Love is in the Air ~ Shubman Gill

CHAPTER 34🕊

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~• AmorTales •~

Author's POV

It had been a week since that fateful encounter with Anaya, and Shubman could feel the weight of it pressing down on him with every passing day. The image of her tearful, pained expression haunted him relentlessly, replaying in his mind like a broken record. The memory of her words-filled with so much hurt and mistrust-cut deeper than any wound he had ever known.

Cricket had always been his escape, his sanctuary. But now, even that refuge had been tainted. His focus was shattered, his once unshakeable concentration crumbling under the pressure of his own turmoil. In the last two matches, he had barely managed to scrape together single-digit scores before being dismissed, his mind too clouded with thoughts of Anaya to even see the ball properly. His teammates were losing faith, the team was losing matches, and the media had started to question his capabilities as a captain. But none of it seemed to matter to Shubman; all he could think about was Anaya.

But it wasn't just his cricket that was suffering. Ruhi, his little girl, was hurting too. Every morning, she would wake up with a glimmer of hope in her eyes, insisting on going to the park in the hopes of seeing her "Anu." She would wait there, her tiny frame perched on a bench, her eyes scanning the paths for any sign of Anaya. But Anaya never came. Each day, Ruhi's hope dimmed a little more, her lively spirit dampened by the endless waiting. She had stopped smiling the way she used to, and it tore Shubman apart to see her like this.

"Papa, will Anu come today?" Ruhi asked one morning, her voice small and filled with longing. Shubman's heart broke at the sight of her, so young and innocent, yet carrying a sadness that no child should ever have to bear.

"I don't know, beta," he replied softly, kneeling down to her level. "But I promise, we'll try again tomorrow."

Ruhi nodded, but Shubman could see the doubt creeping into her eyes, the same doubt that was gnawing away at his own heart. He felt helpless, torn between his own grief and the need to be strong for his daughter.

At night, when Ruhi finally fell asleep after another day of waiting, Shubman would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, the silence of his apartment amplifying the noise in his head. His mind was a battlefield of memories and regrets, with Anaya's face at the center of it all. He had tried to tell himself that he needed to focus, that he needed to put cricket first, but it was no use. The game that had once been his life now felt meaningless without her.

He knew he had to do something-he couldn't let this continue. He couldn't keep failing his team, and he couldn't let Ruhi's heart be broken any more than it already was. But what could he do? Anaya didn't want to see him, didn't want to be a part of his life or Ruhi's. She had made that painfully clear.

But as much as Shubman wanted to respect her wishes, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this story. He needed answers, and he needed to find a way to make things right, not just for himself, but for Ruhi too.

But where to begin? How could he possibly bridge the gap that had formed between them after all these years? How could he prove to Anaya that he wasn't the man she thought he was, that he hadn't betrayed her? These questions swirled in his mind, each one more daunting than the last, leaving him with a heavy sense of despair that he couldn't seem to shake.

For now, all he could do was wait-wait for the right moment, the right words, the right opportunity to set things right. But as the days dragged on and the weight of his failures grew heavier, Shubman couldn't help but wonder if that moment would ever come.