Reality Ever After

Part 53. Shattered But Stronger

Hey everyone,
How are you guys doing?

Thank you thank you thank you so much for the overwhelming response on the previous chapters. I loved all comments and I love to see all of you so in love with this book. There's nothing more rewarding than this for a writer. So thank you again.

A lot of you have reached out to me to write more in English as they don't understand Hindi. I absolutely understand that and hence, I've added English subtitles in brackets for all Hindi dialogues. I hope that helps. Let me know if this works for you. If not, we can think of other alternatives.

Thank you guys again.

Lots of love,
-SV

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Manik opened his eyes in the middle of the night feeling distressed and uncomfortable. He probably had had a bad dream due to everything that had happened the prior evening. He had finally walked out on his best friend. And although it felt like the best decision he had made to cut out a toxic part of his life; he still felt sad on how things ended. Dhruv was after all his best friend for so many years. He had never imagined things would become this ugly. And that's why he thought to put an end to this right now to save themselves from anymore toxicity. This would definitely cut him and Dhruv both some slack and they both could focus on fixing their lives and move on. A lot of damage had already happened in the past and he didn't want to deal with any more negativity from Dhruv. But now that he thought of the prior evening, he couldn't believe how he had handled the situation. Dhruv had punched him, yelled and said a whole lot of hurtful words to him. But he had not gotten angry on anything that Dhruv said and not only that, he had not even even felt that hurt. Like he had so many times before. The only thing he felt at that time was how he couldn't let Dhruv affect his mental peace and sanity any longer. And the most practical way of dealing with it was to distance from him. And hence, he had done exactly that and walked out of his house leaving all the negativity behind.

He came back home to find Nandini pacing around the living room frantically waiting for him to come back. She was clearly worried about him but as soon as she saw him enter, she freaked out. She saw Manik's lip bleeding and that was her final trigger, after which a few tears made way from her eyes. Manik immediately wiped those tears off and got her to stop crying after multiple attempts. He then sat her down and narrated everything to Nandini. Only after knowing everything, she was convinced that Manik was okay and probably had taken the right decision. He had indeed come a long way from being an angry impulsive lion to this mature man that he was today and she couldn't be more proud of him. Nandini then cleaned his wound on his lip to stop it from bleeding.

At that moment, Manik had so much love for Nandini, that he couldn't explain. He always knew she loved and cared for him beyond measure. But seeing her right now, just melted his heart. She was cleaning his lip with so much care like it was hurting her instead of him. She kept blowing air on the wound while applying the antiseptic solution so it doesn't burn him and at the same time, was almost in tears because of everything that Manik had to go through. Never in his life had anyone felt so much love and care from anybody in his life. A sudden surge of feelings overpowered him and he didn't realise when he started kissing her. She immediately responded to him and the two of them landed up making love thereafter and finally fell asleep in each other's arms ending yet another challenging day.

He then stared at Nandini sleeping soundly next to him and smiled. Just the sight of her in the middle of a dark night just brought so much peace to him. She had put on Manik's old and her favourite white shirt before going to bed. God only knew why she liked it so much. But he had to admit that he loved seeing her in it. She looked like she was his when she wore his clothes and he wouldn't have it any other way. And How could she look so sexy and cute at the same time? He thanked Nandini's Ayyappa once again for bringing Nandini and him together. Because now, he didn't think it was possible for him to survive without her. And today; he had the courage and the strength to walk out on his best friend only and only because he knew he'd have her by his side. Not only that, but he realised that he did this because for the first time, he chose himself over his friends. And for the first time, he chose to want to be happy. And only Nandini had taught him how only you're responsible for your own happiness.