Terrorized By Love [ON HOLD]

Chapter 36: Life Goes On

It was really astounding how quickly time passed. Mahima spent her days waiting for Dev. Days turned into weeks, and soon, Ajay informed her that they searched extensively but there was no Dev Gupta who matched the profile Mahima described. The weeks then turned into months of Mahima feeling like she was going insane. She thought that her love for Dev was enough to bring him back to her, but she was proven to be wrong.

Why did she have to be wrong over and over again?

She would spend her days in silence while Ajay spent his days in Mumbai serving the President. She was with the villagers, and they took care of her. Alone, she would sob, and she would cry for Dev to return, but in the presence of the villagers she kept up a happy facade. They had no complaints about her. They all liked her.

The months turned into years.

She started to look forward. She started to lose hope. She started to finally realize that life wasn't a fairytale, and neither was love.

Mahima's first love was Aditya, and she vowed that her last love would be Dev.

Aditya, the one who had sacrificed himself to a horrible fate for her protection, and Dev, who had left her also for her protection. She was indebted to the two of them.

She loved Aditya with her heart. She couldn't explain it. She grew up with him... it was impossible not to. However, she loved Dev with her heart and soul, in a way that was most romantic.

As the years passed, her whole life seemed to change right in front of her eyes. The village got electricity, the girls were starting to be educated, and the huts were becoming more hygienic. Time did well for the village.

Perhaps she was left behind.

It was only when even more years passed, that she started to leave Dev behind with her hopes, in a memory that she wanted to forget.

He was only holding her underwater, not letting her look over and breathe. So she pushed through, realizing that life didn't end here. Life went on, whether Dev was with her or not.

This was how twelve years of her life passed.

She had a marriage she had now accepted, she had a husband who she cared for, and Mahima also had an eleven year old son who she loved more than anything in the world.

She was satisfied, content. She didn't know whether she was happy, but she knew that she was okay with where she was. She was pleased with what her life had turned into, and instead of crying over those who weren't here anymore, she was counting the blessings that she had.

As she held on to her basket full of blessings though, a stranger from the past would soon appear, putting her in a dilemma where she would have to choose between her future, and her past.

As more truths unraveled, she would have to finally separate the milk from the water, and see things as they were.

When she realized that the man she put so high up on a pedestal, was not at all who she thought he was, perhaps it would be enough to truly send her tumbling down a path of insanity.

Her Dev would be back... but not as Dev. This time, he would come back as Aditya Velhankar, and it would be in a form that she would never have expected to see him in.