"Narcissists make terrible parents. They lack the basic empathy and selfless nature that loving parenting requires. They have no problem meeting their own needs first before their children's needs and feel completely justified in their actions. Narcissists create valid resentment in their children and later on in life, wonder why they have no authentic relationship with their adult children. Chronic selfishness and parenting do not go together."

- Shannon Thomas

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When he entered the Malhotra house, Shravan was almost dragging himself. His legs were trembling as if they would give in anytime, nevertheless, he kept moving.

As he came to stand in front of the door of his father's room, he forced himself to open the door to walk in and demand to his father if what Suman was saying was true. But as much as he wanted to do that, he feared the answer to that with every fiber of his being.

Letting go of the knob, he turned back and almost run to his room. Closing the door behind him with a bang, he let himself fall on the sofa with his head in his hands.

'Not tonight. Not in the same night...' He repeated to himself as he shook his head.

But in his heart, he knew what she said wasn't a lie. When he looked back and analyzed everything that had happened and everything that she and his father had told him in the past month or so, he could see a pattern, something that he had ignored because he was blinded by the trust he had in his father and consumed by the desperation he felt when she was slipping away from him.

A series of the events that had happened within the last two weeks kept repeating in his mind and he didn't know what was hurting him more: Suman's giving him up or his father continuously pulling him away from her. Why didn't his father leave it to him to decide what was best for him? Why didn't she think of him as one of her priorities if she felt anything for him?

The things he had said and done to her were irreversible, he knew. An apology couldn't mend things between them, he realized. No matter how much he regretted it all, he couldn't ask or expect her to forgive him, nor he would forgive her for giving him away.

He knew he couldn't claim that he would have believed her if she had trusted him with the truth. Nor he would ever be able to trust her with all of him as blindly as she seemed to have wanted back then. The trust she was ready to do anything for a few months back.

As Shravan thought of her words, her actions, and her pulling away from him, keeping in mind the reason, he couldn't help but feel more betrayed than he felt even when she had chosen Aditya's help over his. Or even he got to know she preferred marrying Aditya. Or even when he got to know she was knowingly getting married to Nirmala Ahuja's son. He couldn't find it in himself to not feel more betrayed than he had felt back then. At least then he could console himself that the love and care he had seen in her eyes was just an illusion of his, a mirage he desperately wanted to believe in. That she was doing all of that because suddenly she felt nothing but hatred for him...

Now he knew the warmth of her love and care that he had felt was not an illusion nor a mirage. It was true. It was there. But despite all, she gave up on him. The reason didn't matter, his father's involvement didn't matter. She gave him away...

Was he a hypocrite to feel such a way when he had himself given up on them? Maybe, but at the moment, he didn't have it in him to rationalize the entire situation.

No matter how he wanted to deny it or wanted it any other way, in the end, the conclusion remained the same: the two people he trusted the most, loved the most, had seen him writhing in pain and desperation but still didn't choose to do anything. They had seen him breaking into pieces and then inflicting the destruction he had felt on her. But still, they hadn't said anything to him, had done nothing about it. Nothing...

But despite all, he felt he had no right to accuse and lament over anything, to any of them. The loss wasn't one-sided this time around, it would be on both sides. Suman had already lost him and his father would lose him too. This time around, nothing would be one-sided, nor would he take no as an answer. He wasn't going to repeat the same mistake he had made with Suman. He was going to confront his father, even though he had given up on confronting her when she pushed him away.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the door of his room open. Looking up, he found his father walking into his room.

"Shravan, it's late. Why aren't you sleeping?" His father asked him.

When Shravan continued to look at him with an expression he couldn't decipher, Ramnaath realized Suman Tiwari had told his son what he never intended him to know.

"You know, right?" He asked, nervously.

A sarcastic smile made its way to Shravan's face as he kept looking at him. This time, he recognized the look his son had on his face; it was the one he had seen Shravan giving to his opponent in the court. The look he had on his face when he would destroy the person standing in front of him into pieces without hesitation.

"I know many things, Mr Ramnaath Malhotra. What exactly you are talking about?" He asked as he smirked.

