Luv (Un)Arranged (Luv Shuv #3)

Chapter 32

32

Song: Suna Man Ka Aangan

- Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal

Kriti

T he constant ringing of the doorbell had me rushing out of the kitchen. My heart pounded, thinking it could be Aakar. Yet I did not want it to be Aakar. First, I was furious with him. Second, I had not told my parents that my husband had sent me back home despite their incessant questions at my surprise arrival. And third, my heart was shredded to pieces.

So when I opened the door of my house, I was shocked to see a face I did not expect.

Abhi.

With a small, guilty smile and his hands jammed into his pockets, he simply shrugged.

I quickly pulled him inside the house and closed the door.

Thank God I was the only one in the house. Maa had gone to her sister’s place, and they were going shopping. Rati and Kartik were at school, and Dad was at work.

“Abhi, what are you doing here?”

Determination filled his eyes, and his lips tightened as he said, “I’m here to take you back home with me, what else?”

I wasn’t shocked by his declaration, but it still touched my heart. “Oh, Abhi. I’m sorry. But I can’t.”

Clutching his hair, he sat on the sofa as anguish poured out of him in waves. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have come out to him like that. If I’d just shut up, you would still be home with us.”

Slowly, I took a seat beside him and rubbed his back. “If coming out is your fault, then asking you to come out, making you believe that Aakar would be cool about it, running into you and Karan, all of that was my fault. I’ve just made mistakes upon mistakes, and none of it has been your fault.”

“Don’t blame yourself, bhabhi. The only person to blame here is Aakar Bhai. He had no right, no right , to send you back. You’re not just his wife. You’re a part of our family. And nobody gave him the right to act like a selfish asshole to you.”

“Abhi…” I had no words. I loved my little brother-in-law, but I refused to step foot inside the house.

“If he doesn’t want to talk to you, his loss. I can give you my room. Or you can sleep with Ria Didi. She’d happily take you in. You don’t even have to talk to Aakar Bhai. Just come home, bhabhi.”

I thought I’d cried all my tears dry last night, but I guess not. My eyes filled with them at the genuine love he has for me. “You have no idea how happy you made me by coming here. Makes me feel like I at least fulfilled my role as a sister-in-law well. But I’m not coming back, Abhi. I didn’t deserve to be yelled at by Aakar. I didn’t deserve to be thrown out of the house because Aakar didn’t want to deal with me. I don’t know if I can forgive him, Abhi. I don’t think I even want to.”

His eyes widened at my declaration, and he shook his head in denial. “I can’t. I can’t accept it, bhabhi. But I also can’t ask you to forgive Aakar Bhai.” He groaned out loud. “God, he’s such an idiot and an asshole.”

Despite the circumstances, despite how raging mad I was at my husband, I chuckled. “He is, isn’t he?”

We were both quiet after that. “You sure you don’t wanna come back home, bhabhi? You just say the word, and I’ll be here to pick you up.”

“I’m sure, Abhi.” My voice teared up as I said in barely a whisper, “He asked me to go home.”

With a jerky nod and a few curse words, Abhi walked out of the door.

From where I was standing, Aakar messed up. He was the one who hurt not one but two people. Yet it felt like we were the ones being punished. And like a fool, I was hiding what he did, what he said, from my parents and his. Despite his cruelty, I was trying to keep his impression good in front of my parents.

Why? I was mad at myself for lying to my parents for him. Because deep within me, I knew that I would go back to him. That I would forgive him. And I hated it. I didn’t want to forgive him.

I scoffed at that thought. I’d have to think such thoughts when he actually asked for an apology. I didn’t see him knocking down my door asking me to come back.

How could he do this to the person he claimed to love?

Was it even love if he could so easily discard me like that?

And didn’t that hurt me like a motherfucking bitch. To know that the person you were in love with didn’t truly love you at all.

Aakar

It had been twenty-four hours since I dropped Kriti off at the bus station. Twenty-four excruciating hours where I regretted making that decision.

I’d shredded my own heart to pieces in trying to have control over everything and everyone. And now I’d ended up hurting two of the most important people in my life.

I walked down from my room and stepped into the dining area to find the usual chaos that was my family. My heart pounded at the thought of what I was about to do.

My eyes met Ria’s, who sat in one of the chairs at the dining table, eating breakfast. She gave me the classic What the fuck are you doing? look as she saw me just standing there like a fool.

