Broken (Wattys2016)

CHAPTER 24

Aarav cried his heart out like a little baby who had just been ripped apart from his mother. His heart had physically started to ache seeing the love of his life walk away from him without even sparing him a second glance. But who was he to blame her for walking away from him? He had done no good to her and he deserved this for hurting her so badly. He was sure about something from that one kiss, Aaliya still loved him but she had started to focus on loving herself; that it was very hard to convince her to take him back, but nonetheless he'd try. He'd try the way she tried to save their marriage a couple of months back, maybe even harder.

It was once he had calmed down a bit; he wiped his tears using the end of his light blue shirt and got up from the ground. He dusted off the sand from his pants and took out his phone to see the time, it was half past noon. He walked to the gate and bid goodbye to the guard before he started walking towards his parents' house. He had confronted Aaliya, but she was yet to hear the entire truth so he decided to go home and tell their families about the truth first so that maybe they could help him in at least making Aaliya hear the truth if nothing more. After walking for ten minutes on the sidewalk, he found himself standing outside his parent's house. He looked towards his left and found Aaliya's white Honda City parked outside her parent's house. So she had definitely gone home. He rang the doorbell and after a couple of seconds the door opened. He looked up just to find Priyansh looking at him with worried eyes.

Aarav just made his way towards the living room and found his parents sitting on the couch mirroring Priyansh's expressions. He was sure that his elder brother had told them everything he knew so far.

"Aarav, what happened?" Riddhima asked and that was all that was needed to welcome back the tears he had been pushing back from the past ten minutes. He rushed to his mother and rested his head on her lap as he cried out loud. Riddhima said nothing for a while and stroked his head. She let him cry his heart out because she knew her younger son never cried easily, he only cried when he'd fail to handle everything and she knew there was more to why he cheated on his wife.

"Tell me everything Aarav, won't you tell your maa?" Riddhima asked as if she was talking to her five year old son and not a twenty seven year old man.

"Liya isn't even listening to me. She can at least listen to me and then she can walk away if she wants to because I haven't done anything good to deserve her. But she needs to listen first." Aarav said while he continued to cry a river.

"Look up Aarav." Ridhimma said softly as she ran her fingers through his hair. Aarav dug his head deeper in her lap as he continued to wet her kurti with his tears. She held his head and made him look up at her.

"Tell me the truth, Aarav. I can't help if you don't open up." Riddhima said softly. He turned his head to find his father nodding with sympathetic eyes. It was when he turned around to see Priyansh did he notice that even Nakul and Lalita were in the room.

"When did you come?" Aarav asked wiping his tears with the back of his hand.

"We have been here for a couple of hours; you just didn't notice us sitting here." Nakul said with a small smile.

"I'm sorry I didn't –"Aarav was saying but was cut off by Nakul.

"It's okay, tell us what happened."

He looked up at his parents from where he was sitting and they nodded, asking him to open up.

"You won't laugh at me, right?" Aarav asked.

"Why would we?" Rishab spoke for the first time since Aarav came.

"Will you kill me then?"

"We didn't kill you when you cheated on Ally, then why would we kill you after hearing the truth, Aarav?" Priyansh said this time.