The Queen Of My Heart (Completed)

Chapter 4

Virat felt like he was in a court room. There were no lawyers or a audience hanging onto each word spoken to prove or dismiss his crime though. There was only, the judge, in the form of this old, wrinkly woman scrutinizing his every move with frantic concentration.

"When Manvi brought you to meet me for the first time, I thought you were a good guy." Mother began.

Virat shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Not long ago he had demanded Mother to bring out Manvi from where she was hiding her. He was more than sure that Manvi was here. The nasty looks that people had been throwing his way since the moment he had stepped foot inside the border of this orphanage... just proved that. 

"Mother, I..." Virat began to say only to get cut off immediately.

"Maybe I was wrong judging you." Mother's voice broke at the end. "What have you done to my little girl!" 

Like a tidal wave embarrassment and guilt rose inside him, he was in the brink of getting devoured by his series of regrets. "I'm sorry."

He didn't know what more to say. 

A stretched silence, so suffocating followed until he rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He looked defeated. 

"Manvi... Did she tell you everything?" Virat asked after a while.

Mother shook her head. "She didn't. But it was easy to read the hurt in her eyes, the way she cried silently the whole night she stayed here was enough to tell me. Manvi's a tough one, Virat. And it seemed like she was hit right in the middle of her heart, by the one she'd trusted with her heart."

If Virat thought that it was impossible to drown anymore in this guilt, he was wrong. For he found himself drowning even further and without a hint of a surface to rest his exhausted soul falling for far too long.

He knelt down on the floor before Mother and held her hands into his. Looking up at her with moist eyes he let his orbs show all the remorse, guilt and shame he was going through. "I'm sorry, Mother. I'm so sorry. I don't know how to fix this, I really don't know. But I want to start with apologizing to you first. I remember that promise I made to you of filling Manvi's life with happiness, I vowed to keep her smiling always and safe from all the sorrows."

A drop of tear rolled slowly down his stubbly cheek. He chuckled but that sounded coated in pain. "But how pathetic of a person I'm! I've broken all my promises and vows, it was I myself hurting her the worst way possible. I hate myself, Mother."

"I don't know what to do, how do I have her forgive me! How..." He was in a state of desperation that he kept mumbling to himself almost forgetting there was someone listening to him with equally teary eyes. 

A soft hand touched his wet cheek with motherly affection. "I don't know if she's ever going to forgive you child." She said truthfully, not wanting to give this man false hope. "You have yet to prove the worth of your love for Manvi, your hope you yourself have to find."

Virat looked up through blurry eyes. He broke some more hearing her words and the truth in them. He had a difficult road ahead, a very difficult one at that. His eyes pleaded the woman who raised his wife. "Please tell me where she is... please, Mother." 

And he would beg if he had to, to Mother and then to Manvi when the time would come.

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Going to bed early seemed like the only logical thing to be done in this big, dark and very quiet mansion. There was no electricity, water had to be carried inside from the well that was right behind the mansion. It was like she had traveled backwards in time and in a completely different world where everything was so different from how the humankind have modernized their lives.