I gave her a shrug and was preparing myself to go for it when Maa looked at me as she served a hot paratha to Dad and said, “Aakar, go on. Grab a plate and take a seat. I’ll get you some hot paratha.”

Clearing my throat, looking at Ria’s wide eyes, I turned to Maa. “Um. I actually needed to tell you all something.”

Everything stopped. Ten pairs of eyes bore down on me. This wasn’t the first time I was making an announcement in this house. I’d never been nervous before. My legs never shook. My throat didn’t dry up at the thought of uttering words. But I’d never been more in the wrong before. I’d never been so ashamed of myself before.

“What did you want to tell us?” Abhi’s voice came from behind Maa as he walked out of the kitchen carrying his plate of parathas. I’d not seen him since he walked out of my room yesterday morning.

His face was scrunched up in suspicion, his hackles raised.

Except for him, everyone else looked at me with normal worry. Not for long.

“Umm, Maa. Remember how Kriti missed her family and went to see them?”

Her voice dropped in confusion. “Yes?”

My heart raced, and my voice shook as I said, “She didn’t leave because she missed her family. She…uh…She left because I told her to.”

A laugh of disbelief and confusion escaped her as she looked around, then at Dad, at his confused face, and back at me. “Wha…What do you mean you told her to?”

Tears blurred my vision as I got the words out again. “We got in a fight, and I told her to leave and go back to her house.”

A loud shriek came first, followed by a hot steel spatula swinging at me and hitting me sharply on my chest. Before I could get over the shock, a large glass was flung at my head that I barely dodged. “What did you say you did?” Her shrieking had my legs shaking.

I’d never seen my mother so mad at me. Or at anyone else. Not even when Akira announced that she was in love with an American man.

Before I could step back, Maa and Pappa rushed toward me, Maa in the front, her angry eyes an exact replica of my little brother’s just a day ago.

She reached me and grabbed my T-shirt. “What could she have possibly done for you to send her back home?”

And wasn’t it a kick in my ass. I met Abhi’s eyes from behind Dad, then turned to Maa and said, “Nothing. She didn’t share something with me that I thought was important at that time, but it turns out, it really wasn’t important.”

In the next second, my head jerked sideways as Maa gave me a tight slap across the face. “So you’re telling me that you asked my daughter-in-law to leave this house for no reason at all?”

At my slow nod, Pappa quickly dragged Maa behind him before she could slap me again and asked, his voice dangerously low, “Was this thing that she didn’t share something like a secret that we made her keep about our health?”

My cheek burned, but nothing compared to the way I burned on the inside. I wish Maa could’ve given me a few more slaps, if only that could help ease this guilt. Answering my dad’s question, I only gave a sharp nod.

His eyes clouded with disappointment and rage. Turning to my mother, he shouted, “Look at him. Look at his obsession with needing to be in everyone’s business. Constantly correcting everyone. Relentlessly advising and controlling everyone.”

Turning to me, he shouted in my face, “What do you wish to gain by needing to know everything about everyone? You think your mom and I tell each other everything? You think that your kakas and kakis tell each other everything?”

My mistake, my weakness, my failure, all of it was laid bare in front of my family. In front of the people for whom I wanted to be perfect, reliable, and strong.

Maa was quick to jump in. “No, he just thinks he is needed everywhere. That without him, we wouldn’t be able to do anything right. But that’s not true, Aakar. We were living just fine before you were born, when you were a little kid, and when you grew up.”

Every word cut me where it hurt the most. And they were my family after all. They knew what would hurt me the deepest.

My lips trembled, and I bit it sharply. “Maa, please.”

Her eyes flooded with tears as she sat on the floor in defeat. Her voice broke as tears streaked down her cheeks. “Maa, what? Is this how we raised you? How could you, Aakar? Never in my life would I have imagined you disrespecting your wife like this.”

Defeated, I dropped to my knees in front of my mother, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Maa. I don’t know what came over me. But I need my wife back. I know I messed up, but I want to get her back.”

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and looked over to find Abhi, tears shining in his eyes as well. “She said you broke her heart. And won’t come back.”

If my heart could stop beating, it would’ve stopped at those four words. “What?”

Ten other people echoed the same question at Abhi.

He looked at everyone and sighed. “I figured out yesterday that Aakar Bhai sent bhabhi home.” He raised his hands in the air as everyone began to scold him and shouted, “Now it was between bhai and bhabhi, and I was mad at bhai for sending bhabhi away. So I went to Laxminagar to bring her back.”

