Discordance

Chapter Ninety

For Akshara it was just slightly staggering that everyone seemed to be getting on with their lives while hers had irrevocably changed. Sometimes she still felt like the whole pregnancy thing was a dream but even if it was only new, she could feel her kids inside her, deep within her soul so while she was never alone, she still felt like she was a on a journey that nobody else was walking with her. Abhimanyu understood it and also shared the journey but he wasn't feeling the symptoms which if you asked Akshara wasn't fair at all but such was life.

She had been nauseous all the damn time but more than that everything smelled terrible, and she couldn't eat or sleep. The only thing that alleviated her nausea was Abhimanyu's cologne and mostly because to her it represented home and comfort and her heart recognized it as a safe space so she would wear his clothes and douse it in cologne before spending her entire day in either their balcony lounging on the day bed or outside on the lawns, walking with her father in law. The smell of food from the kitchen sent her into fight or flight mode every time and she would gag before having to run away, making her misery worse.

"Why are you doing this to mumma?" she asked, stroking her belly, after a solid week of nausea and just overall discomfort but she knew she wouldn't be getting a response just yet so she shook her head and sighed before murmuring a "it's ok, bother mumma as much as you want, as long as you two are healthy and safe, I don't mind." There was not going to be a moment in her kids' life where she didn't let them know how much they were loved because she knew what not having that safety net did to one's psyche and she wanted to protect her children from ever feeling that hurt.

Abhimanyu had been thrown back into work and Akshara had been dealing with so much that the thought of Rutu playing sneaky games didn't even cross her mind, she had much bigger problems to deal with like everyone trying to feed her and her having to run away or sneak food into the bin without anyone noticing. Thankfully, Abhimanyu was extremely busy and hadn't been as attentive or anal if you asked her, he still checked up on her and made sure she was eating or sleeping but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, Akshara argued with herself as she sneaked the upma Manjari had made for her out of the house to feed to the stray dogs before tiptoeing back into the house through the backyard.

She was almost free and had pretty much gone unnoticed by everyone but as she was sneaking back into the gate, she ran right into Harsh who looked startled to see Akshara out and about. "Oh good, I was just looking for you." Akshara had to wipe the look of guilt from her face and replace it with an angelic smile because if harsh figured out what she had just done, they would probably put her under house arrest forever and all the garden walks would be banned unless she was under direct supervision. "Why paapa?" she asked sweetly knowing that Harsh almost always melted when she called him paapa and like clockwork he smiled down at her endearingly, probably forgetting the way she was sneaking in just mere seconds ago.

"I am meeting Mr. Mehta today in an hour and I was thinking that you should come with me. He is a known philanthropist and Seva is definitely something which would be right up his alley." Akshara perked up at that because it meant that she could go out of the house and be busy even if it was only for a few hours. She was so desperate to feel normal that she was grasping at all and any straws thrown in her direction. "I've briefed him a bit about what you do and he showed interest in meeting you plus if I'm there, chances are that he wouldn't grill my daughter too much." There went her heart, thumping in disbelief like it did every time the family accepted her as their own and while she was slowly getting used to it, a thrill still made its way down her spine.

The nausea and the lack of sleep from last night because of Abhimanyu's absence evaporated and Akshara bounced up to her room haphazardly getting out of her clothes to take a quick shower before getting dressed. She was not only going to be representing Seva, she was also the Birla Daughter in law and she couldn't get away with a dress like she always did. Instead, Akshara chose a white full sleeved Anarkali with small lace and mirror work all over it and put on silver jhumkas which tinkled every time she moved. She even went as far as to put a little white bindi in the middle of her forehead before pinching her cheeks to get some of her color back. The lack of appetite and the constant discomfort had made her eyes sink in and her skin to look sickly, but she couldn't fix that at such short notice so whatever she had on would have to do.