CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 59: A date to mend everything

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"What are you doing outside ?" Fawad asked her with worry .

"Going back to my home" she replied almost instantly trying to hold back the feeling of being overwhelmed.

"Safia , Don't . Don't do this to yourself. Just go inside and rest. You need it" Fawad insisted and covered her from the umbrella. His own body was now soaking in the rain with every passing moment.

Safia just took a step back from the umbrella letting her fall under the rain , but Fawad quickly covered her with the umbrella again .

"Why are you even doing this?" She asked with a little frown , tears whelmed up again in her eyes and her throat felt heavy. "Just why?" She asked as a sob escaped her lips.

He stayed silent staring at her sadly . The words stuck into his throat which he desired to say . The words he had never been able to confess to her.

"I-I tried to get over you . I really did . I tried everything. Baking , overworking-studying all day ! everything ! But you, you never left my mind . You, You decided to make everything so special and just go !"She wiped her tears harshly . Her voice was cracking, and her throat was still aching as she continued,

"And, and just when I decided to finally become my old self , you came back ! You just made me realise that the feeling of confidence was just a mirage ! I hate you !" She sobbed wiping her tears . She angrily stared at the umbrella throwing it away.

"Now you are back with you fake concern ! Your false promises ! What do you even want ?! If it's because of your humanity , then spare me" She wiped her tears again as she cried .

She coughed before she could speak more .

"Now that you are done , come inside" Fawad grabbed her wrist pulling her inside . He let her say all the words she wanted to say , because he knows the pain of keeping the words inside one's heart . It chokes the soul .

"Leave me" she cried .

"Just stop crying" Fawad said in frustration, while still slowly dragging her towards the hospital room.

"You are not my husband okay?! Stop forcing me into anything! Just leave me" she cried . She wanted to get away from the man in front of her before she start to say more about her pain. Or perhaps because she knew , if she stayed more time and Fawad cares for her just a little more she wouldn't be able to be free from the cage of his love.

"I am your husband Mrs Yousuf " he turned around staring at her directly. The grip of the wrist was shifted towards her arm as he held onto her. "I never sighed the divorce papers . Even if I did , we are not divorced the islamic way.." Fawad told her .

He never intended to divorce her either . He wanted to just make Safia believed that they were divorced so that she would leave him. But he ? He just burnt the papers as soon as she went , pretty sure that she would never come back .

He felt that death would come sooner to him, and he wanted to die as her husband only .

Safia was shocked and seeing this he put a hand under her knees and other under her waist carrying her towards her room . She just stayed in surprise at that , silently tears fell down her eyes. What was even happening? Everything was very shocking today . First meeting the real Kalyani , now this .

He put her on the bed , almost instantly regretting his decision to tell her about it. He said in the flow of the moment . He just sat there not wanting to leave Safia alone and she was quiet too .

The silence was thick but the presence of each other was making it better .

"Are you hiding something" Safia finally decided to ask him. Her mind was going all around counting the incidents of the past. There were way too many things hidden from her and she wanted to know it. Maybe the past held the key of a door which was important for her to open.

"No" Fawad said.

"Tell me Mr Siddiqui...I-Is there something I don't know?" She asked and he took a deep breath shaking his head a little .

"Don't think so much about such things" He said and got up .

'Maybe staying here was a bad idea' He thought to himself.

"The divorce was never about me being barren right?" She realised as hot tears rolled down her cheek "It was something else. Something I missed"

"You are overthinking" Fawad cut her stream of thoughts .

"No, if it was the reason you had so many chances to-to consumate the marriage but you didn't. It was only later when Ismail told you " Safia felt stupid that she hadn't thought about it earlier . "if the marriage was just for that , then you had the chance , and you-you spent many months with me, you wouldn't have wasted your time without atleast a checkup"

Safia's mind which was earlier clouded by grief of Radhika's death was now thinking of all the possibilities finally. The things were easy to figure out for her, if she wasn't so blinded by grief.

"It's not that okay?" Fawad quickly rushed outside the room shutting the door.

Safia just stared at it , as it just confirmed her suspicion.

