Love that lasts

Chapter 13.

She'll cry one more time tonight, hoping it's the last

and I'll lie beside her, a thousand miles apart

shedding the same tears, knowing it's not.

-- Leo Christopher

*****

Aryan opened his apartment door and dragged his feet inside, quite late in the night.

He went straight to shower and let the hot water singe and sear his wound... he really didn't care. This was nothing compared to the deeper and invisible wounds that were inflicted on him all those years ago, which never healed.

To say that events of that day drained him emotionally would be an understatement.

After Chandni left, he spent an hour just lying on the sofa inhaling the faint perfume and smell she left behind, while his heart wept with the bitter memories of an even worse confrontation he had in Goa, all those years ago, with the goons and police.

She silently watched all that and then left with her parents. Where was all this compassion and care back then? How much did he plead with her to believe him, trust him?? But she chose not to, and abandoned him to the mercy of the police, who did their best to humiliate him and t*****e him in lockup. If it wasn't for the efforts of his friends and later Raj Singh, who came to rescue him and bailed him out, he would have been left rotting in the lock up for a long time.

That very man, his saviour all those years ago, Raj Singh walked into the Chandni's cabin just then. As he enquired after Aryan's wellbeing, Aryan had to finally abandon his reminisces about his past.

He reassured Raj Singh that he was perfectly alright and went on to discuss some finishing touches to the prototype model as well, trying his best to look unaffected and normal in front of him. He later went to the building security along with Rohit and Sandeep and procured images of the thug who hit him. Looking at the images confirmed some of the doubts he had, but raised many more questions as well.

Raj Singh and Namrata were keen to make a complaint with police but he put a stop to their attempts, dismissing that this could be just a one off incident and not to make such a big fuss about it. They reluctantly agreed, even though they were keen to point out that, if Chandni and Vikram Mathur insisted, they would have to file a complaint with the police.

He worked for a few more hours before returning to his apartment, and then he was back in his private hell, where he had no one around to pretend and assure that he was okay.

Like hell he was okay!!

Ever since he saw Chandni, his life had become a living nightmare again and all the pain and angst he had successfully hidden behind a carefree Casanova image have come back to bite him with a bang. It hurt even more now, as he realised finally that how much he hated her, he still couldn't stop loving her!

Even when he knew that she was out of bounds, married to someone and a mother of a child. He thought he had hardened his heart against her all those years ago, when he came to know about her marriage to Rahul, but now as he watched her, happily married to Vikram and living what seemed to be a content family life, it just made him realise more and more how empty his life had become.

He turned the shower to full blast at highest temperature, hoping it would shake him out of his morbid thoughts. After a few minutes, he turned the shower off and dabbed his face and hair dry, and made sure the nose wound was dry too. He was still deep in thoughts, as he wrapped the towel around his waist as he walked into his bedroom, water still dripping on his chest, when he stepped on something hard next to his gym bag.

As he picked it up, he noticed that it was a pearl encased ring that Raj Kaka presented to him a long time ago, which he always removed when he went for his gym sessions. It must have fallen out of the pouch. He put it back on his left hand finger slowly.

That ring triggered some memories and he began to look for something in the locker inside his wardrobe. Finally he pulled out a delicate and exquisite sapphire stone ring, safely kept in a tiny box which belonged to Chandni. He vividly remembered the moment when they exchanged their rings.

~'~

"Chandni! I want to give you something..." Aryan hesitated.

"Aryan please don't buy anything for me. I know that you have spent all your money on buying the mangal sutra and wedding arrangements for tomorrow." Chandni protested softly.

Aryan smiled happily. Chandni was quite mature for her age and had no demands of her own.

"I am so proud of you and glad that you understand. You and I are going to have such a perfect sync in our life that we don't have to worry about many things. Yes, I don't have any money to buy a ring for our wedding tomorrow, but this is my mother's ring which I had got resized so that I could wear it all the time. It is very close to my heart and so now, this belongs to you." Aryan held Chandni's left hand and gently slid the ring onto her finger, as she smiled shyly, glowing in all the warmth and love they felt towards each other.

"Oh Aryan!! It is so beautiful even though it is nearly twice my finger size." She bit her lower lip, trying to stop the chuckle that threatened to escape her. She looped a small chain through the ring to her wrist and connected it to her bracelet, securing it tightly.

"I know sweetheart, but we will get it redone for you again, once we go back to Mumbai." Aryan said as he tucked a tendril of her soft hair behind her ear.

"But then you have to wear my ring too." She pulled out the sapphire ring from her right hand middle finger.

"Baby!!! This is so small; it wouldn't even fit my pinkie!" He smiled at her as she struggled to slide it along the small finger on his left hand, finally managing to push it all the way.

"It doesn't matter, it may hurt a bit but you will wear it, because that's the only ring I have ever worn and now it belongs to you. Don't you ever dare to take it out, OK?" She warned, pointing her finger at him.

"I am ready to bear any pain for you sweetheart. This is nothing." He kissed her pointing finger and the ring finger which adorned his mother's ring now. He slanted against the wall, to be more at level with her as he drew her slowly in his arms. Her shy reaction only made him want her more.

He began to kiss her, softly along her jaw. Her body shivered, as usual to his merest touch and she clung on to him desperately, as she wound her arms around his neck, her heart thumping again at double the speed.

His lips caressed her half closed eyes and the forehead as she moaned softly, before coming down towards the cheeks, and slowly claimed those trembling lips. His mouth absorbed her sigh as his lips sucked, teased and finally crushed her mouth, his tongue invading to its depth, as he began to taste and gently bite her tongue and lips. She wound her fingers into his soft hair at the back and pulled his head down a little, savouring all the sensations that his roaming lips evoked in her. As the kiss deepened and became fierce, his one hand cupped her cheek while the other pulled her up against him, gaining more access to her, and they both fought for control, drawing further moans and shudders from her which was matched by heated and rough response from him. The outside stormy weather reflected their wild mood. It took a while before they calmed down; pausing for some much needed oxygen.

"Can't wait to take you back to Mumbai after our wedding, and make you completely mine on our first night!" Aryan murmured against her swollen lips, as Chandni blushed deeply.

~'~

A lightning and thunder outside brought Aryan back to his present. He wore that ring dutifully just as he promised her, till she betrayed his trust and then eventually abandoned him, marrying some other guy!

If it was hard to wear that ring back then, it was impossible now with his grown up muscular body. He wondered what she did with his ring!! He noticed that she was wearing some sort of a ring on the first day he met her, but not afterwards. He cursed inwardly. What does it matter what she wears now, when she was married to someone else? Anyway, rings and chains are nothing but symbols.

If she never cared and valued their bonding and relationship, what does it matter what she had done with its symbols!! He chucked the ring back in the locker and stormed angrily towards his bed, and collapsed on to it, still clad in his towel. After tossing and turning for a long time, his tired eyes and body slumbered into the welcome respite that sleep provided.

****

A/N

I hope you are loving the flow of this story with the past memories interwoven with present times. Do you agree with Aryan's POV that Chandni was heartless and left him at the mercy of the police and goons all those years ago?