Forever Yours, Vrinda

Part 19

PRESENT

"Oh God! I can't believe I said that! Ugh!" groaned Vrinda, apologetically smiling at her own intoxicated insanity in the past. She began to hope that she would be engulfed by the earth to be saved from the embarrassment of listening to her drunken antics.

"Uh... Well... " Vivaan, himself, did not know what to say in response to her statement. He could not help but smirk at her current situation as the memories of that night flooded in his muddled mind. Liquor had boosted Vrinda's confidence and desires to act on them in a manner that the mere mention of the incident would help Vivaan win over in any banter between them.

"I can't imagine what Vivaan would have felt, being confessed to and seduced in that manner! I hope I didn't force him for anything beyond that!" she muttered, her eyebrows forming an embarrassed frown but the curve of her lips and the warm blush splayed over her cheeks conveyed she had indeed enjoyed listening to the incident despite her obvious embarrassment.

"He didn't mind it least bit," muttered Vivaan, under his breath, suppressing his laughter.

"What?" questioned Vrinda, eying him in a puzzled manner.

"I said nothing else happened that night. You lost your consciousness almost immediately after that... comment," he replied, stifling the bubbling laughter, replaying the visuals of that night, which finally confirmed her feelings towards him and caused him to view her in a different light. His unconditional love for her had gotten drenched under the hues of amour and romance.

"You seem to know a bit too much about the night?" she asked, a determined glint surfacing in her hazel orbs, wiping away his smirk.

"Yeah, I mean, something, I guess.."

"I had my suspicions for a long time, Vihaan, but now I think I should get my confirmation as well. You are Vivaan, aren't you?" she prompted, looking him straight in the eye as her jaws clenched. His immediate comment and the muffled words did not escape the notice of her suspicious mind. How could he have the knowledge of a night which no one else was aware of, at least, as per the diary she had herself written?

"What! Whatever made you think that..." he retorted, standing up on his feet, jumping from the swing they were both seated in.

"There are no photos of either Vivaan or you in this house or the albums which Sucheta Aunty or Daksh Bhai have shown me. They have shown me everyone else but my closest friend and someone whom I loved so dearly. Everyone talks with strain while talking to you in front of me, as if there is something to hide. There's no doubt that Vivaan and I have loved each other, but he did not bother calling me once. Not even a single message, either directly from him or passed on from someone else. Almost twenty years of friendship, he would not be able to stop himself even if he wanted to. Except if, he was right in front of me," she stated, her eyes swirling with multiple emotions ranging from those which enticed Vivaan to those that stabbed him right through his heart.

"Radha..." he whispered, confusion overwhelming him as shock choked him.

"Vrinda. It is Vrinda, Vivaan Agarwal!" she admonished, standing up on her feet, matching him eye to eye, ignoring the splash of agony over his face as she prevented him from addressing her by the name she wanted to be known by him.

He knew he was standing at the point of no return. If he refused to accept that he was Vivaan at that point, he could never claim his original identity in front of her and he had no intention of keeping her in the dark forever but accepting that he had lied would hurt her irrefutably.

"Vrinda, I am sorry. I did not want to force you into a relationship we had begun in the past, especially when you had no memories to help you decide about the fate of our relationship..." he said, holding her by her shoulders as he erased the distance between them.

"You know when my suspicions really got stronger? When you were telling how Vivaan of the past refused the offer for a passionate night because I was not in the control of my senses. So alike your decision to answer my proposal only after I know the complete truth. So much concern, Vihaan..." she paused when she realized she had addressed him by the name she had known him by after losing her memory rather than his given name, "I mean, Vivaan, of course!"

He cupped her face gently between his palms, his hands trembled much like his lips. Innumerable memories of the past resurfaced in his mind, both strengthening and weakening him at the same time.

"You can call me anything you want, Vrinda. You deserved a choice, and I wanted to give you that. Because I knew you were going to hate me after you know the complete past," he whispered as he leaned his forehead against hers.

"And you think you gave me that choice by pretending to be the brother of my lover? You never really understood me if you thought that, Vivaan! To give me an actual choice about forgiveness of an incident I still don't know about, you forced me to choose between you and your alter-ego! Do you have any idea how tormenting it was? Every night I used to wonder how Vivaan would react if he ever came to know that I fell in love with his brother! I used to curse myself every night because I was betraying years of love. Every moment I was in a quandary between love and goddamn love!" she yelled, pushing him away from her, but he had no intent of leaving her. He put his arms around her and engulfed her in an embrace he had been craving for months. It felt like eons since they were wrapped around each other, feeling and sensing nothing but each other.

"Every dream had you in it as Vihaan, every nightmare had you in it, but as Vivaan. But it was just you and you, Vivaan. Just you. I should have understood then, that I might have forgotten everything, but I have not forgotten to recognize you. Maybe I should have understood that either as Vihaan or as Vivaan, with or without memories, your love would ensure that love would strike me and I would be yours forever, in every form and every manner."