I stayed on my knees, waiting with bated breath to know more. Abhi looked at me with defeated eyes. “She was really hurt, bhai. She just kept saying that you sent her home. As if she couldn’t believe you did that. She said she’s not coming back.”

Radhika Kaki was quick to pipe in, “Maybe she meant she wouldn’t come back with you, Abhi. Maybe if Aakar went to get her?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to me. With a shake of my head, I looked down at my hands. “It won’t be easy. Uh. This might not be the first time I’ve fought with her about not being open with me and hiding things from me,” I said and looked at Dad and kaka. “Remember when she kept your secret?”

Maa was now clutching her head in her hands. “Oh, Aakar. Aakar. Aakar. What am I gonna do with you? I thought you were my smartest son.”

It didn’t take a second for Abhi to jump in. “Maa, you think I’m the smartest, then?”

While it got a few chuckles from the kakas and Ria, Maa turned a helpless look his way and said, “Beta, if Aakar can disappoint us to this extent, God only knows what you’d do to us.”

Knowing what I knew now, my eyes met Abhi’s, and we burst out laughing.

Tears streamed down my eyes as I heard my grandfather exclaim, “He seems to have lost his mind, poor boy.”

Once our laughter died down, Ria came over and sat on the floor between me and Maa. “What are we going to do, kaki? How are we going to get Kriti back?”

Maa’s glare returned in full force. “Have you thought of something?”

Before I could utter a single word, she turned to Dad and, in the most disappointing tone, said, “What would he think? He didn’t even think about what the poor girl would tell her parents when she showed up at her place out of the blue. Or what would she tell them when she wouldn’t come back home here and stayed there for a long time.”

With a murderous glare and another slap at my chest, she shouted, “You didn’t even bother to think about all that, did you?”

When I shook my head in defeat and denial once again, Maa scoffed and looked away.

I clutched her knee. “I’ll bring her back, Maa. I’ll apologize. I’ll get down on my knees and beg for her forgiveness. I’ll do whatever it takes, but I’ll bring her back. And it’s only been a day. She’ll forgive me, right?”

Radhika Kaki scoffed at that. “One day or one week or one month. It’s not about time, Aakar. It’s about what you did.”

Ekta Kaki quickly added, “And I don’t think just saying sorry is going to do anything, Aakar.”

Abhi piped in, “Yes, bhai. Bhabhi was really hurt and angry.”

And just because my grandma hadn’t had any say so far, she jumped in as well, “If your grandfather had asked me to go home, I would’ve just stayed at my home.”

And it seemed like Kriti had dug herself into everyone’s hearts because Grandpa gave me the nastiest look and turned to Grandma, saying, “I’m not stupid enough to tell my wife to go back home.”

With a loud groan and my heart aching with regret, I asked, “What do I do? At least give me something.”

After a minute of silence, Ekta Kaki cleared her throat. “Maybe you should do a grand gesture.”

“Grand gesture?” I asked, utterly confused.

But apparently, I was the idiot of the Mishra family because my mother, Radhika Kaki, Ria, and Abhi exclaimed in delight, “Yes. Oh my god, yes.”

Seeing my confusion, Maa asked, “Haven’t you seen your wife read so many romance novels?”

“And?” I asked.

An evil look crossed my mother’s eyes, which scared me to my bones. “You know what, beta? Pick any ten books from your wife’s bookshelf and read them. Come to us once you’re done with that, and then we’ll help you.”

“But…” I started to argue.

But Abhi gave a quick and hard slap on my back and said, “Wow, Mummy. You are a genius.”

All the ladies of the house now had a smile on their faces, and no matter how evil, they shed a tiny spark of hope in my chest.

“We need to bring her back fast, Maa. It would take me days to read ten books, and she’ll only get angrier,” I tried to reason with her.

Wiping her face, Maa got up from the floor and said, “Then maybe you should read them quickly.”

“Don’t worry about work. We’ll handle it. Don’t want you to get too used to all that control and power. You’re officially on leave till we get our daughter back,” Dad announced, getting a round of applause from everyone.

“Do you want a few recommendations, beta?” Ekta Kaki asked, making Maa laugh.

With literally nothing better to do, and needing the help of my family to get my wife back home, I got up from the floor and moved toward the staircase.

Quickly, I turned to Ekta Kaki. “Umm. Kaki. I’ll take some recommendations.”