MY ENDLESS LOVE FOR YOU.

CHAPTER-1

 "The first stab of love is like a sunset, a blaze of color -- oranges, pearly pinks, vibrant purples..."

PAST

PRITHVI

New day. A new beginning- general motivation for normal people.

Not for me. I wasn't granted a normal life since my birth so I wouldn't know how to live a normal life. Without my greatest strength, my mother. As long as I had her, there was nothing more I wished for. Maybe a lot of things for her though. Being a single mother, with no one to support us she struggled every day to meet her ends. Never once did she forward her arms, to beg in front of anyone.

'We get what we earn. Don't expect anything more and never settle for anything less than you own!'

It was her ideology, which I have strictly followed and promised to keep following.

I wanted to earn her a big house where the roofs don't leak and protect us from relentless weather at times. A wardrobe, full of clothes that she wouldn't have to wash every other night so her clothes are dried on time. We had limited things to have choices, a lot more we had to make it work. Maa tried to provide me with everything first. Rest was spent on our daily needs. Never anything for her.

'I'd buy it for myself, later.'

Her excuse is always the same. I believed her because I wanted to give her that 'later' along with every expensive liberty of this world. Maa was my world. I promised to make her feel my deep admiration and immense gratefulness every day. Naively, forgetting we have this today but no assurance of tomorrow.

She was employed as a clerk in a company, far from our home that resided in slumps. The same company that doomed our lives.

I hated her traveling every day for hours, and I had to get stitched her worn-out sandals each week. The man would give me a pathetic look to work on it again.

I hate people giving me that look, sympathy, pity. If we don't have the choice to live this life then who are they to judge? Despite schooling in government schools, I took side jobs- selling newspapers or wiping tables in small restaurants. Maa wasn't happy, she scolded me many times but I never heed her. Day by day I could see the routine, one meal at a day, taking a toll on her health.

Still, she worked and never complained. Every morning, she'd kiss my forehead sending me off to school then my nights would end with my head on her lap listening to her lullabies or stories. Most importantly she'd teach me lessons- to deal with life, to face the outer world.

I follow them religiously. Not able to understand many but I tried to remember everything she'd say. It was fine, she would be there to correct me, and remind me if needed. How gravely wrong I was.

One day, I was late home. Realizing I was late for an unforgivable number of things.

Maa, died in her sleep waiting for me.

The neighbor aunty who was much older in our slumps claims- Maa had a peaceful death.

It was the first time in my life, I broke down.

She wrote a two-page letter to me, but I couldn't understand- How was she aware her time was limited and I'd need to know the truth? The truth of my father, biological father. I didn't show it to anyone, not even to the officials from facilities as they addressed themselves to be. When they asked me about my relatives, I stayed silent. Not even uttering a word when I was allocated to the orphanage.

Everything was blurred in that phase, it was like hands were pushing my numb body from one corner to another, I didn't feel anything.

I thought my life was blank. No one was there, I was left alone in this world. Until Arjun, a boy of my age came, practically barreling one day. I ignored him for weeks as his personality was too loud for me. But the idiot was annoying and persistent.