❝The only kind of love I want is one where even if it is just for a short moment, it feels like I have lived a lifetime in that moment with that person. ❞ - Jhanvi Raichand.
**You CANNOT read this as standalone. Read Dare to Be before reading this...
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**Please excuse any gramatical errors. A part of this was written originally in Aarav's POV which I changed to make it a longer chapter**
2.23 Eyes and Ears
Inaaya Aarvi Raichand.
The name I announced at the naming ceremony two months ago. In the silence that had followed, Eva had asked, "Say that again?"
I had smiled up at her aware of the reason she was stunned, "I was talking to Sam before we left for Australia and he'd told me. That's the name you'd chosen for your baby girl."
With tears welling up in her eyes, she had nodded in response. "It was," she had whispered.
If you ask me, as I had said to Aarav once, there could be no better name for my baby... naming her after the two people who had taught me so much about love and friendship. Eva... she does not get her due sometimes and caught up in everything, I fail to express it to her often but I do remember how she had been the first when I had been new to Mumbai to be my friend. I may have grown closer to Annie as a friend, but Eva is still more like an elder sister I don't have. She has been a silent inspiration in my life and undoubtedly, an active one in Aarav's life since they were children. And not to forget, she is the one who brought Aarush into our lives as well. If not for him as well, I would not be holding my baby securely in my arms. I might have lost her a long time ago.
So, if you ask me, I say she is the one person here who seems to know a lot more about what is going on than anyone else. I have no doubt that she knows everything about Aarush given they are close friends. She knew of Aarav and Annie long before the two of them knew themselves.
She is the gift that keeps giving.
Even now, when her wedding is in a few months, she is taking the time off from all the preparations by coming with me to the ancestral palace. I'd tried to tell her to focus on her wedding, but she'd said there were lots of people to plan her wedding. Eventually, the compromise I'd struck was that she could come with me but only if the wedding takes place at the palace - that way she can be involved in preparations as well. After all, no one has more of a right to make decisions other than the bride.
As such, two months seem to pass by in a blink - caught up in everyday life and the struggle to set into a routine of being a single mother and learning as much as possible about my family history and all the things they have been involved in with the business. Taking over is not as easy as it may seem. There are never enough hours in a day.
Today, however, is different as everyone arrives for the wedding. It is in two weeks and as such, all functions start in just a couple of days. Aarav had been apologetic over the months that he wasn't able to visit often but even I understood he had things to do. After spending months in Australia, there was much on the business front and his personal life to settle: with the most important being dealing with Shyam. It did not help, ofcourse, that the man seemed to have disappeared once again - leaving Aarav on edge and never knowing when he would return out of the blue.
