Q/N – I want to thank all those people who supported this SS in live-time, despite it being a different concept. Your support has given me assurance to bring out these non-typical stories I have in my mind. Pls keep it up 😊
IMP: Its a long chapter but please read A/Ns at the end about next SS and leave your comments.
--*--
"Flashback from 1 month ago
The next day morning after Khushi-Rohit had a moment, Rohit's sudden question stumped her.
"Khushi, what will you do if Arnav comes back in our lives now?" Rohit had asked out of the blue.
Khushi took a minute to ponder over it before replying, "I am your wife now Rohit and unless you don't want me to be, I will stay so."
End of flashback"
--*--
As soon as Khushi had walked out of her parents' house, she had felt something. A feeling as if Arnav was around. She forced a smile when Rohit held her hand and helped her sit in the car. But her heartbeats were erratic. Why was this happening?
And just when Rohit was about to turn the key on, she saw someone in the rear-view mirror of the car. Arnav!!! Arnav was standing there! Was she hallucinating, like many times before? But then the feeling in her heart told her he was there for real!
She opened her side of the car door, and before Rohit could comprehend she dashed to where Arnav was standing!
Khushi stopped only when she was inches away from Arnav. Was he really here? Really? Raising a shaky hand, she touched his face and saw him close his eyes, her own fingers burned with the fire that was always between them! That meant he was here, her Arnav was here! Devi Maiyya had returned him to her. Khushi didn't waste another second and hugged him without leaving a micro-meter of a distance!
"You're here. Arnav you're here. I am not dreaming am I? I told everyone that you'll come back but no one believed me. see, I was right. you're here." Khushi kept blabbering with sudden onslaught of emotions. She had dreamt of this moment every single night for so long and now that it was coming true, she couldn't control her emotions.
But Arnav didn't know how to react. Khushi was in his arms, finally after 4 years, but so was Rohit standing a few feet away, seemingly dumbstruck! What was Arnav supposed to do? Why did everything that was supposed to be right started feeling wrong to him?
And that's when Khushi's parents who had come out of their house by then, approached them with shocked faces, "Arnav beta? Is that really you?" Garima asked and that is when Khushi came back to her senses. Within a fraction of a minute she remembered she couldn't really celebrate having Arnav back, not in the sense she would have an year ago.
Now she was married, to Rohit. She wasn't Arnav's anymore!
Shashi Gupta was a wise man. Seeing the gathered crowd of their neighbors, he suggested Arnav, Rohit and Khushi to come inside the house and talk. And the trio, the star-crossed-lovers of a kind, took slow steps, together, inside the Gupta Niwas!
--*--
After Garima served a cup of tea to everyone and after a few minutes of awkward silence, Arnav himself started telling about his miraculous survival from the ship-wreck. He then told them how he was saved by some fishermen, how his first thought was to come to Khushi, how he was told to be handicapped for life and how he decided to better not come back in Khushi's life to make it miserable being a wife of a handicapped man.
They all had mixed emotions. Mixed because, on one side they were very happy that Arnav was alive and hale and hearty but sad because he had let them believe he was no more! Even if they give him an excuse of the trauma of his horrible accident, it still wasn't fair for it did to Khushi.