But what about the girl? She thought to herself , but she frowned 'Wait, it's not like I saw them doing something..or whatever it is . I will clear it out . First I need to solve this matter'

She didn't knew what to do , or whome to ask . Her eyes fell on the door from where Seth was passing. She quickly went outside again .

"Seth !" She called him and he turned his head towards her , the sound of her voice was enough to make her heart race.

"How are you feeling now?" Seth asked with his infamous gentle smile.

"Kinda bad. But I can be good , if-If you do me a favour" she coughed a bit in between.

"And what is it?" He asked .

"Everyone is hiding something from me , please tell me" She insisted, but hearing this Seth just pulled out his phone from his pocket, "I guess my mom is calling me Safia , I would be going" he instantly said while putting his phone on his ears pretending to talk with his mom.

"Atleast , hold the phone the right way" Safia taunted and Seth quickly adjusted his phone whose screen side was facing Safia , while the the backside with cover was touching his ear.

"My bad" he said and quickly rushed away.

Safia just stared at the wall of the room tiredly . Her stupidity took over her, and it was probably to late to realise that , but again it's better late then never .

Her heart was pounding against her chest as she kept thinking of ways .

'Only someone close to Fawad can tell me the truth' She thought, and Augustus's face came across in her mind . The tan skin looked so shiny and she could swear that in her imagination his eyes were twinkling with stars in a comical way .

'Yes ! Him!' she quickly grabbed searched the pocket of her robe but there wasn't her phone . It made her frown . 'Darn it , I should have thought that why will they me keep my phone in this hospital gown' She cursed the situation.

Night came . Each second was difficult for her as she tried to utilise her hundred percent brain in tackling the situation, but it was very hard.  Either way nothing could come across her mind which would force Fawad to divorce her like this ?

'Was it his father?' she thought, for the hundreath time today but the possibility of that was zero in her eyes. His parents weren't fond of her and his mother went as far as try to insult her in a function, but Fawad took her side. So what could drive him to leave her now ?

~

The restaurant looked decent with red and golden fabric making it's curtains and table clothes. Waiters wore the suits matching the theme of the place . Adhikrit was excitedly eyeing the furniture and the pretty wine glasses which were stacked on top of each other to make a beautiful pattern.

"Dada ! Isn't it magnificent?!" Adhirkirt asked making Rudhra smile , "It surely is sweety"

"Here comes our dish!" Rudhra excitedly told Adhirkirt who have been waiting for this dish for the past hours.

"Yesss!!"

Kalyani just passed a smile at the father-son duo . She wanted to have a chance to talk with Rudhra and sort out the whole matter , but it was kinda difficult currently . She couldn't talk about such a serious matter like that in front of Adhikrit.

She watched as Adhikrit and Rudhra ate from the same plate while Rudhra kept stealing pecks from their son .

"Rudhra ,are you liking the food?" She asked him trying to initiate the conversation.

Rudhra was surprised at her attempt but he just gave her a little nod . Disappointed at this , Kalyani decided to be quiet and eat the food .

"Adi , after eating please go and join Niya di outside.  She will take you to a park" Kalyani told him and he stared at her .

"Why only me and Niya di? I want to go with you and dada too" Adhikirt pouted.

"We will join you soon too , it's just we need to talk out something" Kalyani's words made Rudhra look up from the plate . He was busy enjoying his butter chicken with naan. He stared at her while his mouth was still full of food.  It made her smile at that .

She always felt that he had changed completely, but perhaps it was only his decisions which were changed . He was still the same boy she once fell in love with.

After eating , Adhikrit quickly left outside in excitement , waving his hands at his parents as a 'Bye' sign .

Rudhra waved him back while gulping the food down his throat with difficulty. He didn't knew what was this time in his plate.

Was Kalyani marrying someone else ? And wanted him to step away from Adhirkirt's life forever? He wondered.

Due to this fear , he didn't looked up from the food and just kept on gulping the bites one by one .

"Rudhra, do you need something else too?" Kalyani asked and in fear he just stammered out "Al-Alcoh-cohol"

It made his eyes widened and he clasped a palm across his face.

