My Heart Snatcher 💖

9. Jealousy In Disguise🔥❤

Avni stepped off the bus with a flutter of hope in her chest. Her hair swayed in the warm breeze as she clutched her bag tighter, eyes scanning the familiar surroundings of the film studio.

Maybe he's back...
Please, God... just let me see him once.
She whispered silently, her heart pounding like a desperate prayer on repeat.
I've waited enough... just this once, please...

But fate had other plans.

Her breath caught as the security guard at the gate looked at her with blank indifference and said,
"He won't be back before the weekend."

The words felt like glass shattering in her chest.

She stood there, frozen in place, as the world moved around her-people passing, cars honking, the city alive... but inside her, something had gone completely still.

Dragging her feet back to the bus stop, she couldn't stop the thoughts that spiraled inside her.

"Why, God... why are you testing me like this? Haven't we already suffered enough?"
Her voice was just a murmur, carried away by the noise of the street.

"I miss my family... Ma doesn't deserve this. She's been through so much already. That property... it's the only thing we have left. Why her, God? Why us?"

The bus ride back felt endless. She sat by the window, her fingers clutched together tightly in her lap, staring out without really seeing anything. As the city blurred past her, her phone rang.

Ma.

Her heart dropped.

She inhaled sharply, forcing her voice to sound normal before picking up.
"Hello, Ma... you won't believe it-I was just thinking about you," she said with a forced giggle.

"Really? I don't believe you," her mother's voice came through, laced with worry. "Do you even know how many days it's been since you called? I'm so worried, Avni. What's going on?"

"Ma... please, calm down. I told you-I won't return until I meet him. He has to answer me. I can't go back empty-handed."

"I know you're doing this for me... but it's too much now. People have started talking. Asking where you are, why you're away for so long, what you're doing all alone..." Her voice cracked. "And I have no answers."

Avni closed her eyes, her jaw tightening.

Why does society always have something to say? Why can't they just let us live?

"Ma, forget them. None of them stood by us when Papa..." Her voice trailed off, unable to finish.

"Just trust me," she said, her voice soft but fierce. "I'll bring Ayush back. We'll settle the loan and get our property. Just let me try... please."

Her mother didn't say more. She didn't need to. Silence was her quiet approval, her silent strength.

When she finally reached the mansion after picking up Sam from school, the sun had already begun to sink behind the skyline. Dadi noticed the weariness in her eyes, the heaviness in her steps.

But when she asked, Avni just smiled and said,
"Everything's fine, Dadi."
Because it wasn't their battle to fight.
Especially not his family's.

She still remembered how Vikrant Kashyap had coldly refused to help-how ruthlessly he had looked at her. That memory alone was enough to keep her lips sealed.

Later that evening, the silence of her room wrapped around her like a cage. After serving tea to Dadi, she quietly slipped away, needing space to breathe.