Love Lust and Lies (Completed✅)

5. Emotions and Warnings

Good olden days................

Gauri looked at the lifeless body of her mother devoid of any expression.

It was just two nights ago that she quarreled with her mother when she asked her to come to Bareilly as she was missing her. Gauri could not go because she was to attend the annual day function in her college which was to be held five days later. She had asked her Shiv bhaiyya to go in place of her and now she is regretting her decision.

Only if she had known that it was the last time she talked to her mother she would never have said no............. if she had known that her mother was suffering from a terminal illness which would take her away from her forever....... She wouldn't have asked her mother to let her go out of their village.

What kind of a daughter was she to have denied her mother's last wish to see her only daughter.

Guilt held her heart in a leach-like hold, painless yet sucking out her life and making it difficult to breath. She felt she was in the midst of a room with a screen playing various scenes of her childhood moments with her mother in front of her. She reminisced when her mother congratulated her on coming first in class, when she sang and danced in her school cultural and also when she scolded her when she fought with her classmates. Gauri thought of all those times when she would coax her to eat when she was angry at her Shiv bhaiyya, all those days when she scolded Shivaay for pampering her.

She could hear Shivaay shouting her name at a distance but couldn't respond. "I'm sorry maa" she voiced out before she succumbed to darkness.

Shivaay lifted Gauri in his arms and rushed to their room. She tried to wake her up shouting her name.

After a few minutes, Gauri opened her eyes to look at a worried Shivaay.

"Gauri..... are you alright?" he asked. When she failed to respond he tried again "Say something Gauri.... Please cry it out... Radha maa has left us" saying which Shivaay hugged his sister. Tears which failed to come out till then, now flowed freely..... Her ever brave brother was crying his heart out and Gauri joined him hugging him tighter as if he would disappear if she left him.

The coming days were hard for the brother and sister duo. Shivaay tried to distract himself with work while occasionally visiting his sister and Gauri went into a shell filled with guilt and remorse wanting to return to the time when her mother last called her. She would say that she loved her so much and she would go to her mother the very next day.

Abhay Agnihotri was a classmate of Shivaay and is his childhood buddy. He knew Gauri and admired her from afar. Gauri being the chirpy girl she was, warmed up to him in no time with he being a constant companion to Shivaay. He often played peacemaker between the duo when they had a tiff. Now looking at the two barely talking to each other, he couldn't keep quite doing nothing.

"Gauri, shall we go for a movie tonight? Ek tha tiger is being played in the local theaters... chale? Salman khan to tera favourite hai na...?"

"Nahi Abhi, mera man nahi hai aaj, anyother time" she tried with a weak smile.

Sighing, he sat beside her and took her hand in his.

"Gauri look at me" he said. When she did what he asked, he continued "Radha maa was diagnosed with terminal stage pancreatic cancer a year before you left for Hyderabad"

"Shivaay and me pleaded her to let you know about her illness yet she remained adamant. Do you know what she would say? Meri Gauri ki Khushi mere liye sab kuch hai. Uski ek Muskaan dekh meri saari takleef duur ho jayegi. Whenever the pain becomes too much to bear, I call her to talk to her. When she recites all the events of her day smiling and laughing out loud, I feel at peace." He informed bringing out fresh tears from her eyes.