Strangers 3 [Winner Of sartik awards]

Chapter 12: Hope

Shiv's POV

When you ask people what is the worst thing you can do to a person you will get a ton of different answers, but if you ask me always and forever I will have only one answer and that is to snatch away someone's hope. Because for most of us that's the only reason to live, so we all should think twice before we try and snatch away someone's hope.

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Samira's POV

I struggled to breath as I saw my world come down crashing before my eyes everything that I have believed in was now gone and I didn't know where to find it, the faith that kept me going was suddenly just a fiction, the beliefs that held me back from giving up was suddenly just an illusion. People say you should never hold out hope but what else are you supposed to hold on to when there is nothing else in sight other than endless darkness? So how am I to be blamed for what has come of me when the single ray of hope was also consumed by the endless darkness? How am I expected to move on while knowing that everything that I ever believed in could be just another illusion?

"Samira?" I heard Shiv's voice.

"Don't you dare Shiv, don't you freaking dare tell me anything"

"Samira you have got to listen"

"What is there to listen, you messed up my life Shiv do you even realize the intensity of what you have done? You told me it was possible to love, you told me it was possible to give life a second chance you told me that no matter what happens I could get through all that, I could fall in love be happy you gave me hope that I never even wanted Shiv"

"Samira, I didn't give you hope, I told you a story which I found interesting and beautiful you created hope out of it because you wanted to, because deep down that is exactly what you want a magical love story that goes against all odds"

"But what I want is a lie"

"Samira just because Rohan and Shanaya are having problems you just can't assume that love doesn't exist, because it does exist even in its most purest form for example just look at me and Rashmi she has twenty different mood swings in twenty seconds, she don't understand half of the philosophical crap that I keep on blabbering on but still those things doesn't even bother us, we are not tolerating or adjusting we love each other and we find our differences enduring and even if there is something bothering us we don't ignore the issue we talk about it we understand each other because we care an awful lot about each other and we will do whatever it takes to be with each other"

"I don't think Rohan and Shanaya worked any less on their relationships, they have struggled a lot and you know it"

"Yes of course I do, but what most people don't tell you is that love is an endless struggled and people are not perfect so the struggle is harder sometimes, people who tell you that love is about finding your own happiness are liars love is all about providing the other person with all the happiness in the world and finding your own happiness along the way"

"Shiv, Rohan and Shanaya have the best love story ever and when even they couldn't make it work then how can I?"

"You are still not getting it Samira you are still hung up on the place where you got your hope from"

"Isn't that's how it's supposed to work?"

"No you are supposed to take the positive energy you get from your source of hope and then you build your own reality around it"

"Okay now you are just making stuff up"

"I am not that's just how it works, because you will never have control over something you don't see but you will always have control over what you make, you took inspiration from Rohan and Shanaya and build your loves story with Aryan, you might not have control over what happens between Rohan and Shanaya but you have control over what happens in your love story and that's how hope works I know it's complicated but you just have to trust it"