"No dang—"he whispered in horror still not able to believe he really spoke that. Now the thing is , he is indeed an alcoholic , but he didn't wanted to admit it in front of Kalyani.

Instead of a feral or angry reaction Kalyani just calmly told him "Don't be nervous," as if she had sensed that already.

"I guess , I can't just hide from the topic , so just tell me why are we here today?" Rudhra asked her, he wanted to get over with the painful part already.

"It can't be just said out in hurry , for that , I need you to understand my words" Kalyani told him.

"Go ahead,I will try to understand" Rudhra said , although he was doubtful that he can ever get over Kalyani or forget about their son . He could only think of all the negative aspects of life .

Kalyani closed her eyes and opened them with a sign , she guessed it was time that Rudhra know her side of the story completely too.

"Rudhra—I never ran away from you" She said and Rudhra frowned . What was the use of bringing this matter right now ? He thought to himself.

"That day , I ran from the wedding , but I told Radhika to inform you about my whereabouts . But instead of telling you , she hid it and told Khalid's men instead. They followed me in the train and Zeheb helped in escaping" Kalyani said and took a deep breath continuing her side of the incident.

"She told me about Zayan , and how he is fight against Khalid and asked if I will join them , I agreed to it . Afterall it was a fight against the wrong people . Zayan offered me a training in hacking in the west , but I refused because I wanted to stay here waiting for you" She was explaining her point as her throat felt heavy. She remembered the hard time when she lost her family , lover and her trust on her sister all at once and especially at the time she was pregnant.

"But you never came . I came back after 2 years with Adi , still trying to find you only to know that you have indeed taken your father's place in Khalid's company . You were with the man I hated the most and doing the wrong things. If these weren't enough, I heard that you were finding me to kill me too . I couldn't take it all , and started to hate you" Kalyani wiped her tears eyes.

Rudhra heart clenched seeing this condition of his beloved , but how could he tell her that his words were mere lies , which he said out of anger . He could never hurt her , but he decided to stay quiet , because it was too late. He wanted to tell her that he said that out of anger.

His mother who was his only family commited suicide in front of him , out of embarrassment and shame . She couldn't handle the taunts the society gave her after Kalyani ran away from the wedding .

"I can understand. But I hope you know that you don't need to get my validation for moving on" Rudhra told her and her emotional self was fully gone, and a confused frown formed upon her lips.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. You can move on if you want . I can even be an uncle like figure to Adhikirt, just don't send me away from him and cut him off from my life" Rudhra insisted and Kalyani scoffed.

"You got it all wrong, atleast let me complete. I don't want to move on of anything, instead.."

Rudhra cut her words in middle ,

"You don't?"

She shook her head in irritation, "Let me complete Rudhra" she said with pressed teeth .

Rudhra gulped with fear and gave her a little nod.

"I realise that you were misguided by Khalid , you chose the wrong ways indeed , but you are doing things right now . I want to forgive us. The mistakes I made and the mistakes you made too. So, if you are okay , I want to build a new figure with you"

"I am not dreaming right?" Rudhra asked with shock as he heard the confession of his ex fiance.

"No, you ain't ! Now tell me, will you give me the chance? So that we all can live like a family?" She asked and as she said those words Rudhra couldn't control himself.

He quickly stood up from the chair almost pushing the table down and rushed towards Kalyani . He hugged her tightly, snuggling his face in her neck as he lifted her up from the ground.

"A hundred—no wait , a thousand times yes!!" He shouted as he swirled her around like a princess . She laughed whole heartedly. Something she had not done in the past years . Tears trickled down her eyes falling on his cheek , but the smile didn't seize to disappear . They were smiling till the point their cheeks hurted...

And well , till the time the people across the tables thought that they were made people.

Niya was standing across the hallway with Adhikrit in her arms who looked worriedly at his parents giggling and smiling like they were teens . Niya almost laughed at Adhirkirt's worried expression. Her laughter stopped slowly and she took a sigh in relief with a smile that finally her friend was happy.

To be continued.....