One Month Later

        
Gauri had just managed to make Rahul lie in his bed when the sound of the car had him racing out of his room, she can't blame him after all she felt like doing the same. If there was a career to be made out of pushing people away, Gauri would need no lessons on it.
    
For a month she continued to push him away until he got the message loud and clear, first he tried to speak to her often and how long can one continue to listen to her one word answers that he gave up on her .
 
Nowadays he leaves for work early and return back close to midnight that Rahul began to become fussy about not seeing him. She was thankful that school keeps him occupied for most of the day because the few hours he spends in home all he ask is about Arnav .

Gauri returned to work after the case got over as well and she made sure to keep her thoughts away from him awhile working but like Rahul  all of it changes once she step inside their home.  Shilpa, her son baby sitter and Gauri's friend had blamed Arnav for being irresponsible and she couldn't find it in her to tell the truth that she was to be blamed for his actions .
            
Tonight Rahul had been more fuzzy than ever, and she struggled so hard to not let it get to her and was relieved when he agreed to sleep without seeing him only for the relief to be shorter than she anticipated as the sound of Arnav's car got him running out of the room .

          
She didn't dare to leave Rahul's room and face them because if she saw their tender moments she may break as well, so she stayed where she was and five minutes later Rahul came back looking sadder than before that she knew Arnav had declined to spend time with him.
         
She didn't want to be the villian of their story but she knew Arnav's reasons stemmed from her distance and as she tucked back her son to sleep, she wondered if taking away Arnav this soon after Arun would probably harm him in the long run .
   
As she stepped outside her son room, there was no sign of him . He doesn't eat in this home anymore and it all her fault. He usually stays in his room and it has been close to two days since she glimpsed him. And she missed him, it was her decision to distance herself from him but didn't make it any easy on her either .

      
That night when sleep finally came, so did the nightmares along with it.  She was about to wake up when his hands found his way to hers in a comforting grip and she fell asleep yet again with the assurance he was right by her side, the nightmare weren't a daily occurrence after the trial . 
    
But the few times she had them, he was by her side. The only time she let the distance between them fade away as she held on to his hand. He never said a word about it in the morning after those nights and she was thankful for it because she had no idea how to speak to him about it .

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Arnav held her hand until she fell asleep then walked back to his room , he didn't know why he kept checking on her every night more than a few times to make sure she was sleeping peacefully, maybe because it was the only time she let him close to her .
           
And he was thankful that there were only few nights that he stumbled upon her when she was in one of her nightmares and after the first night , he learnt a gentle touch usually calms her down without waking up . He wanted to talk to her about it but he knew she was pushing him away and he didn't know how to make her realize he wasn't walking away this time around .
        
He checked on sleeping Rahul as well and remembered the dejected look on his face when Arnav declined to read him a book earlier, it wasn't easy to say no to the little kid but he didn't want to make it harder for him either in the long run .
     
If in spite of everything Gauri remained firm on her decision than he had to make sure Rahul wasn't affected by his leaving, the little one had already lost a father and Arnav couldn't add more to it .
   
Six years he let himself believe he was moving on from losing her, and yet now that he had seen her again . He knew it would be so much harder to lose her again, Gauri was never a open book and she was never someone who could be convinced to change her perspective easily and right now she was scared of leaning on to him .
    
He always expected her to push him back once the case was over but he didn't expect it to happen the very next day. He couldn't fault her fear because she wasn't a stranger to him and because he knew just how she is given to close herself from others to keep them from finding out whenever she was hurt.
        
He had known always it would be hard but he hadn't expected that it would hurt him too much to give her the space she needed from him as well, living in the same house and yet staying away from both of them had been a nightmare .
     
Still it was manageable for now because they were far away from their families but Lavanya's marriage is getting close and he knew Gauri was still in touch with his cousin which meant they would have to visit home sooner .
  
That would mean they would no longer be living in a same house, he was pretty sure Gauri will not stay in his house even if his parents wanted it which they don't at the moment given that they have been made aware of Kavya action in the past.
     
" Kavya is struggling Arnav, as a mother I wish my daughter could move on but I don't think it was fair on Gauri to force her to be with Kavya yet " had been her mother words, Kavya didn't talk with him for over a month .
    
His calls went unanswered  always followed by a message stating she was fine and that we can talk later but it never happened so far. He intend to fix their relationship once he is back home but for now it had to wait . 
              
Since sleep eluded him, he decided to leave for work early. And an hour later he left the house driving to his office and slumped down the couch in his office as he drifted off to sleep .  Till his partner woke him up few hours later,  Arnav had been thankful Dilip never pushed him to talk about anything .
         
Several cases files were on his desk , Dilip had shared his case load when he went home a month ago and Arnav knew it was too much to ask him for another trip back home but it can't be helped. Lavanya was his cousin and she would never forgive him if he missed her wedding .
              
He was taken back when he got a call from his cousin few moments later,  he had assumed it was a customary call on how he was doing or a reminder to come home early for her wedding, so he hadn't been prepared to hear her cousin speak up something different entirely .
         
 "Kavya wanted me to tell you Bhai, that she is going to retire from being an actress. I don't know what got into her and I have tried changing her mind but she is adamant, I just told uncle and aunt who is taking it better than I hoped and I wanted to tell you before the announcement hit the news . " His cousin words confirmed his suspicions that his sister was shutting herself down after what happened, of course he expected it but he had assumed he had time to fix it and now it look like he was bit late .
       
" I will be there as soon as possible " he answered back as he marched out to his partner office, maybe he should resign and let Dilip appoint someone who can pull the weight, as suggested which was turned down by Dilip who asked him to go home first .
     
" My wife adores your sister, get her  few autographs and signed picture from your sister once you convinced her not to retire than I call it even " Dilip answered back as he took the news sportively .
   
His next destination had to be the hardest place to drive for him, he could have called her but he had to see her before leaving them alone. It wasn't a permanent setback but knowing Gauri, he knew she would see it as him giving up on her .

            **********************
   
One minute Gauri was looking at little James making a mess in his colouring book, the next second she was seeing him walking towards her with a bag in his hand.  And her world stopped he was leaving them of course he has every reason to walk away when she has showed how less she cared about him.
   
Her mind didn't focus on her colleague walking alongside him probably to show direction to her class, her mind refused to focus on the 30 kids in her class whose attention went towards him as well . Because she was shutting her heart down before he could say those words .
   
" Gauri, why don't you both talk outside and I will look after the kids for you until then " her colleague's offer was given in kindness but Gauri wanted to prolong this moment . Why no, why can't he say goodbye in their home and how will she tell Rahul that Arnav won't come home ever again .
    
" You are jumping to conclusions " he spoke the moment they had a privacy as they walked past her classroom and out of the kids hearing towards the school playground which was empty.
   
She didn't respond to his words because she was indeed jumping to the worst possible conclusions . " You are leaving " she spoke up those words because it was the truth, the bag in his hand was the proof she needed .
   
She hated the bag with passion, the bag she saw when her biological father walked away, the bag she saw when her step father once left home because of her and the bag she saw the day Arnav walked away from her. It wasn't the same bag or even the same colour,  but it was what it represented that made her frustrated and upset .

       
" You said you loved me and never stopped loving me, you knew me better than anyone  .Why are you doing this to me? " Gauri knew she should stop saying anything more, she should let him go because forever isn't an option for her but the words refused to be stopped until she found herself back in his arms as she cried silently for the truth that she was going to lose him .
 

P.S :" That is it for now .Let me know your thoughts and feedbacks . Hit the votes if you liked it "

Love

Juanita Reid