A/n -> I have used some Hindi dialogues in this chapter. If you don't like them, let me know kindly. Your author here has a sensitive heart 🥹😂🙈

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Simran

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I had excused myself from the family, and instead of going to the room, I decided to dance for a while.

I was angry, a lot angrier than one could think of, and I was in no mood to talk to my husband. It wasn't just anger bubbling inside of me; it was more than that. It was the fire burning in me, which only he could light.

My heart raced remembering how close we were at the table. While I was breaking inside, he was so nonchalant about it, like my feelings were irrelevant; as if what he put me through all these days, that torture, that agony, was something I deserved.

There was no ounce of effect on his features. And about those fake pregnancy reports...I felt played, betrayed.

How could he do that to me?

Why was he doing that to me?

Every time I thought that maybe this time things would get better, he did something to ruin it. And if I really mattered to him, he would have been with me, even if I was the one who told him to go to our room to get some rest.

All of that had just transformed my frustration into fury.

But those feelings, that anger, longing, disappointment were nothing in front of the pain I had been carrying like a mother carrying her child, nurturing it.

It wasn't just the pain of heartbreak; it was the pain of longing, the separation, the pain of not being held by my husband, the pain of watching him that close, yet feeling he was still really far. My heart ached as I recalled how he looked, like he hadn't slept for days, as if he suffered for me, too.

But he didn't choose you, Simmi.

That quiet voice spoke from somewhere. And that...that was my undoing.

A quiet sob left my throat, and I pressed a palm over my mouth to stifle the sound. I was in the temporary dance studio, alone, yet it felt no place was far enough for me to cry, where I could just sit with my pain quietly.

I was exhausted playing the role of a strong woman who wasn't bothered about the fact that her husband pushed her away; that her husband rejected her after claiming her as his own in front of the world; that her husband, who held her close in front of the world, shattered her when alone.

Even when the hallways were huge and the rooms very far, the walls began closing in on me, scared me, terrified me that someone would hear me crying. So, I decided to head to the topmost floor of the mansion, where no soul visited.

That part was under construction for a few months and was finally renovated. That floor was a house in itself, like the halls of a palace, and I knew no one would hear me there, not even the ghosts if any existed.

The mansion, no less than a palace with large hallways, was eventually feeling small for me because I couldn't find any corner to hide myself. Everywhere I felt like I was being watched and that I had to be put together and not break apart into pieces.

As I reached the top floor I felt another level of quietness; the walls there weren't closing in on me, but they were whispering a name...only one name. KIAAN.

Each and every door of all the rooms was locked. But there was one specific room at the end of the hallway that was open. My footsteps didn't echo as I ran frantically towards it like that room would give me the respite I needed. My feet on the soft carpet pushed me further to just reach my destination and hide myself from the world.

And as I walked in the room, teary-eyed and panting for breath, I found one corner and slumped there, hiding my face in my knees. My body shook with the sobs I had been carrying all these days. The wounds tore open as if someone had just rubbed salt on them.

I felt everything with force.

His touch, that dance in the rain, that kiss afterwards, his desire, his claim in front of the world, and then his push on that yacht

He was back, but he didn't care.

He didn't care for me.

I didn't mean anything to him.

Those thoughts were cruel, incessant, but were they even wrong? No, right? Because if they were wrong, wouldn't I have been in the arms of my man?

Everything he did felt like a chain of lies, an act for the world. I cried at my cruel fate, removing the mask of a strong woman who didn't care if her husband wanted her or not. I cried like that woman who yearned for her husband, who longed for him and wanted to mean something to him.

I was tired. I was exhausted. I was hurt. I wasn't the same Simran from before. I was someone the world was fighting against as if I was their culprit and they wanted to steal whatever ounce of happiness was left.

I kept sobbing, my body trembled, and I kept shivering in pain. That pain kept releasing from my body in the form of tears, but the more it released, the more vehemently I felt the force of how much of it was still piled up inside me.

I was drunk in my cries and pain, not aware of the surroundings or anything out there, when, all of a sudden, I heard the sound of a tick.

Someone was there.

My heart pounded in my chest, and I pulled my face up. I noticed some candles lit up now that were not lit before. When I had entered the room, it was only the moonlight lighting up the room, seeping in from the open windows.

And then....I felt a presence...his presence.

My heart beat became exponentially faster. I yearned to have one glimpse of him...just one... but I also knew I would break completely if I faced him now. And I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of watching me break in front of him.

I didn't want to deal with him. I didn't have that energy left anymore. I just needed to be left alone for a while. So, I got up without even looking at where he was and started walking towards the door.

