They were an unbreakable couple since school. Still, he cheated on her.
She loved him with all of her. Still, he broke her into millions of pieces.
She has no one except him. He has someone other than her.
She was tolerating bad behavior of his fami...
Kitne zaroori ho bataun kaise, Ke kitne zaroori ho bataun kaise, Tumhe tumari Ehmiyat me samjhaun Kaise, Chalti hai ye saansein ye dhadkan Tumhi se, Tumhi kaho tumhare bina zindagi Bitaun kaise...
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They did not speak for a long time after the clip ended.
The glow of the laptop screen reflected faintly in Adair's eyes, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. On the table between them lay silence, heavy and deliberate. Lakkhan moved the cursor back, replaying the moment when the boy handed Mishti the book. He zoomed slightly, adjusted contrast, as if the pixels themselves might confess something new.
On the screen, the boy's mouth moved easily, confidence stitched into every gesture. He lifted the book again, tapping its pages, speaking with the relaxed rhythm of someone who had repeated the same lines to hundreds of strangers. His smile was professional, not forced, a salesman who believed in persistence more than rejection.
Mishti leaned in a little.
Not because she was drawn in.
Because he was speaking.
Her fingers brushed the edges of the pages. She turned one page, then another, slowly, distractedly. Her gaze dropped to the paper, but her eyes did not travel like a reader's eyes do. They did not scan. They did not focus. They floated.
Adair noticed it instantly.
She was not reading the story.
She was simply filling time with movement.
The boy pointed at something again. His eyebrows lifted as though emphasizing a dramatic twist. His lips shaped animated words. If there had been sound, it would have been persuasive, lively, hopeful.
Mishti responded briefly. Her lips moved in a short sentence. Polite. Contained.
She nodded after a few minutes, a small, almost absent gesture, as if agreeing not with him but with something inside her own head.
Then she reached into her bag.
The movement was steady, unhurried. She did not bargain. She did not hesitate. She took out money and held it out.
The boy blinked in surprise for a second, then accepted it quickly and handed her the book.
Transaction complete.
No lingering smile.
No interest in the cover.
She held it loosely against her side and walked back toward the hospital entrance, her steps neither fast nor slow. Just tired.
