||~~The Brewer's Girl~~||

👼Karma👼

☺Chapter - 12☺

❤Dedicated to feeling_being for she's been really encouraging all this while even though the story might not go as she wishes. Love and appreciate you AD❤

❤Karma❤

Aashna

It's dark by the time I'm walking back home. Tears are not ceasing to flow down my cheeks today so I've taken the root from the alleyway in order to avoid a public rush at this hour.

Tushaar has come and made me smile temporarily but Kukkie has upset me again. It's past bedtime back in India and she had called me to say some rude things. I mean I didn't understand how it was all my fault. I was the one who tried to reach out and mend things between me and our parents but still my mother had disturbed Kukkie by calling her and crying complaints about me. Of Course Kukkie didn't like that mom was crying because of me and she had spewed fire from miles away and I was more sadder than being upset because I knew somewhere she supported me but most times it felt like there was nobody standing up with me. Only Aditya had shown me some kindness when he took the phone away from his wife and saved me from her hormonal bellowing.

I was independent for a long time and have always fought my own battles but having come this far I am starting to get tired. So is it wrong of me to wish for someone who'd stand up for me. Someone I can trust and lean on for a while.

"Oh!" I exclaim and bump into something hard and realize it's a person. I'm just going to apologize when a familiar scent hits my nostrils and I look up to find the silver locket dangling down his hard chest, playing hide and seek from the black button down shirt he's wearing. Right from the chest hair exposure to the sexy beard and moustache, I am stunned, revelling in our proximity. When I finally meet the depths in his orbs, he loosens his hold on me and I stand straight again feeling the lack of warmth from his touch.

"I thought you had left," He comments with a scrutinizing gaze, "Without caring about the people close to you. Again." he adds.

That stings deeply and here I am already so vulnerable in front of him. Funny how I wished Kabir would be the one who'd stand up for me but sadly he is the only person in front of whom I have to stand with all my strength and not fall.

"Were you looking for me?" I channelize the energy between us, at him. He does look caught but then shakes his head and mutters something along the lines of 'delusional'.

"I have better things to do. Why were you crying?" He has the nerve to ask and be rude at the same time.

"What does it matter to you?" I ask on the verge of cracking but also fuming inside to resist. This is the moment I hate so much, when I'm feeling at my lowest and someone as much as just asks how am I doing and all I want is to just spill the beans and cry my heart out. But in front of him I have to try so hard to keep up my defenses.

"Hmm. It doesn't." He shrugs like he has just asked casually and this is disarming. He doesn't even try to break through my defences anymore as if he isn't even interested. But then why has he cared to ask?

"Brave of you to take this route. It's not that safe." He has his hands pushed into his pockets and is looking around. There is nobody around on the dark street, just a faint sound of a cat mewling somewhere far. I am staring at him under the streetlight as we stand close and it feels like that night we first met but so much has changed since then. But why is he caring to tell me it isn't safe around here? Why is he just not only rude or just only sweet? This warmth and cold that he directs towards me is messing me much more than it had in the beginning when he seemed to plainly hate me. Now it is difficult when he, as much as, even glances at me.