"Shravan..." Ramnaath gasped as he looked at his son in shock.

"Come, sit here," Shravan commanded as he invited him to sit next to him.

Ramnaath was afraid his legs would give out at any time. Was the young man sitting in front of him his loving son? He has heard Shravan, his only child, call him 'papa' with respect, pride and love ever since the day he could pronounce that word. He had seen those light brown eyes shine with reverence and love whenever he looked at him, but today they were empty. The warmth in his eyes was replaced with the coldness of winter storms. Ramnaath felt breathless when he found Shravan looking back at him with a hard and bitter expression on his face. He had never thought his son was capable of showing that much coldness and hardness towards him, his father.

As he slowly walked towards the bed and silently sat next to his son, Ramnaath didn't know what to expect. But he at least wanted a chance to explain things to Shravan. But before that, he had to find out how much his son knew, just so in his guilt and nervousness, he wouldn't give away something Shravan didn't know.

"How much do you know?" He breathed out.

"Everything," Shravan said with a blank face. He could notice the way his father was unable to meet his eyes. The lawyer could tell that Mr Ramnaat Malhotra was hiding something more than what Suman had told him about. He was sure of it as he saw his father wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"What? She told you everything?" Ramnaath gasped.

"Yes." Shravan lied with a straight face.

There was no way his father would know he was lying. After all, his father never had been subjected to lies. He didn't know the way Shravan could lie without batting his eyes and with a straight face. He had always been his most vulnerable around his father, sure of the fact that he could let his guard down around the only person who was the reason why he wasn't devoured by the darkness he had in him.

It suddenly struck him how, despite taking all the precautions, he now was hurt and wounded because he thought of his father as someone who would never hurt him intentionally or unintentionally. But here he was, hurt and wounded, by his father, intentionally...

And why wouldn't have that happened? He himself had forgotten his own rule: never trust anyone, never let anyone in, and never let your guard down. But he could have never predicted that he had to make sure that rule also applied to his father. He had never counted his father as anyone, he was everything. The only ray of light in the dark and cynic world they were part of. The only person he had trusted blindly, the only one he could count on, no matter what.

Oh, how wrong he had been...

His father had been his idol. The God he had adored, blindly and excessively. He didn't remember a time when he hadn't worshiped the ground his father had walked on. But now sitting in front of him, the very same man, his God, was unable to meet his eyes. And slowly, the idol he had built with love for so many years broke into pieces. He didn't need any confirmation now; he knew. His father has done what Suman had accused him of. And not only that, but there was something more. Something else he was very guilty of...

"Why?" He whispered.

"Shravan, she would have created a distance between us. Suman is so similar to Nirmala that she would have chosen the very same path your mother had years ago. She always was on Nirmala's side, and she still is. And if you were able to accept Suman, with time, she would have proved that Nirmala was not wrong. And then I would have lost you. Your love and your respect are what I live for. I couldn't put that at risk." Ramnaath choked as he explained.

"Funny how Nirmala Ahjua seems to have so much control over my life, directly and indirectly, despite the fact we both have disowned each other." Shravan smiled humorlessly as he shook his head.

As he took in what his father had revealed, he let out a deep sigh. As numbed and exhausted as he was, he continued.

"So, you bought me from Suman because you didn't want to lose me?" Shravan asked as he stared at his father.

"I didn't buy you. I..." Before Ramnaath could complete, he was interrupted.

"You paid my price, didn't you? A smooth marriage of Pushkar and Preeti. You gave Suman a blank cheque because you thought I was priceless and she thought my prize couldn't be valued monetarily. So, you both bargained and decided that the most appropriate price would be their marriage. You paid the price, and she sold me. Simple, isn't it?" Shravan said with a cold shrug, his vision burling midway and even though he kept blinking in an attempt to control them, the tears still slipped away from his eyes.

"That's not true, Shravan. You taking it in the wrong way." Ramnaath told as he tried to find words to explain why he had done what he had done.

When Shravan kept looking back at him, unmoving and unforgiving, Ramnaath felt a shiver run down his spine.

