The GIRL in the YELLOW summer dress

Part 24 - Six Months Later

ARNAV

I kept myself busy with work, I kept on working until midnight at times so that I would stop thinking about Khushi or anything related to her.

I remember when I had found out about my wife cheating on me, I hadn't been able to sleep for over a month just wondering where I went wrong and I dint want my best friend to go through something similar that too because of me.

Not that Khushi and I had cheated on him in any way, but there were feelings and if we had control over our feelings, we would have never let this happen.

I mostly avoided Shrey, I dint want to hear him talk about Khushi or tell me anything about her because it would just make things more difficult, although I felt terrible at the same time because I was avoiding him at the time when he needed me the most.

As days passed, things just kept on getting complicated, no matter how hard I tried I wouldn't just stop worrying and thinking about her, I kept on convincing myself not to, reminding myself that it was wrong to even think about her, but only if I had control over my mind.

At times, I would secretly stop by the hospital whenever she had her chemo sessions and just make sure she was doing well.

Within a few days of her first session, she lost all her hair, but she was still the beautiful Khushi I always knew, at first I thought it was going to hurt her, I mean I know how much hair means to a girl and losing it all at once is heartbreaking, but she remained strong, she dint let it affect her and I was so glad she was trying to be strong and fight this.

Days kept changing into months and I kept on getting myself more and more engrossed with work, Shrey kept on updating about Khushi's health every now and then and I thought it was enough, just knowing she was doing well, but in real it wasn't.

It had been six months since I met her, I did stop by the hospital just a week back when she was having her chemo session but I stayed invisible, let's just say that in this six months, I had seen her but she hadn't seen me even once.

I thought it was going to be easier with time, but it had been months now and instead of me losing my feelings for her, I realized that they were just getting stronger, and I felt guilty, I felt terrible for all of this.

For once I even thought of informing Shrey about everything, not in a selfish way, I just wanted him to know about it, not that Khushi and I wanted to be together or anything but he deserved to know the truth, because hiding it from him was the same as cheating on him.

I knew things like this always had a way of coming out, there was no way it was going to stay hidden forever, so I thought it was better if we informed Shrey about it, we explained it to him, it was better if he learnt about it from us than anywhere else, not that anyone else even had the idea about it but like I said, things like this do have a way of coming out.

After I had made up my mind about this, I decided to meet Khushi, I had to talk to her and convince her to tell Shrey about this because honestly I couldn't live with the guilt of hiding this from him, he was supposed to know, he deserved to know.

Maybe after we both told him the truth, I could shift somewhere else, I could even go abroad and get settled there, and they would stay here and live their lives happily ever after.

*****

I woke up early in the morning and got ready work, I decided I would later stop by Shrey's house to pay Khushi a visit and talk to her about this, I dint even know if she was going to agree on this, neither did I know how Shrey was going to react after learning the truth.