"What were you doing here?"

My steps halted for a moment. His voice, commanding yet velvety, was going to be another reason for my undoing, and I didn't wish to give him the contentment of watching me turn into ashes.

I didn't answer him but took another step.

But I had to stop again.

This time, I didn't stop willingly. Instead, I was made to stop with a tug on my wrist.

His fingers had curled around my bangles dancing on my wrist in a possessive grip like he didn't want to let go.

But he already let me go, the night on the yacht, didn't he?

I struggled to free my hand with my back still facing him, but he wasn't letting me go. He only tightened his hold on my wrist.

"I am asking you something, Simran. You don't get to just walk away like that."

My last thread of patience shattered into innumerable pieces.

I didn't know what pulled the trigger to hit it. Whether it was the way his voice had authority or the way he commanded me to answer. Or maybe the way he called me Simran instead of Firefly.

His calling me Simran stripped me bare... like he wasn't the man I married, but a forbidden quest I should have been ashamed to be with.

My anger fueled me, and I twisted my hand out of his hold. I turned to him now, my rage simmering like hot lava. He stood there staring at me authoritatively like he owned me, and everything around. 

Like always, he had this stoic posture, making him the commanding, emotionless figure while I was breaking apart.

"Kis haq se puch rahe hain aap mujhse ye?"

[By what right are you asking me this?]

My voice was kindled with rage and coated with venomous pain that sinks in you and works like slow poison, making you feel every nerve break inside of you.

"Us admi ke haq se jisne bhari sabha mein mera hath thama jab mere khud ke parivar ne mera saath chor diya tha?"

[By the right of the man who stood by me before everyone when my own family abandoned me?]

He stood up for me even when he had no reason to, but left me barren the next day, like that was just a show for the world. He stripped me of the warmth he had provided me in front of the world, as if I didn't deserve it.

"Ya fir us admi ke haq se jo mujhe akela chor kar bhaag gaya tha?"

[Or by the right of that man who ran away, leaving me all alone?]

I spat the words, and it did the damage to me more than it could ever do to anyone else. The poison of my words burned me as I spoke to him like that. I hated it...every bit of it...blaming him and almost cursing him...because my heart...it was never in sync with my mind.

"As your husband...the man you are bound to, for a lifetime." He replied coldly.

Did I ever mean anything to him apart from that namesake wife?

"Husband, huh?"

"The husband who abandoned me when I needed him the most?"

I raised my hands and pushed him, but he didn't budge and stood there like the strongest pillar. But he wasn't the pillar of the beautiful beginnings of my life; instead, he was the foundation of the annihilation of my life.

"The husband who broke me again and again?" I pushed at his chest again as I cried.

My bangles chimed loudly each time I pushed him with force on his chest. It felt like they were crying too, because I didn't care for them either. How could I have...when the person who had begun becoming the reason for my happiness broke me.

"The husband who wanted my forgiveness, yet I am the one shattered and bruised while you...you stand there as if I have wronged you."

I pushed at his chest once more, but this time the impact was low. My shoulders shuddered as I rested my head against his chest. I was tired, too tired. My tears didn't know how to stop, my eyes stinging with the intensity with which the tears kept falling, my heart twisting painfully.

He was like a mannequin that didn't display his emotions. He didn't even hold me, just stood there with his hands in his pockets, as if he had put a leash on his restraint... and losing that leash would unleash hell.

But hadn't I seen his hell already?

I had seen him turn into a monster... had seen him conquer other demons too, with just a curt nod and a simple glare.

"Who are you, Kiaan? Why are you doing this?" I mumbled against his chest, my hands resting on either side of it, my head pressed there as well.

"What have I..." My voice barely a whisper now, ."...I...ever done to you..."

"Firefly..."

He called my name, but it sounded cold.

A chill ran through me as the coldness of his voice traveled everywhere, to each of my nerves. There was no emotion involved, no sentiment at all, like I was talking to a robot.

I looked up at him, trying to find the remnants of the man who would have slashed through every monster for me by now... who would have held me and caressed my soul as if it kept him sane, kept him alive.

But he looked like someone unrecognizable...someone who had nothing to do with me at all.

This wasn't the man I had dinner with. This wasn't the man who had been holding my hand while we ate. His presence betrayed my body with a shiver.

I took a step back from this unfamiliar entity... and he took one step forward.

"No, don't. Stop right there. Stop. Just stop. Not tonight," I said, shaking my head vigorously.