"I didn't want Suman to become your wife because she is just like Nirmala. Independent, stubborn, self-centered. I didn't want you to suffer the same fate as me. I refused to see you suffer like that," Ramnaat said, as tears slowly slipped from his eyes.

As he saw his father cry in front of him, Shravan felt a pang in his heart. That was a sight he had never witnessed before; his father had never cried in front of him. Never. He has always seen his father as the strongest man he had ever met or knew of. To see him break in front of his eyes was something very painful for him.

"You don't get, Papa, do you?" Shravan asked quietly.

Ramnaath's head snapped up when he heard his son calling him Papa once again. As he looked at Shravan, he found him watching back with a blank expression on his face, but his eyes were filled with so many emotions. Ever since he was a child, Shravan had such expressive eyes that they couldn't hold back the secrets even when he tried so hard to hold back. But right now there were too many emotions swimming in his eyes and he couldn't pinpoint even one.

"Suman doesn't have anything to do with this. Not even you have anything to do with what I think or feel about Nirmala Ahuja. I don't care how and why your both's marriage fell apart because that would never justify why she left me. She stopped being your wife for both of you because you both didn't want to continue living together, but that doesn't explain why she ceased to be my mother." Shravan whispered.

"You can leave behind your marriage, not your children. You move on from your spouse, not your child. But she did that. She replaced me with Aditya. She moved on and forgot me as I never existed." He said as tears slipped from his eyes. He blinked a few times to get rid of them as he continued.

"Do you know Aditya kept on bragging about how his mother was an angel, always there to guide him? Back then, I didn't know she was the same woman who happened to be my mother as well. I used to envy him till I got to know the truth. Did you know she kept calling him almost every hour to check on him? She kept asking him 'beta, did you have dinner? What did you eat?' Or 'beta, how was your day?'...I had heard him talking to her on the phone for hours." He revealed and when his voice quavered, he fell silent. After taking in a deep breath, he continued.

"So much love, so much warmth..." He murmured.

"She cares for him, papa, enough to plead and beg me for his happiness. She does love him like he is her own. While I had not heard her voice even once in these past eleven years. She didn't know what I looked like when we met. Suman had to tell her that I was her son. But am I? She didn't care back then, she doesn't care even now." He choked, holding back the sobs as the walls of indifference crumbled around him.

"Shravan..." His father whispered with moist eyes as he pulled his son into his arms, evolving his child in the warmth of his fatherly love. When he felt his son's body tremble with sobs, he felt his heartbreak into pieces and he too cried along with him, for him. For his child's pain and the rejection that he has taken to his heart.

"How can you or anyone think that I can ever take her side, in any matter, when she doesn't even care for me? When she doesn't even think me worthy enough to tell her side of the story. As much as I do love you, Papa, I hold what she had done to me against her, not what she did to you or what you did to her. She has wronged me as a mother." Shravan continued when he pulled away.

"Shravan, you have to know that I was the one who stopped her from contacting you," Ramnaath revealed as he looked at the floor, unable to meet his eyes.

"You may have stopped her from meeting me, but she still had the right and the choice to meet me. But she didn't even bother. And even then, you could have stopped her till I was here in India. But why did she never contact me when I was in London? She had ten years, but she didn't even try to do that once. She didn't feel the need to reach out, to tell me her side of the truth, what had happened between you two, or why had she left me. She still doesn't." Shravan said with a heavy sigh.

He shook his head as tears kept slipping from his eyes. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands harshly, stopping everything from becoming burly, but no matter how much he tried to control them, the tears wouldn't stop.

"If it wasn't for Suman, she would have never met me, never have gotten to know how I look like and what I have become. Never. She doesn't care about me because I ceased to exist for her the day she walked out of her marriage. While I kept her alive within me in the form of my hatred for women. I kept pretending that all women were like my mother by nature because there was no other reason my mother stopped caring for me. I kept believing in that notion because I couldn't accept that my own mother had rejected me for no fault of mine. I told myself, it was natural, happened to everyone, because I couldn't function with the fact that my mother who was supposed to love me unconditionally had abandoned me, had forgotten about me," Shravan whispered as he looked down at the floor.

