Love Me Like You Do

CHAPTER 2

Current Time (Five years later, after moving to Germany)

Life had been more than amazing in the last five years here in Berlin. I and Arnav were able to build ourselves a house that we could call our oasis in this desert, our little paradise, our little home. That was the first ever house I brought with my own money after two years of staying in the accommodation provided by my college for both of us.

I wanted my first house to be owned by my mother but that couldn’t happen, the day I surprised Arnav with the keys to the house, he was so emotional that he cried his heart out and kept on saying how proud he is of me, and how proud mom would have been if only she was here. He kept on telling me that I fulfilled her dream of owning a house of ourselves and that too, with a better side that it is in a foreign land. Mom could never have imagined us owning a house in Germany ever, and I made it possible. I couldn’t help but also cry out of happiness.

I fulfilled all of my mother’s wishes for us, she wanted us to be successful and achieve all the heights of this world and we did that only. After coming over here, we both knew we have to start our lives from the scratch and we did that. I started my job in an MNC as a business analyst before I even started college over here. That company helped me know the pros and cons of the business world perfectly and even before I started my business studies degree, I already had a handful of practical knowledge that helped me in my studies a lot.

I made friends but they were just friends till the last lecture in college or till the office hours ended, my only friend who I truly considered a friend is still Arnav. Within those thirteen hours of journey five years ago, my brother grew up, he became a dependable man. It is true, what is said, that a person doesn’t become mature by their age, they became mature by the experiences they gain with time and Arnav became mature by all that he faced back in India.

In the first semester of my college, we were given a project regarding a business idea that could work and was needed by the world. I was lucky enough that my plan impressed the professors that much that they suggested I pitch the idea to a group of investors that invest in these types of startups.

I was the only first year in years that has ever proposed the project idea, and that too just the idea to a group of investors in the college. The investors were the alumnus of the colleges and the leading position holders in top companies, and postgraduate students who used to work on startups as their final thesis project used to pitch their ideas and if some of them manage to interest them they used get huge funding for the same.

And, luckily by God’s grace, I was one of them, and I got a huge funding of 50 million dollars. That was more than enough to start my idea in full swing and so I did that, and with the right minds that I found as my collegemates and previous company’s employees from the launch that was six months after the proposition, we grew in no time.

From a company having a net worth of only 50 million dollars, we grew to a company having a current net worth of 500 million dollars in just four years and that was unbelievable but true. My team and I pulled that off in just four years. We started off from Germany only but now are all over Europe and the States.

The top grooming company for all genders, “Mother’s Love”, my company was named after the love my mom had for me that helped me achieve what I am today.

In the last five years, I completed my graduation and MBA while running the company, I’m the CEO of the top grooming company in the world yet no one knew me till this date, I never attended any awards function nor did I show myself to the media fearing that my so-called family back home would see me and recognize me and would be back in my life to make troubles and also take Arnav away from me, as he was still only fourteen and under-age. His custody legally still lies with my biological father and I would do everything in this world to not let any of those people come near him again.

It took months on Arnav’s side to get adjusted to the new environment and make friends over here and come out of all the trauma he faced after mom. Arnav also focused on his studies only and was so obedient that he always used to inform me whenever he used to go out with his friends, and always come back home telling me what all happened the time he was away with his friends.

I never stopped him from anything, just always used to tell him he is free to do whatever he wants just inform me, I tried my best to be his friend more than me being his sister or his mom. But he always says that I’m his mom and he never feels mom isn’t with us by the way I look out for him, and that’s the best compliment that he could ever give me.

And, with my love life, nothing special happened. Coming over here I got so busy with striving and making life comfortable for Arnav at the start and later with the company that I never got time for love. The infatuation I had for Ranvijay ended a long time ago, I realized it that was never love and that he was just my crush because after him I crushed hard on so many people, some of them who even tried on me, but whenever I felt I could try, something or the other comes up and I always got busy with the problem.

I believe if Ranvijay was my true love, I would never be able to forget about him this easily and crush on someone else just like that. Now, he is just another name on the long list of my crushes but yes, I’m discussing him over here right now just because he was the only one on that long list that ever interacted with me, spent time with me, and was even a bit close to me because the rest were just like the people I never talked and only used to watch them from afar.

So, I would just guess this dating and time pass stuff is not for me. I’m good with friendships only because that wouldn’t hurt me but love would eventually leave me broken only to which I am not at all open. But who the hell I’m kidding even, whenever I saw those couples being cozy holding each other’s hands, sitting together, and chatting happily, I always used to wish that for myself also deep in my heart but I knew that would never be the case because I am more than afraid to open my heart for someone and have it broken. I’m afraid to end up like my mom, to fall in love, and then eventually when the other one falls out of that love, would end up hurting myself and then dying like her, when the pain becomes unbearable.

