Due to Be Married || Shivika AU SS

three

"Shivaay, please, come home. We miss you, son! Can't you forgive your mother, Shivaay? Can't you show me your face just once?" the voice crackled from his phone. In a fit of rage, Shivaay's phone lay in pieces on the floor of his hotel room.

No, Shivaay could probably never forgive his mother for what she'd done. It was because of her that his smile had forever faded, and that he was living like a zombie with no other purpose in life than to simply exist.

And could anyone forgive someone who'd put them through that? Through unnecessary heartbreak?

Shivaay would not go home to such people, would not go home to a place that could only remind him of everything he had lost.

Gritting his teeth, Shivaay called for Khanna, angrily demanding a new phone in two hours' time. When Khanna nodded and left to do his task, Shivaay was left victim to his thoughts once more.

"Mr. Oberoi? It's Liz," called his neighbor from her room, directly adjacent to Shivaay's. "I thought I heard something break. Are you okay?"

"Yes, thank you, Ms. Martin," Shivaay replied in the most polite tone he could manage at the moment. Liz was overly sweet for a business partner, and it was obvious to him that she was trying to get in his good books, but Shivaay had never even looked at another human being after Annika. It was as though she's spoiled all other people for him. Whenever he met someone new, his mind would instantly, subconsciously, compare that person to Annika.

She doesn't talk like Annika. His stature is far too stiff for Annika's taste. If Annika was here, she'd have done it so much more differently.

It was as if she'd become the sole truth of his existence, the only star coruscating in his universe. The depth of his love was deeper than any ocean she could compare his cyan eyes to. If only they'd realized in time. Then perhaps they would be celebrating their anniversary together, as a married couple. Instead of apart, as two lovers who had been pried away from one another.

Shivaay sometimes sat and wondered how she was now. Had she moved on in life? As much as the thought of her in the arms of someone faceless killed Shivaay from within, it wasn't improbable.

She was gorgeous, inside out, and any man would be enamored by her, as he had. He might have thought that he'd wish otherwise, but the truth was, if Annika's happiness lay in Shivaay's discomfort, Shivaay would sleep on a bed of needles for the rest of his life.

If Annika's happiness lay in the arms of another man, Shivaay would let her go—no matter how much he hated it.

Before Annika, Shivaay was a wet block of clay, shapeless, cracked, and deformed in places. Annika molded him into a big vase, and filled him up with flowers. She brought joy and color into his bland, reddish-brown life. But when she left, the flowers she had carefully preserved within him had withered. They had plenty of water, but what will they grow without the sunlight that was Annika Trivedi?

"Annika," he called out to the emptiness. "I miss you."

Those were his words. Not "come back to me," as many other lovers would have said. Wherever Annika was, as long as she was happy, she could stay there. Shivaay just wanted to see her once. To see her smile just one last time. For assurance, so that he could die peacefully, knowing his Annika was preserved as the youthful, charismatic, vivacious chirpy girl that he had fallen in love with, all that time ago. 

Hopping from place to place like a modern nomad, avoiding his birthplace with excuses of business, and living in a world without anyone's care or affection. So passed Shivaay Singh Oberoi's life. 

In just two days, he was due at Lonavala for a conservation project, and then he would fly to Florida for a business summit. 

To be honest, he was dreading what came in two days. It would be his first time stepping foot in India in almost eight whole months. He'd be there for only a day, but something still ate up inside of him. Something told him that his day in Lonavala would be a bit different than his other business trips.