Lifeline

Chapter 3 - The Fall

Standing in front of his gift of hard work, he looked at the royal mansion of his and tears dropped from his eyes. He never wanted it. No never. His small room in the orphanage was enough for him and much better than these empty bricks. But he earned this and everything else with hard work and dedication so he could become capable of Piya. So he could give her all she ever had or wanted. So she could be the princess while being his queen. This was the place he wanted to make a home.

This is the place he wanted to make a home.

But he failed because of one damn thing he couldn't control back in past. Just because of his background, he was rejected and never thought of.

Reputed family was necessary for Khannas status and he failed to have that one jewel in his damn crown of success and goodness.

His family, his past and his background were tainted. Tainted with so much darkness, he himself didn't want to face again, fearing he would be sucked in that darkness and never rise again.

As he shambled inside his so-called home, sorrow hit him harder.

The silence laughing at him and coldness mocking his dream to live with the stars of her eyes. Why is it such a big sin to have a cruel past? Can't anyone look past his darkness? The way he embraced the light and achieved everything that was out of his reach. Didn't they see it or consider it for a moment?

Suppressing a painful moan, Abhay stumbled in his room and looked at her photo placed on his night table. He took the photo frame with trembling hands and gazed it with red eyes, letting the feelings reign him as his grief and heartbreak crystallized into tears and rained down from his eyes on her picture and he slumped on bed with a thud.

She accepted him as a best friend, knowing his past, then why couldn't she accept him as a lover and husband. Every time she broke the societal norms for him then why couldn't she look beyond them today and accept his love.

The darkness, from which she brought him out, was consuming him once again. Then why wasn't she coming back to him as she came fifteen years back?

He still remembered the day he had saw her for the first time, when his little world had broken into dust. He had been lost and deprived of strength.

On a point where love and happiness had become just words for him, nothing more. There had been no hope left for him and he was contemplating how to finish himself.

And that's when she had entered as a ray of light in his darkness.

He was sitting like a stone on the bench of the back garden when someone sat beside him. He didn't turn to see who it was. It didn't matter to him anyway. Nothing mattered to him anymore.

She started to speak without caring for his response and it was kind of strange.

"You know last week when it rained, my childhood doll dropped in the muddy water. I thought maybe she wants to take bath so I tried to help her but instead fell in the mud too and became a doll of mud, myself. I was scolded a lot but I couldn't tell anyone that I lost my doll in the mud. Everyone will laugh at me or scold me. It's so tragic that I'm unable to mourn her death. But you won't laugh at me, right? You won't get angry either, right? C'mon you aren't that arrogant and bad to make fun of me or hurt me when I'm sad, are you?" She said with sighs and mourns with the expectations from him

Abhay was listening to her ramblings silently. Her voice was having some strange effect on him. It was soothing. Something different from what he was habitual to. Different from the mockery and harshness.

He tilted his head to have a look on the girl. He was surprised by the beauty. The sun radiating her chubby cheeks made her look prettier than ever. Her sparkling eyes took away his breath. He forgot his pain and worries. It was as if the dark past was illuminated by the brighter future and present leaving no trace of darkness.