Heir Of Darkness

The Hurt

It hurt.

It hurt to see the man whom you had loved the most in your life, standing in front of you as your culprit, as the reason of your depression and the sole reason for you to attempt suicide.

Every passionate encounter, every confession of love, every flattering moment of affection played again in my mind. But this time, unlike the previous, they brought feelings along with them. Those feelings which held the potential to drown me in them if I allowed them.

The fact that the child I was carrying had both our bloods running as one in its veins jeopardized my composure which I was bound to maintain in the court premises. They had evidences, witnesses and everything required to punish him and Sheetal for his deeds except for my statement and that had brought me here.

There was an ulterior motive of course. I wanted to see him being pronounced as the culprit, guilty of abetment to suicide and abuse, hoping that my heart would stop beating for him after that.

My mind recorded every bit of that hearing with immaculate precision because I knew that I would have to keep playing it in my mind to let go of memories which my heart was clutching to.

Lavanya and Arnav escorted me out of the court hall as the punishment was awarded to him and her. He would not be able to make it out of the prison for the next 10 years. While a part of me rejoiced, another part of me had pushed itself into the darkest chamber in existence.

Call it telepathy or understand which had grown exponentially over the past two weeks, Arnav was able to recognize the lines of worry adorning my forehead and hence asked Lavanya to pause so that we could sit and relax.

" Are you okay, Khushi? Everything will go back to normal, believe me."

Normalcy?

I had almost forgotten how living in that phase would be then how would I be able to assure myself that a phase unknown will return and that would erase my pain?

" I had clutched onto everyone who didn't love me, Arnav, and left those who loved me. I forgot those fans who made me Khushi Gupta, those fans who came forward to pay my hospital fees for a man who cared no more than a non-living entity for my life. I forgot everyone for him. It torments me that even my own father did the same. He too abandoned me on a road forsaken, alone, without any support."

Arnav shuddered at my last words and I knew something was wrong. His eyes blazed with determination and I braced myself, irrespective of the emotional turmoil, for a revelation which I knew, was about to take place.

" Khushi...I'm...I'm sorry we didn't tell you before...but...your father has passed away..."

My world which had just begun reforming had broken into pieces again. The man whom I had been condemning since the past 2 weeks had actually passed away. Why? I had judged another person wrongly.

How stupidly wrong could a person's judgement go?

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