The Broken Bonds

Ch-23 The Innocence and The Guilt

Ziva came on the phone.
"Chachus." She squealed in delight. "I missed you both so much. And you didn't even call. Wait." She suddenly sounded worried. "Is that the hospital room? What happened to you both, are you alright?"

"Yes, we are alright." Vi said trying to smile and keep his voice strong. "We are just a little ill and that's why we had to come here. And we missed you also." Ro just nodded not trusting his voice.

"So then why did you not call me? And why did mumma and pappa not let me call you? They only gave weird excuses to me each time I asked them to let me call you. You should scold them. And you know the worst part? They took me to New York against my wish. You should scold them for that too. And when can we.."

Virat abruptly cut the call not being able to take it anymore and started to cry.

Rohit also wanted to cry but right now he knew he had to calm down virat.
"Ro..I..i can't..take..this guilt. I..I just can't.. I just can't."

Rohit cursed the wires attached to him and the pain that shoot due to the movement he tried to make to go towards virat. He knew he couldn't take him in a hug so he tried to calm him down with his words.
"Vi..please. I know you are feeling guilty, I am also, but we have to be strong." But vi kept crying, not listening to his words.

Just then yuvi who was outside the room, giving them privacy, heard the crying noise and quickly came inside, worried.

"What happened?" He asked seeing virat crying.

"We talked to Ziva." Ro said with difficulty "and she doesn't know."
Yuvi nodded getting a idea what might have happened.

He quickly went and poured a glass of water and gave it to virat to drink. But vi's hands were trembling so much that yuvi took it back and made him drink water to make him calm down.

"I know what you are going through, vi." He said after vi calmed down a little. "I am also going through the same. But we have to be strong. And we have to ask mahi for his forgiveness. And.."

Vi cut off. "We..we don't deserve it." He said and again started to sob. "We..we don't deserve his love or his forgiveness..specially I don't deserve it at all. I..I am the worst brother. He even asked me if I..if I trusted him..hoping that I would and what did I do? I not only broke his trust but asked him not to call me cheeku and called him a betrayer." Virat said remembering each and every word he had said to mahi bhai despite being three years to that cursed day.

It haunted him. Each day, each night, even before realizing that mahi bhai was innocent.

"He shouldn't forgive us..he shouldn't forgive me. And even if he ever does, I will never ever forgive myself for being the worst brother ever. For being the worst friend ever. For being the worst human ever."

"Vi, stop." Ro finally couldn't hear anymore. He controlled his voice which could break anytime. "I know we made a big mistake. And we don't deserve his forgiveness. We don't even deserve to ask. But we will have to vi. Just to let bh..bhai know that we are truly sorry and that we are truly feeling guilty. How will he know how much we regret if we don't express it? And we also have to be strong for another reason. I am sure he must be blaming himself for our condition. And he would be feeling guilty seeing us here. So we have to be strong and try to get better soon, so that we could leave the hospital and then we have to let him know how much guilty we feel. And how bad we feel. And we have to ask for his forgiveness. Even though we don't deserve it. But we have to do it, vi. We have to let him know that we have realised how big idiots we were."

Vi realized ro was right. Mahi bhai would be taking the blame of their condition on himself even though he was not responsible at all.
He nodded and wiped his tears roughly.
"You are right, we have to be strong." He agreed.

Just then the phone again rang. "Wait a minute, it might be Ziva." Vi said and quickly wiped his face properly to hide that he was crying. Then he signalled ro to pick it up.

"Chachus what happened?" Came her worried voice.
"I think it was internet problem." Ro said trying to smile and hide the sadness he was feeling.

And even though it was difficult for them, both pretended to be happy and listened to Ziva's complains about living in New York away from all of them and how she missed all of them.

On the other side, sonu took mahi to the canteen and made him eat despite his protests.
Mahi also then forced sonu to eat something knowing well that he had also not eaten anything.

"Are you good mahi?" Sonu asked after a while knowing the answer but he had to start from somewhere.

Mahi could lie, but he knew sonu would instantly catch it so he just shook his head. "I am so selfish, sonu." He said.
Sonu looked at him in surprise. "How?" He asked.

"They are in this condition because of me. They are, don't try to deny it." Mahi said knowing that sonu was going to protest. "And I should take care of them and I should stay with them and yet I just can't. I don't feel good. When I see them, I suddenly remember everything that happened three years ago and all the memories of sleepless nights and dreadful days come back to me. They are in this condition because of me but I can't even take care of them. I don't think I would be able to sonu. I just remember how they didn't trust me and suddenly my will breaks. How can I be so selfish? They are..were my brothers. How can I be so selfish?"

Mahi didn't even realize he was crying until sonu wiped his tears.
He held Mahi's hands and then said firmly "listen mahi. It's not your fault. Whatever happened to them is not your fault. The only one at fault was Siddharth who's now in the prison and going to get the punishment he deserves. Okay? Don't dare try to take it on yourself."

"No, sonu, I knew what would happen. He had warned me and despite that I came here."

"You came here for your friend who wished to see you."
"But I shouldn't have stayed. I should have immediately left. I could have immediately left. But..I..I..didn't." More tears rolled down from his eyes.

Sonu hugged mahi. "Mahi come on. It's not your fault. You can't blame yourself for this. You did nothing wrong in coming here and staying here. The person who was actually the culprit is behind the bars. And virat and Rohit will get alright. The doctor has said so. And there's no need for you to stay here. You should go. I am here, I will handle this."

"But sonu.."
"Mahi do you trust me?"
"More than my own self." Mahi said.
"Then please trust me when I say that it will be perfectly alright. You go to kolkata, if you want to, I will be here and I will make sure that they will get alright."

"No..but..I..I just can't leave them. I won't rest until I know that they are alright."

"Okay then, no problem. We will stay here, but you don't need to come even in the room, okay? You can keep an eye on them from afar."

This time it was mahi who hugged sonu. "I don't know what I would have done without you."
Sonu just smiled and hugged him back tightly.

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A/n: Just want to say that you guys are amazing and I am loving the response I am getting on this book despite slow updates specially since this book is very close to my heart. Thank you all for reading, voting and commenting. Also next few chapters I am trying to make as emotional as I can (I am not very good at it, but trying my best) and I hope I will succeed. Love you all and hope you liked this and you will like the upcoming chapters.

Also very nervous for the semis tomorrow. Hope everything goes alright.🤞🤞