. It was fine to live in this sort of limbo - where neither her brain, nor her heart knew what to do. It was fine that her days began imagining him waking her up and ended with her sister wishing her good night. It was fine that the pain was settling in - becoming a dull thud she could always feel - it was starting to become her constant companion.

And it was in that limbo, that Akshara Singhania-Goenka had made her way to the living room when her aunt had informed her that her uncle’s guests were here. 

And it was in that limbo that she ended up looking into the startled eyes she always dreamt of, whispering her name like a sacred prayer.

A moment of despair. Of longing, of awareness. A moment was all it took for Akshara to all but vanish from the great room, running away from those eyes that seemed to always find her, seemed to always know exactly what she was feeling. She could feel his searching gaze even as she disappeared out of sight. But she couldn’t deal with it. Couldn’t deal with him. Or with what he brought about in her.

As she finally reached her room, she took a deep breath. Maybe she had imagined him. What were the chances that he was her uncle’s guest? 

God wouldn’t be that cruel.

It was that thought which brought her to her knees. 

Of course, he would be that cruel. First, he had taken her mother away from her. Then her dad. Then her step-mother. And then finally when she had nothing left to give, he had given her, him, only to take him away too. 

“I love Akshara.” 

“I….I don’t love you, Dr. Abhimanyu Birla.” 

“I don’t want to marry Aarohi.” 

“You were the one who saved me that day, weren’t you?” 

“You snatched my mother from me.” 

“You ruin everything.” 

“I hate you…”

As all the thoughts overpowered her mind, and her heart, Akshara felt her brain give way. She was hardly breathing. She had to remember to breathe, but no matter what she did, her respiratory muscles didn’t want to listen to her. She could feel her lungs constricting and her eyes close as she gave into to darkness.

*********

She was here. And something was wrong. Abhimanyu knew this to be true. His family was seated around the table but he couldn’t bring himself to sit down. She was here and something was not quite right.

“What happened, beta? Is something wr…” before Naksh could finish his line of thought, a shrill cry of “Bitiya..,” rang out from the first floor of the mansion as one of the servants shouted.

And before Abhimanyu knew what was happening, his feet were rushing to the very source of that noise as he shouted, “Akshu!”

His heart now knew for sure. 

She was here. And something was wrong.

He didn’t care that this was a stranger’s home, or that Naksh and the rest of the family was rushing behind him. He moved the poor worker out of the doorway and stilled.

Akshara lay on the floor, breathing heavily, her eyes all but closed.

“Akshu? Akshu! Can you hear me?” Akshu?”

His frantic cries barely registered with his own being. All Abhimanyu could concentrate on was Akshara. He gently made her sit up on the floor, leaning her body towards him. “Listen to me please. Calm down. We’re here. Breathe. Listen to me and breathe.”

Naksh was on the floor alongside him, Abhimanyu realised. He was holding her other hand, the one currently not clasping his own shirt. “Bache, you have to breathe. Akshu, beta, calm down. Try to sing.”

Naksh didn’t really know how Abhimanyu knew Akshara. Or why he addressed her as Akshu. Or even knew she was the one in trouble. Too many questions riddled his mind, but his daughter’s health was at the forefront.

“Abhi? Abhi. Abhi! I….I…Abhi.” Akshara gasped out as she took in Abhimanyu’s profile. His body was warm and calm beside her. And it somehow made her feel safe. 

A few minutes had passed, she realised belatedly. She felt her mind finally listen to her. Her muscles were slowly responding to her command. As she breathed out finally, she looked towards him. “Abhi, please, I..”

“Shh. It’s alright. You’re alright.” He cut her off, leaving the rest of her speech at the tip of her tongue. She could feel a heaviness blanket over her, her muscles finally tired of going against her brain, the hyperventilation finally tiring her out. Abhimanyu went to slowly get them both up, when the hand clasping his collar tugged him again. “Don’t please. I….Don’t leave.”

Surprised by the turn of events and more by the young man who looked at his niece as though she was the axis of his entire being, Naksh slowly stood up and saw the confused and questioning faces standing at the door.

