Veritas - AbhiRa FF

Chapter 4 - Change Your Mind

"I don't love you anymore", she whispered. "I don't love you at all." His throat closed. "It's all right, sweetheart. I love you enough for both of us."

― Susan Elizabeth Phillips,

Akshara spent the whole day walking on eggshells so as to not run into Abhimanyu or Aarohi. It was a good thing that after a week of being on leave, there was almost no time to spare.

Abhimanyu, she could handle, she thought off-handedly. After the embarrassing incidents of yesterday and today, she didn't think it could get worse. But she tried not to tempt fate. And also refused to think about what his words meant this morning.

But her half-sister was another story. Even with a few days apart, there was no change in her feelings related to her. What would a few days do that three years of separation couldn't do? She didn't know why it was so hard for Aarohi to understand her feelings towards her. Over the years, there had been plenty of moments when Akshara's patience had almost given out, when her agony and dismay over being labelled Sirat's killer had almost taken over, and she had almost responded to her vindictive claims. Almost.

Almost.

But then her step mother's face would come at the forefront of her mind - requesting her to always support her daughter. And Akshara did not have it in her conscience to destroy a dying woman's request.

More than ten years had passed. That fateful night had all but destroyed an already crooked relationship. Although she made it a point to never think about it, sometimes she thought about how life would have turned out if she hadn't gone behind Aarohi that day. Sirat would have been alive. She wouldn't have had to live away from the family in order to appease her sister. She wouldn't have lost a mother all over again.

During her darkest moments, she would let Aarohi's accusations take over. She had been told not to do so but sometimes the iron clad control she had over her thoughts slipped and she would imagine a world where she wouldn't exist. Where her father and step mother would have been a couple taking care of their child Aarohi.

After all, no matter what Naksh mama or Keerti Bua said, she had been responsible for all the carnage that had happened that day. There was truth to Aarohi's words, no matter how bitter they were. Why else would no one in her family support her?

"The problem doesn't lie in Arohi's accusations, Akshara. It lies in your own guilt." She remembered her therapist's words from years ago, as she arranged the chords on her guitar. She scoffed derisively. Get rid of her guilt?! As though there was any way to change the past.

A tear ran down her cheek as she imagined a world without herself in it. She closed her eyes as she thought of a happy Aru. A smiling Sirat. Her grandparents with a grin on their faces. Her brother being coddled by his cousins. An angonized Abhimanyu.

Her eyes opened with a start as his face came into mind. He exuded a calm demeanour but his eyes had held more pain than she could fathom.

As she wiped off her tears, and got up from her stool, she tried to understand her emotions. Why was it that she knew that her absence would have hit him the hardest. Why was it that her heart knew that a man she had met a few months ago would probably have been crushed with despair if something were to happen to her?

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Abhimanyu had similarly spent the whole waiting for a glimpse of Akshara. He knew she was busy - so was he, considering the fact that even his aunt wasn't present at the hospital, and he had a back-log of cases he needed to get through. He went through his rounds and worked on his case notes, with one eye on the door - but she never showed.