Abhira- A Forbidden Tale

Epilogue

"Papa, you didn't have to drop me all the way here" Aaira says as she gets down from the car. 

"One, my girl's graduating from school today, it's a proud moment I would never miss.

Two, you look beautiful in your mother's saree and I wanna make sure the guys know why they should stay away from you" Abhimanyu smirks. 

"I think you made it pretty clear to them in all these years" Aaira rolls her eyes and Abhi chuckles. 

"Okay, let me click a picture, your mother wouldn't spare me otherwise" Abhi smiles and clicks Aaira's picture. 

He then kisses her forehead as she leaves for her farewell party.

xx

Abhimanyu steps into the cabin, into his and Akshara's bedroom, the sunlight seeping in from the transparent roof and caressing his face. 

He takes out the printout of Aaira's farewell picture and pastes it next to Akshara's who is wearing the same purple saree in the photo. 

He clearly remembers the day when this picture was taken. They had just found out that Akshara was pregnant with Aaira and he had taken her out on a date two days later. 

He caresses the photograph and then pastes Aaira's picture next to it. 

Tears fall from his eyes as watches the two most important women in his life.

"I'd never let go"  he had promised her.

And he didn't. 

He never let go, even after all these years. 

Akshara still lived and breathed in him and in Aaira. 

As he looks at the photograph of his daughter who is now 18, he realises how quickly she grew up and how mature she turned out to be for her age. 

She was four when Akshara was diagnosed with cancer and sixteen when she lost her mother. 

For twelve years, she had seen the best and the worst of life. 

Akshara's cancer was cured in the two years that followed after her diagnosis. And even though her body had changed drastically, she was still the same to Abhimanyu and Aaira. 

For the next eight years, Aaira grew up realising how pure the love was that her parents shared. She grew up learning what it means to love and be loved and she also somehow learnt to never settle for anything less. 

But then, as she turned 14, Akshara relapsed. 

And this time, each of them knew that her days were numbered. 

Akshara being Akshara, made sure that she spent her last days surrounded by her family, teaching her daughter everything that a mother should and preparing Abhi for the parenthood that was ahead of him. 

Three weeks after Aaira's sixteenth birthday, Akshara breathed her last. She was surrounded by her husband, her daughter and everybody she held dear. 

Abhimanyu and Aaira both tried to be the mature person in this situation, trying to hold back tears and smiling for the sake of the other. But then one day, they broke down, and they broke down for good. 

This time when they rebuild themselves, they decided to rebuild Akshara in themselves too. 

And now, Akshara was alive and free, living in the hearts of the two people she loved the most. 

Abhimanyu picks up a pen and under the photographs of his two beautiful girls, he writes a note like he had for the past many years.