“I’m sorry about the incident. I think Akshara needs a moment,” he completed and gently ushered the crowd away from the room, silently urging Keerti to take them all downstairs. As Keerti and the others grudgingly made their way back, Naksh looked at the duo settled at the foot of the bed. Dr. Abhimanyu Birla had his hands around Akshara, whispering a soothing murmur into her ear as she clung to his chest as though her next breath depended on it. As Abhi looked into Naksh’s eyes, a whisper of reckoning rocked Naksh’s core. 

Giving him silent nod, Naksh left at the room. Only to look back again and smile knowingly.

So this was the love that was driving everyone crazy.

*******

Abhi stared at Akshara. She looked tired. There were shadows under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes didn’t have the sparkle they usually exuded either. They seemed dimmed, lifeless. It scared him to wits end to see her like this.

“Akshu, listen. I’m here. But you need to rest, okay?” He broke off as he saw her shaking her head. With a little force, he managed to pick her up from her perch on the floor and laid her down on her bed. But she wouldn’t let go off his shirt. He smiled subconsciously. Not willing to let go of a chance to be near her, he silently sat at her bedside, while she looked at him with hooded eyes.

“You’re real, right? I’m not dreaming you up?” She asked, already half asleep.

“You dream of me?”

“Every morning. You wake me up, you know? By kissing me.” She smiled sleepily, barely registering her own words.

Abhimanyu stilled as he listened to her words. She wasn’t on any medication and neither was she drunk. But her honesty did make him wonder whether she knew what she was confessing to the man she had so brazenly rejected. 

How was he to confess that almost all his mornings began with the same thought too. That he imagined her face as the first thing in his mind every morning, as though his mere thought could conjure her up in his arms. 

He smiled shakily at her, smoothening out the wrinkles on her forehead and somehow managed to whisper, “You should sleep now, Akshara.”

Mirroring his actions, she brought her hand up to remove the  furrowed lines on his forehead and smiled again. “If this is not a dream, don’t go away, okay? When you’re here, it’s not so lonely anymore.”

He nodded as she went off to sleep leaving him restless. 

Lonely? She was lonely? He was the one who existed in crowds all alone. Who battered through his days all the while imagining what it would be like to have her on his side. And she was the one who was lonely? Why was it, that when she was the one who had mercilessly rejected him, and his love, that the bags under her eyes rivalled his own? Abhimanyu took a deep breath and shook himself out of his revelry.

What was she even doing here? In the Singhania household, instead of being stuck to her sister at the Goenka mansion? Nothing made sense to him anymore. 

But as he watched her sleep, still holding onto him, he made a pact with himself all over again.  

Not loving her wasn’t possible. Not wanting her wasn’t possible. Not holding her close while she was in distress wasn’t possible. And no matter how much he ran away, fate seemed to be bringing him back to her, like a wave to the shore. 

And clearly, running away from fate wasn’t possible.

So now, Dr. Abhimanyu Birla would try again. Try again to get rid of his own misery and perhaps the loneliness that enveloped the lady he loved. He kissed her forehead as he came to that conclusion yet again, breathing in her scent of peaches and lily of the valley. Finally giving in to the ache in his heart. The heart that didn’t know how to NOT love her.

As he stared again at her, noticing the slight scar from the surgery on her neck, the way her lips were slightly parted as she dreamt of something, the frown that appeared and disappeared at will, he was broken out of his thoughts, by a knock on the door.

“Dr. Abhimanyu? Your family is ready to leave.” Naksh said standing at the door. 

Abhi tried to get Akshara to leave his shirt, but when she wouldn’t and started stirring, Naksh came forward. 

“Don’t force her. Let her calm down and when she’s not frowning, gently remove it from her hold.”

Abhi did just that and weirdly enough, she left his shirt and turned into her pillow.

Naksh smiled knowingly at Akshara and then at Abhimanyu. “That’s true in life too, Dr. Birla. You can’t force her to accept things she doesn’t want to. It might be frustrating, but that’s just the way she is.”

Abhimanyu was startled by his words but nodded at the older man and he stood up to go out the door all the while trying to understand what he meant, when a sleepily muttered “Abhi” stopped him in his track.

He looked back at Akshara but she was asleep as she mumbled his name into her pillow. 

Naksh looked at her and then him as he said, “I think you and I need to talk, Dr. Birla.”

*******

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Bisous,

NeNe