Ramnaath could only stare at him. He had never seen this side of his son. Never before they had talked about what had happened more than a decade ago. Never before he had realized the impact Nirmala's walking away from them had on Shravan.

"How can a mother forget about her child? I had asked myself that for the past decade, only to console myself with the idea that there must be something in women's nature that made it easy for her to forget about me. Because there was no other justification that explained why she left me, why I had ceased to exist for her." He said as he blinked a few times and he let out a deep sigh.

"So you see, Mr Ramnaath Malhotra, you wouldn't have lost me if Suman would have had become my wife. You wouldn't have lost me even if Nirmala Ahuja had proved that you were the most terrible husband in this world. Snatching Suman away from me wasn't necessary, buying me from her wasn't necessary." Shravan said as once again coldness made its way into his voice, as once again a hard expression set on his face.

"Shravan, I don't know what to say other than that I have done it in the fear of losing you," Ramnaath pleaded quietly.

As Shravan kept looking at his father, who was unable to meet his eyes, he let out a sigh, his expression softening.

"You would have never lost me, Papa, no matter what. Do you know why is that? Because you never left me. You stayed. Where everyone else keeps leaving me as per their convenience, you never do that. Not even once. And that's all I ever wanted." He whispered.

When Ramnaath looked up at his son, he found him looking back at him, and then slowly a sad, sarcastic smile made its way on Shravan's face as he shook his head, his eyes unfocused. Then he slowly blinked and once again looked at him.

"You see, my expectations from people I love are very low. I don't need them to be amazing human beings or flawless. All I had ever asked was for them to not leave, to give a damn about me." He smiled humorlessly.

"By doing what you did, you took away from me the only possibility I ever had of a normal future. You took away from me the possibility of living a life where the wounds I carry would have healed. I lost the possibility of having that life the day you bought me from Suman Tiwari." Shravan said quietly as he looked at him with no expression on his face.

Ramnaath gasped as he realized his son not only looked defeated, but he had accepted it too. He had given up on everything, on everyone.

"No-no, Shravan, that's not true. I will make sure that you get the kind of future you want. Please, son, give me a chance to mend things. Give me a chance and I will bring back Suman into your life. I promise I will do that. Whatever it takes." Ramnaath pleaded with his son as he kept shaking his head, denying the fact that he had destroyed his son by his own hand.

"You don't understand. Nothing can be done now. There is nothing left." Shravan whispered with a sigh.

"Don't give up, Shravan. I know she loves you, she herself told me that. She also said that she will wait for you." Ramnaath said as he tried to console his son.

"That Suman is lost to me now. She is no more the Suman who loved me or who would have waited for me. I killed that Suman with my own hands. The taunts, the insults, and finally the lies I told Aditya made sure of that. There is nothing left there between us now." Shravan confessed quietly as once again guilt and regret started to torment him.

"What are you talking about, Shravan? What did you lie to Aditya about?" Ramnaath asked when he was reminded of the accusation Aditya threw at his son.

"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters." Shravan said as he stood up.

"Where are you going?" Ramnaath asked when he saw his son open the door of his room to walk out.

"Away..." Shravan answered without turning back.

"So late in the night? Where? Stay, Shravan, don't go anywhere." Ramnaath pleaded.

Shravan turned back then to look at his worried father and smiled humorlessly.

"I will come back. I am not going anywhere, Papa. I have nowhere else to go...No one else," Shravan whispered before walking away from him.

As he saw his only child walk away from him, Ramnaath could do nothing but look back and repent each mistake he had ever committed. Because in the end, every mistake of his has only caused suffering to the one he wanted to protect with his life, the one he never wanted to hurt: his child, his Shravan...

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A/N:- Here is the next chapter...I hope you all liked it, I would like to know your thoughts and feelings on the chapter and on Ramnaath-Shravan-Nirmala in general, so please, leave a comment or two, or as many as you would like to... :)

Thank you for liking the story so far, and thank you for your 'likes', comments, and encouragement... :)

Thank you! :)

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