"Listen to me," he said, his jaw clenched, as if holding back anger.

Really? Anger? What right did he have to be angry at me?

"Aaj nahi, Kiaan. Aaj aap sunenge... aur main bolungi," I said with conviction.

[Not today, Kiaan. Today, you will listen... and I will speak]

"I waited for you... all these days, even after you were the one who pushed me away... even when I had no idea when you would come back, or if you ever would. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second felt like a battle against time."

"I wasn't living, I was surviving. I counted the days on my fingers, staring out the window, hoping for just one glimpse... hoping a miracle would bring you back."

"Every honk of a vehicle, every ring of the doorbell made me run to the door. And every time, I walked back disappointed... jaise kisi ne meri saari khushiyan hi udhaar maang li ho mujhse."

[As if someone had borrowed all my happiness from me.]

My lips quivered, and I sobbed harder, not feeling ashamed of how intensely I felt. I wasn't someone who hid her emotions and moved on. I was someone who laid them bare, and somehow came out stronger because of it.

And if this was the last time... if I was to tear my heart and soul open in front of my husband, then so be it. I would do it properly...so that every last shred of me lay bare.

"Pagal ho gayi thi main. Log daya ki nazron se dekhne lage the mujhe..."

[I had gone mad. People had started looking at me with pity]

I remembered the pitiful eyes of everyone when they would watch me looking at the door, or when they would catch me running to the door like I had gone crazy. 

Di even found me in the garage when I was with his car, like I was with his bruised soul, and stared at me sadly like I had lost the battle of love.

Only if she knew...love wasn't in my destiny...it just wasn't.

"Do you have any idea how I lived?"

He didn't respond, just stood there listening. Not sure if he was listening in real or just pretending.

"Ek ek minute maine aapki yaadon ke kishton ke sahare bitaye hain."

[I lived through every minute on installments of your memories]

"Do you have any idea how it feels to live with the scrape of someone's memory?"

I shook my head, wiping my tears with the back of my palms as I said with my broken voice, "No, you don't. You never will."

"Aur us pagalpan ki had ne mujhe itna pagal kar diya tha...ki main aapki car pe hath rakhkar aapke dil ki dhadkan mehsoos karne lagi thi..."

[And that madness had driven me so far... that I would place my hand on your car, trying to feel your heartbeat]

I chuckled humourlessly, recalling each and every fragment of my suffering, every instant when my heart broke more than before, each moment when I felt my soul was stripped of whatever warmth he had left me with.

"You ruined me. Barbaad kar diya aapne mujhe...is qadar barbaad kar diya ki main khud ko aapke bina soch bhi nahi paati...mera apna vajood, jise maine itni mehnat se seencha tha...ab aapke bina adhoora lagta hai."

[You ruined me... ruined me so well that I can't even imagine myself without you. My very existence: something I had nurtured with so much effort, now feels incomplete without you.]

He didn't say anything. He stayed quiet, and that actually slashed my heart...even though I was the one who told him not to speak, yet it was unbearable that he didn't even try to say something, as if nothing mattered, as if I didn't matter.

"Kyu?"

[Why?]

I shouted and then slapped him. I wanted to gouge out a reaction from him through that slap, but he took my hit without saying anything.

"Kyu?"

[Why?]

I slapped him again. But he said nothing.

"Kyu kiya aisa mere saath?"

[Why did you do this to me?]

I kept slapping him until my hands burned, until I started to feel the impact of each hit on my own soul while he stood like he wanted me to hit him.

This feeling of not belonging and being alone was worse than that of yearning. He was there, yet felt so far away, while being far from me, I had felt him close.

What was this connection?

Did I finally lose him for good?

He threw me out of this relationship without telling me?

And then it hit me.

He didn't just throw me out of his life and relationship. He made a choice.

He chose someone over me. He chose Rhea.

That realization was like a thousand slaps on me and my self-respect.

My husband chose another woman. He ran into the arms of another woman while he couldn't even walk to me. When I was taking steps to reach him, he had already crossed the threshold to get to someone else.

"You were with her, weren't you?" I whispered.

I fisted his shirt in my hands with every ounce of energy left. My eyes betrayed my reaction as I looked up at him, hurt and feeling deceived.

"You were with that bitch, right?"

He wrapped his fingers around my wrist, which was holding his shirt, and said, calmly, "Enough, you have said enough."

He freed his shirt from my grip smoothly and then turned around. There was a huge sandalwood table stacked with some files, some small cartons, and a glass jar of water. He poured water into the glass and pressed the tip of it to my lips after he turned back to me.

