SERENDIPITOUS|✓

Chapter 23

Life had a funny way of showing love to Radha. It took everything from Radha just to give her everything more.

Life took away her mother but gave back her father instead, her biological father whom she had never even dreamt of meeting with.  Life took Radha's happiness away for a few months but gave her parents, the happiness they needed, their 80 lakh rupees. Life broke Radha's heart into million pieces just to put them back in an even stronger mould.

Even after all these things, Radha didn't understand how life had managed to bring her to the doorstep of Krishn's house with his mother beside her.

She didn't know how it happened and when it happened but one second she had a grocery bag in her hands and the other second it was replaced with her suitcase and some legal papers.

She still felt so guilty of imposing herself on someone like this, to just accept an offer like this, an offer someone had given just out of mere kindness but somewhere her need overpowered her conscience.

The truth was that loneliness suffocated her. Living alone in that one room pg accommodation wasn't easy for her. She felt so alone and so unsafe there.

She, of course, had made the place as livable as she could but still, when the day ended, weird noises and feelings and dreams came chasing after her. No one but she knew how happy she was standing here in front of this house.

She stood there with her breath held in her throat, habitually tapping her left foot on the ground as a consequence of her nervousness.

No, she wasn't nervous.

This was a new kind of nervousness, almost parallel to excitement. All with her brain overworked and things, over thought.

Her tummy was bubbling up with a weird kind of giddiness while her heart was racing at the speed of formula 1. Her mind was busy thinking about her reaction to coming seconds.

What if he opened the door?

What would she say?

How would she behave?

Will she say a simple, 'Hi'?

Would she reveal how much she had missed him?

Should she be this nervous before meeting him?

"Where did you go, Shw-"

It was in between her internal debate when the door to the house opened up and her gaze immediately snapped to the front. However, the second she didn't recognise the person standing in front of her, she deflated.

He wasn't Krishn.

That was a stranger. A real stranger.

"Uh, Shweta, who is our guest?"
Radha saw as the man asked hesitantly to Mrs Yadav standing beside her who just smiled brightly in return.

"Ashok, she's Radha, someone I know for quite a time. She'll be living with us for a few days." Mrs Yadav answered the man, patting Radha's shoulder while introducing her and then turned to her in the next second, gesturing to the man.

"And, Radha, he's my husband, Ashok Yadav," she disclosed the fact to Radha who had her mouth formed into an 'o' at the new piece of information.

"Hello, sir." She greeted but Mr Yadav just laughed.

"No, no, please do not call me 'sir'. Uncle's fine," he said, nonchalantly waving his hand in the air.

Radha nodded gratefully at the politeness of the family, not even asking her about her past, about her whereabouts, nothing and just trying to make her comfortable. She would've given her everything to have a family like this, Radha thought to herself mentally forsaking all the things she would in return for a family like this.