Discordance

Chapter Seventy-One

Why was adulting so hard? Akshara wanted to go back to lazing around with Abhimanyu because Seva that motivated her so much and had become her reason to breathe was just not cutting it anymore. Of course she loved her work and was as passionate about it but she simply didn't have the energy she did earlier to juggle work as well as a full family who demanded as much of her time if not more and she wanted to soak their love in as well having been starved for love all her life so something or the other always fell short and it felt like her time with Abhimanyu was the price they were paying and while he was more vocal about his annoyance, while she couldn't verbalize it, she too felt it deep in her heart.

The lunch she shared with Abhimanyu at the hospital felt like it had been eons ago and for all intents and purposes it probably was. They were like two ships passing in the night and every time they talked about changing it, something or the other would come up and their plans would fall through. They would go out for dinner and Abhimanyu's pager would go off despite him telling everyone that he was unavailable, it would always be some unfortunate event that would have occurred like the universe was keeping them apart on purpose and he would have to go despite it being his day off. Or worse, when the other day when they had found time to get dinner at the apartment and as Abhimanyu was just about to kiss her, Harshvardhan had called them in a panic to let them know that Manjari had passed out in the middle of their dinner and was being taken to the Birla Hospital for tests.

Luckily everything seemed to be normal, and they were only waiting for some extra tests and Manjari was brought home and seemed healthy otherwise, but Akshara couldn't help but feel like the universe was keeping them apart on purpose. Because now all her time seemed to be spent doting on Manjari and never having had a mother's love, she wouldn't have been able to bear it if something happened to her so now all her spare time was spent cooking for the family, chatting with Manjari and just making sure she was comfortable.

"You forgot to call me back" she heard Diksha yell from behind her as Akshara was about to leave for the day and it had been so long since she heard Diksha's voice that Akshara spun back before throwing her arms across Diksha's body, hugging her tightly with a squeal.

"SORRY SORRY" she muttered rocking the two of them side to side before finally letting her friend go so that she could give her a once-over to make sure she was alright.

"What are you doing here?" Akshara asked once Diksha had grabbed her hand to pull her to the couch in the common room at the shelter.

"I was actually here to talk to the last woman who came through, Shanta Tai said she would appreciate it if I could share my experience with her so here I am." Diksha said evenly and Akshara tried to look between her eyes to see if she was hiding her emotions but she seemed to be really doing and it was a hug relief because deep down Akshara felt like she could never stop worrying about her closest friend in the world, no matter what.

"God, thank you for doing that. I have been so swamped with the renovations at the orphanage and just eyeballs deep in paperwork, especially with the donations and stuff that I have barely had a handle on my life and I completely forgot to check in with Shanta Tai about how the woman was doing." Akshara said with a loud groan as she rubbed the heels of her palms over her eyes to try and get some of the stress out "I am just so exhausted, there seems to be not enough hours in the day."

With a loud sigh, Diksha copied Akshara's pose and rested her head on the back of the couch before slowly inching her head towards Akshara's shoulder. Resting her head on top of Diksha's, Akshara realized that she had been a terrible friend, just another thing she was bad at because she seemed to be terrible at being a wife to Abhimanyu as well.

Shaking her thoughts away, Akshara whispered softly "and nimay?"

If Diksha was embarrassed or surprised with Akshara's question, she didn't show it but in the same decibel that Akshara had used she whispered back "he's good, we're good. Still going slow. I feel like the more he will learn about me, the farther away he will run, but that hasn't happened yet so who knows?"