Now, we are launching our brand in Asia and I’m more than happy and ready for that but the only thing that I’m concerned about is that our head office is in India and for that, we need to move over there. Me being the CEO needed to go over there by myself to look at how the preps are going on and what all is ready and what we need to do more. But, the only good thing about this is that I’m not going back to Delhi but instead I’m going to the economical capital of India that is Mumbai, and it is quite far enough from Delhi and I am hoping not to see any of those people that I hate ever till I’m in India. Because, as soon as we would be on the normal tracks I would go back to Berlin where my life is actually now, as India has given me a lot but taken more than that from me and I’m not ready to give up on anything more by just being in that country.

And, also that I’m not just an entrepreneur but also a part-time model. For me, part-time is that I do modeling projects and magazine shoots but that is just once a month and also if I’m free at that. Modeling is never my priority, and I never wish to prioritize that also.

That just happened in my life as initially for our product we didn’t want to hire big and famous faces but according to the marketing strategies we thought that real people and those who could hold connect with normal people would be best for our product campaign, so we had our staff and other locals we knew, our neighbors and all the other people we knew.

And that worked out as magic not to our company only but for me as well, I don’t know how but people actually loved my pictures and after that, I started getting more and more offers to work as a model as well, and I did too. That was because of our financial needs at that point, yes, I was doing well but, that was the time when I wanted to buy us a house and be more stable and get us a backup plan in case of the business not working as we expected.

But God definitely didn’t want me to be disheartened, all the bad that had to happen to me already did. Not only I did good in modeling but also my business took as something unexpected and unpredicted by any of the team members.

So, now I and Arnav are again sitting over here at the airport waiting for our flight back to India. Over here in the past five years, this is the flight that we have been the most crucial for both of us. Arnav might not be showing his nervousness to me but I know that he is hell nervous and not sure at all about us going back to India. In all the trips we have taken in all those years he always seems excited and couldn’t stop talking about that how the flight would be, the new locations we would explore in the time we were over there and all the stuff that we could do over there, but right now he seemed quite as if contemplating to go over there with me or not. He knew as soon as his holidays got over which was about two months from today, he would come back here to Berlin and I would be staying back in India for quite some more time to complete the work and all the required.

Though, Mumbai was a completely different state from where we used to live and had never been all the time we were in India still Arnav didn’t seem quite pleased with the idea of us going back to our home country. More or less, I know that deep down I was also contemplating the decision of going over there or not but I had no other choice, India is one the prime markets of the entire Asian continent and moreover I had a great knowledge of the place and language, that would definitely make our business run a notch smoother than it would in any other country for us. And, being the CEO of the company, it is my responsibility to think of my company first before my personal life. During all those years, in business school, I learned that personal and professional life should always be kept separate and never mixed with each other because that would only bring harm to both of the lives.

“Dii we won’t be meeting with any of those people, right? I don’t want to see them, I don’t want them coming back into our lives again, and this time I’m more than sure they would come back because of the money. They are gold diggers and nothing more than that, and this time for their liking we have more than the required money. I don’t want to face them, or hear them shouting or mocking us again. I don’t want them keeping you names and disgracing you again, because this time I’m sure I won’t let them just get away with that. Earlier we were weak and young, but now, we have enough power in our hands to turn their world upside down, and I won’t hesitate even for a second to do that if they try to get near you even and I’m very sure of that and even you won’t be able to stop me. I have seen how they used to fight with mom, how they tortured her, how they broke her to the point that she did what she did, I have seen them talk about what they wanted to do with you after taking the property if we…” I didn’t let him complete what he wanted to say.

He was reliving all those memories and I don’t want him to do that. We were inside the aircraft when Arnav finally let me know the reason for him being quiet for so long, and that was the point I knew how much hatred he was harboring inside him for all those people and I knew that he needed to let that go. It wasn’t right for him to be so toxic toward them or anyone else but, truth be told I understand where he was coming from. He was very young when he had to face what he faced and anyone could be shaken by whatever happened to us. I knew at that point that I needed to talk to him about all these things and also make him calm down as he was crying uncontrollably.

“They won’t intervene with our lives now Arnav. Nothing that happened back then is going to happen now, we would continue to live our lives the way we used to live them over here. I promise we would never cross paths with them again, and I’ll do everything in my power to not let anything like that happen even.” I consoled him and guaranteed him that we would never meet those people again.

I might have consoled Arnav, but deep in my heart I also know that I’m worried about them again coming back into our lives, but this time as Arnav said I have enough powers and cards under my sleeves to stop them from harming us in any way. With that thought, I drifted off to sleep, and the next morning when I would woke up, we would be in India, in our homeland, but in a different city and I’m glad for that.

A new life awaits us, over here in Mumbai and I’m to be honest quite excited about that. A new story to write and might something unexpected happening, meeting the people she lost hope to see even, a new friendship blooming, knowing the people again with a new side. Mumbai definitely holds surprises for her.