Beautiful Girl

Part Thirteen

When he pushes through the main door, the scene meeting his eyes is one of intense confrontation.
Khushi is glaring at his Mami, her fists bunched by her side as the rest of his family looks at her with varying degrees of distaste and suspicion.
The sound of the doors attract their attention, and they turn to look at him.
Khushi does too and her lower lip trembles and he is opening his arms without a word for her to run to him.
She does.
His family takes a collective surprised gasp.
Dramatic fuckers!
When her arms close around his torso, his tilting world rightens itself on its axis and the iron band of fear around his chest disappears.
Nothing is lost yet.
She's crying.
Her sobs unmake him.
They tear him down and build him up only in the image of rage and nothing else. He will raze the world for her.
"Tell me."
And she does. In halting words broken by hiccups and sobs. She tells him how the people who took her in did so only for the money she brought. Her parents life insurance, their savings and the prime piece of property that had been in her father's family for more than five generations.
She tells him how the Guptas sold the house to buy the farmhouse they staged Payal's wedding at.
She tells him how everything Payal's clad in comes from blood money, comes from what was rightfully hers.
The anger surges in him like a tide, and when it breaks, it decides who he is going to be.
He knows how things are going to play out.
When Di comes, she's going to make it all ugly.
She's going to try and humiliate the shit out of Khushi only because he had the audacity to like her.
Still likes her.
Likes her enough to go against Di.
In ways that matter, Arvind Malik runs in their blood.
He looks at Khushi, hiding her face in his chest, and he looks at his family.
Some look at the scene in front of them in bafflement, others in scorn.
As if Khushi deserves their judgement for fighting for what's hers.
"Khushi, hey," He cajoles gently. She needs to drink water. She is shaking.
"Come with me, okay? You need fluids, jailbait," He tries for levity, but it comes out sad. She hasn't been jailbait for last twenty hours.
He takes her by hand to the massive dining table, motions Hari Prakash to bring a glass of chilled water.
He pulls out a chair and makes her sit. Her knees bend like a docile child.
She trusts him to make this all go away.
How is he going to put it all back where it should be?
He is also one of the guilty ones.
He also wanted to take something from her just because he thought he could.
Is there a penance for almost ruining someone?
He hands her the glass and she drinks, as he sits on his haunches in front of her, looking at her.
Her eyes are red and her face is swollen. Her lower lip is bruised as if she has bit into it to stave off her pain.
How does he make everything all right for her?
She hands him the glass and stares at his face, doe eyes open and vulnerable .
He puts down the empty glass, leaving his hands free and she bends forward to hold on to his hands.
"What am I going to do, Arnav?" She whispers to him, aware of the people standing at her back, glaring daggers.
She might be mature for her age, but she's still a soft little thing world wants to satiate itself with.
Maybe, this is what's different when people turn eighteen.
Eighteen is the license society gives you to ignore the vulnerability of those who still need protection.
Despite all his sins, he isn't the goddamned society.
He isn't going to let anyone fuck her up anymore.
Right now, she needs Khushi's Arnav. One who is kind and gentle, who is patient enough to indulge all her whims, in love enough to forget being Anjali Raizada's brother and Arvind Malik's son.
Later, later when Di gets here, he will play Arnav Singh Raizada once more.
For her.
For Khushi.
He will be the demon to scare other demons into leaving her alone.
Love in all the ways that matter also means responsibility. He needs to be her shield till she learns to take what she wants from this selfish world.
"It will be all right, sweetheart," He whispers back. "We are gonna be okay. I promise."
"I don't wa-"
"You will never go back to the Guptas, Khushi. I promise," He says firmly.
He calls Hari Prakash to fetch him something light to eat, and sits there on the floor before her, rubbing her palms in between his.
Slowly her eyes start to loose that haunted look, and when Hari Prakash delivers the sandwiches, she tugs at their joined hands and without a word, he rises to take a chair beside her.
They eat in silence.
He is keeping an eye on her plate more than paying attention to his food and it astonishes him, the realization, that he, Arnav Singh Raizada has the capacity to care for another person.
He puts another sandwich on her plate when she finishes off the two and her fingers pluck the triangle without prompting.
She must not have eaten the entire day.
She is already birdlike. She needs to eat regularly. Another frisson of anger lances him.
The Guptas are vile people.
He is going to destroy them.
The door bell rings and the sound of the door opening at his back makes him sit straight.
Di is here.