Destiny: Time To Fall In Love

Chapter 28 - The Broken Vow

A week had passed, but time felt stagnant in the Oberoi household. The penthouse, which used to be filled with Aashi's humming and the sound of their shared laughter, had become a tomb of "complete silence."

They sat at the breakfast table like two strangers. The distance between them wasn't physical; it was an "unknown distance" that felt wider than the ocean they had crossed to get to New York. Aryan kept glancing at her, his throat tight. He wanted to reach out, to crack a joke, to find his way back to her—but the coldness in her eyes kept him at bay.

Suddenly, Aashi's phone began to vibrate on the table. The screen lit up, but before the name could fully register, Aashi flipped the device face-down with a sharp clack.

She didn't answer. She didn't even look at it.

But the caller was persistent. The phone rang again. And again. It was a frantic, desperate rhythm, as if the device were "about to blow up at any moment."

"Aashi, answer the damn phone," Aryan finally snapped, his nerves frayed by the constant ringing. "It's ringing continuously. It must be important. Who is it?"

Aashi didn't look up from her plate. "Someone you don't want to talk about," she said, her voice like ice.

She stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. She moved to the kitchen with a mechanical efficiency, packing their lunches in a silence that felt heavier than any argument. She handed him his bag, her gaze never meeting his.

"I'm leaving for work," she said simply, and before he could respond, the front door closed behind her.

Aryan stood in the middle of the dining room, the silence now absolute.

"This is not how I wanted us to be, Aashi," he whispered, his voice cracking with a pain he couldn't hide anymore. He looked at the chair where she had just been sitting. "I haven't seen you smile since that day."

A terrifying thought entered his mind—the kind that haunts a man in the middle of the night. You don't love me anymore, do you? He sank back into his chair, his head in his hands. "I have lost my Aashi... and you have lost your smile." A single tear, held back by pride and fear for an entire week, finally escaped and rolled down his cheek. "Is it my fault too?"

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The silence in the Oberoi bedroom was thick enough to suffocate. For days, the penthouse had felt less like a home and more like a shared waiting room. They were "living with a stranger," two souls drifting further apart while occupying the same bed.

Aryan lay perfectly still, his breathing shallow and rhythmic, pretending to be claimed by sleep. But his mind was wide awake, tracking every movement Aashi made.

Aashi sat propped up against the headboard, a book open in her lap. She hadn't flipped a single page in over an hour. Her mind was miles away, trapped in a cycle of "deep thinking." Slowly, her hand moved to her neck, her fingers trembling as they closed around the cold silver of Veer's dolphin pendant. It was a silent confession—even if she wasn't talking to him, he was still on her mind.

After staring at the pendant for a long time, as if seeking an answer from the metal, she reached for her phone.

"Hello!" she whispered, her voice low and urgent in the quiet room. "I want to meet you tomorrow. Are you free?"

She paused, listening to the response on the other end. "Okay. Meet me at Sunshine Café across from my office."

She hung up without another word and slipped under the duvet, pulling it tight around her as if to hide. She fell asleep soon after, "unaware of the fact that Aryan had heard every single word."