Incandescent

Chapter 21

He looked stunning. Breathtaking. Gorgeous.

And awful.

Where there used be a delightful stubble, there was almost a full grown beard now. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept in a long while. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face was pale. But despite all that, Khushi knew he was the most stunning man she had ever seen.

The ticking of the clock from the hall echoed deafeningly in the silent room. Holding her hands in front of her, Khushi waited, feeling an uncommon awkwardness in his presence. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around his neck, but that wasn't the dominant part of her anymore. Her pride and self esteem demanded that she not make herself pitiful like that.

She felt his gaze on her, unwavering and causing heat waves to shoot through her. She couldn't guess what he wanted to speak to her about. Going by what he had told her father, he may be here to convince her to go back with him? But then she and her mother had only heard half of what they had spoken. They had been speaking for a long time before that. She was trying to not read too much into the fact that he was finally here for her.

He took few long, purposeful strides towards her but stopped a few feet away. He wanted to pull her into his arms, wanted to go back and right everything so that he didn't have to see the pain in her beautiful, expressive eyes.

"How have you been, Khushi?" He asked breaking her thoughts, his voice, a rich, mellow tone that made her quiver. The question however, only made her furious.

Was he kidding her?

Suppressing an urge to snap, she sent him what she hoped was a nonchalant smile. "Quite well, thank you."

His gaze sought hers. Arnav couldn't believe his eyes and his ears. She looked lovely, even more beautiful than he remembered. And in just over a month, she seemed almost like a different person.

"Won't you ask me how I have been?"

"No."

He pulled in a ragged breath. "I thought... actually... well... I didn't think—

"Stop!" She motioned with her hand. "I don't want to hear it, Arnav ji. I get it. I get it now. You were waiting for something like this to happen. You were waiting for me to go away so that you can stick to your theory that love is transient? Right? By leaving you to come back here because you wouldn't marry me, I just proved to you that my love for you is conditional... right? That I never was in love at all... you let me go so easily. Was I not even worth a little fight? A little compromise? I probably didn't even mean anything to you," her throat clogged with unshed tears. "I have made peace with all of that. What do you want now?"

"Khushi, I thought your feelings about me are going to change," he said slowly and with such utter conviction that Khushi's interest piqued. "I didn't even know if I was capable of what you were asking of me. I still don't. And if you married me, what if you wake up one morning and realize that you have made a mistake, and—

She interrupted, anger like never before taking over, "You should have let me be the judge of it. Instead of trying to cheapen and belittle my feelings for you. If you have a right to the way you feel, I do too, to mine. And you know I'm not an impetuous girl who doesn't know what she wants. I'm 22 and I'm old enough to know what I want."

"But there are things about me that I can probably never change."

"Nothing stands still. Everything changes. We don't plan it. And you probably didn't expect or want it but, Arnav Singh Raizada, we have changed. We are in so deep, we have changed each other. And you could never make me believe that you don't care about me, Arnav ji."