"Drink this," he said with his clenched jaw.

I swatted his hand away, the water spilled on his arm and the floor, and he breathed in anger.

"It all makes sense now. Now...now I get it."

"You planned it from the start. You wanted her and never me. You planned something with her against me."

I clutched my hair, pressing my palms hard against my head as dizziness overwhelmed me.

I started connecting the dots now.

"Tell me, did you...Did you... Sleep with her at our reception?"

Poison licked at my lips as the words of him sleeping with someone else got out. It made me feel disgusted...not because of him but myself...as if it was all my fault....as if there was something wrong with me which made him choose someone else over me...over his own wife.

Is that why his hair was tousled?

Is that why he looked like he was dipped in sin?

Is that why he was in the same clothes from our reception?

"Tell me. Why are you quiet?" I yelled.

The longer he stayed silent about that night, the more self-loathing spread its wings inside me.

"I said, enough, Simran Chauhan. You have said enough, and I have heard enough."

"Ab ek aur lafz nahi," He warned me.

[Not another word now]

I couldn't stop myself from crying harder.

"Let's go to our room. You look tired."

He extended his hand to me, reaching out for my arm, but I took a few steps back.

"Kyu nahi?" My voice got lower, and the energy I was holding onto till now evaporated in thin air.

[Why not?]

"Aap dar gaye ki main apne shabdon se aapke hi samne aapka sach bikher kar rakh dungi?"

[Are you afraid that, with my words, I would lay bare your truth right in front of you?]

He was still quiet, and that quietness was gnawing at me, tethering my soul, scraping the pieces of my broken heart.

I wasn't fine. 

This heartbreak was worse than I had imagined. Nothing could have ever prepared me for what I was going through. I thought what he did to me three years ago was worse, but it was nothing compared to what he did to me now.

His quietness was making me lose my mind. It was difficult taking everything in.

"Kya hua, Kiaan? Boliye na? Chup kyu hain?"

[What happened, Kiaan? Won't you speak? Why are you silent?]

That was my desperate plea of helplessness.

"Did you sleep with that whore or not?"

I choked another sob as I prepared myself for the ultimate ruination when he would agree to it.

"Was I just a game for you? Or maybe just another...Slut?"

Slut slipped my mouth before I could even realize what I had said. I noticed his jaw was clenching so hard, as if his bones would break any moment. The veins in his arms and forehead seemed to pop any second because of the rage that stirred in him.

"ENOUGH," he bellowed, and then he thrashed the glass onto the floor he had been holding till now. I flinched in fear as I watched the glass shattering into pieces, just like my heart.

He took one long stride, grabbed my shoulders as he brought me closer, dipping his fingers in my arms.

"You dare call yourself that word, and I will tear apart everyone who made you feel that way....who even put that thought inside your head."

Would he do that to him as well?

"You did that to me...what will you do now?" I murmured.

"Then pull the trigger on me."

He said it with such finality that I knew he would put a gun in my hand and tell me to shoot him.

 But how could I ever pull the trigger on the one man I had feelings for? The one who had awakened emotions in me: both light and dark, that I never even knew existed.

I shook my head, sniffling.

"Bas sach hi toh janna hai...bas aapka sach janna hai...kyu nahi aaye mere paas...kyu gaye aap uske paas...main kyu nahi, Kiaan? Main kyu nhi hu aapki khwaish?"

[I just want to know the truth... just your truth... Why didn't you come to me? Why did you go to her? Why not me, Kiaan? Why am I not your desire?]

That wasn't me talking. That was the girl who had yearned for just one soft look from him for so long, the one who wanted nothing more than to be cherished by him, yet had failed to keep him out of her heart despite being hurt and disappointed time and again.

"Sacha sunna hai na? To suno."

[You want to hear the truth, don't you? Then listen]

"Yes, I was with her."

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Ye kya kia Kiaan ne? 🥹 Par kyu? 🤐

Hi Lovelies,

I hope you all are doing great 🤗

I tried something new with Hinglish dialogues in this chapter. Not sure if it was good or not. Do leave your honest feedback. It would mean a lot to me. ❤️

Now, coming to the chapter, why do you all think Kiaan said he was with Rhea 🥹

What would happen now? 🥹

Do you all think Simran would forgive Kiaan? 🥹

Will Kiaan even ask for forgiveness, or still be that closed off like before? 🥹

Do share your views about the chapter. It would mean a lot to me. ❤️

P.S -> The next update will be published on Saturday ❤️

Thanks,

Shrishtee