Fitoor | ✓

22 | Bayees

A/N - Here's a slightly longer chapter. Hope you enjoy it ( update after 3 days again, yay!). However, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back to the vote goal pattern again to ensure regular updates otherwise I'll update everything like a spammer and when I don't have time to write, I will have no chapters in stock to upload. I am currently doing Fitoor for CampNanoWrimo and my finals are going on too, so the struggle is real guys. Thank you for understanding. 

also, Lekh and Tara sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G !

Much love, Aashix

22 | Bayees

As the day of the wedding draws closer, Tara finds herself forgetting all the bad thoughts away and pulls hopeful dreams towards herself. Maybe, it's because of the fact that she got to get away from the Rajput house for a while. It definitely did give her a chance to breathe.

They say where you live shapes you and it's no hidden fact that the Rajput house drowns in colorlessness and broken dreams and negative vibes. And it certainly had succumbed Tara to itself. She couldn't help but hope that she's get to raise her child away from that house. She didn't want her child to be raised under Indira and lose control over her own baby and she knew it would happen. Indira would no doubt take over every decision regarding her unborn baby and she'd use manipulative tactics that Tara didn't want her baby to be around.

There was also an underlying fear of losing her child to Indira and a dread that he or she would end up becoming someone she didn't want to have as a child. She knew it was a very wrong thought but she couldn't help but think about it. What if her mother-in-law managed to shape her child into a destructive soul like herself?

It was when she was thinking all this that Varsha came into her room.

"Where are you lost?" she asked as she sat next to Tara on the bed, smiling.

Tara smiled back, "Just things to think about it."

"Hmm. A lot of things are happening, so many things have changed and our going to change." Varsha said, staring at the ceiling and speaking to no one in particular as if she was just thinking out loud.

Tara nodded, "So many things." She heaved a heavy sigh. She was exhausted from yesterday, she had danced and enjoyed the sangeet function late into the night and the bonus was that the sisters had really not created any drama. In fact, they had been pretty jolly. They weren't so bad after all. However, this did lead to fewer hours of sleep in the night and every one had to get up early to see off Ramya and Pankhuri who had stayed the night.

The women sat in silence for a long time, not doing anything which was something they hadn't done in a long while.

"I totally love sitting idle." Varsha commented and Tara agreed.

"Totally."

But their peacefulness didn't last long when Tara's phone rang.

"Who is it?" Varsha asked.

"Uh... it's Lekh." Tara replied, confused. Why was Lekh calling her, not like she didn't want him to but still, it was very out of the blue. In fact, it was very out of nowhere.

Varsha smirked and left the room winking at Tara, making her blush. It was after exactly five rings that Tara finally picked up Lekh's phone so he wouldn't think she was desperate or very eager to get his call. She shook her head at her immature childlike behavior.

When she picked up, she didn't say anything because she couldn't get herself to out of nervousness.

"Hello?" Lekh finally asked himself after a few proper seconds had passed.

"Hello." Tara finally spoke in a low voice.

"How are you?"

"Hello?" Tara cringed at herself. What was she thinking hello-ing again? She hadn't expected Lekh to ask her how she was, she had thought he must have called for a purpose and made the conversations short like he usually did except last time when she had become a philosopher and blabbered on her recent learned enlightenment.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" Lekh asked again.

"Yes, yes I can." Tara finally responded like a proper person capable of proper social interaction. It was true that Tara had gone through a phase like this long ago with Kartavya, although it wasn't ever like this. Tara always knew what she had to say with Kartavya. However, with Lekh, she never really knew how to act around him. But it wasn't a bad feeling, it was good feeling that gave her a sugar rush. And so Tara realized, that maybe, just maybe, love can happen twice.

"Uh. How was the sangeet?" Lekh muttered from the other side, scratching his head like a nervous boy.

Something about his tone makes Tara laugh, almost. She wouldn't dare laugh in front of him, God wonders how he'd take that. So instead she sobers up mentally and gives a decent reply, "It went smooth. Well actually."

Now Lekh could have asked a thousand questions about what 'well' entailed but he instead chose to ask the one thing they had never spoken about despite the fact that it was the baseline of their existent/non- existent relationship.

"We are getting married day after." He said.

Tara didn't say anything, she didn't know they were getting married tomorrow, it was a very nice information that he gave. Tara cringed at herself for being a wicked thinker all of a sudden, weren't the mood swings supposed to hit you after a few months. It had already been a few months though, and in another month or so her pregnancy would be visible. Tara thought it was inappropriate of her to find humour in her life right now, she was getting married for the second time in extremely odd circumstances. She was mostly sure this change of mood was because of her pregnancy because this was not how she was a person. Even before tragedy struck her, Tara wasn't exactly a very sarcastic person. She would seldom joke in the presence of her extremely close friends and Kartavya but never in front of others.

"Hello?" Lekh called drawing Tara out of her thoughts.

"Yes. We are." She affirmed to his earlier statement.

A silence fell over them, not exactly comfortable this time. Their mind had been so occupied everything, even each other that they had never really properly thought about the marriage and how it would live. Sure, they were falling for each other but it didn't change their circumstances, it didn't erase Indira from their lives, or Tara's dead husband or Lekh's past.

Lekh's past. She wasn't sure why it came to her mind but it did. No one had ever spoken to her about it, everyone had refused to do that. But being in the Rajput house and breathing in the air that suffocated Lekh, she had sensed that it probably had something to do with a girl. What else could it be, Lekh had studied in abroad so it was not like it was regarding his parents stopping him from pursuing his dreams. So what else could it be. Maybe he had fallen in love with a non-Indian. Who knew, it could be anything.

So out of curiosity, Tara asked him about it, "Why do you hate your parents so much, what happened in your past?"

She just didn't know she would regret it. A lot.