I was in a very nostalgic mood today and found myself writing this book even without giving it a second thought.

I hope you cherish it, a few last times before this book is gone away. Vote, comment, and show your love, One last time for the bonus chapters please. xx

Two important announcements in the end, do not miss.

Warning: this book is a work of fiction. everything written here is purely my imagination and doesn't mean to hurt anyone's sentiments whatsoever. also, this chapter is written a complete crazy mood so expect nothing but crap out there.

Happy Reading! Your comments would mean the world x

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[unedited]

B O N U S C H A P T E R O N E

N A N D I N I

He was magic.

Spending time with him was magic, everything about him was elemental. He wasn't the kind of  magic that you'd read about in closed books of old libraries, or the kind that would be written about anywhere. He was the kind of magic that you feel running through your veins, and you feel it every time you close your eyes and listen to his heartbeat, every time he touches your skin and even in the darkest nights, everything was going to be fine soon.

It was beautiful how he made life so much better just by being in it, and I couldn't be more grateful for that.

As I kept awake struggling from sleep, just looking at him sleep with his lips a little parted and how his bare chest rose every time he breathed and then fell back, his one hand caged around me as if someone would rob me away from him.

He was art, the kind that couldn't be understood and how could I ever explain anyone how happy I was to have him sleeping beside me when I couldn't explain myself the different between a dream and a reality.

He made even reality feel dreamy.

I've seen his best and I've seen him at his worst and either ways, he was perfect in his own flaws and strong in his own weaknesses.

I loved him, and no power in the world could make me change my mind upon that, not even death.

"You haven't slept, have you?" His groggy voice asked and I realised he was half woken. His eyes struggled to open as he squinted to look at me.

"How can I sleep when you look so beautiful?" I whisper and his arms around me tighten more, pulling me closer as if that was even possible.

"I feel like I'm going to close my eyes now and when I open it, you wouldn't be there with me anymore. I feel this is a dream and you'd just disappear one day," I whisper, making slow doodles on his bare chest and he sighs, his hand playing with my hair falling upon his skin.

"Then you can sleep carelessly princess, because this man isn't going anywhere. He's staying with you until he's done protecting his girl from all the evils in this world," he whispers, kissing my temple.

"And who will protect you?" I ask, turning to him and keeping my head on his chest. His heart beats were the most beautiful music in the world, and I couldn't think of all the time that God spent on making him.

"You will, my baby." He whispers back and I giggle. "And how will I?" I ask.

"By smiling, all the time, whether I'm there with you or I ain't, if you smile I automatically would feel happy and safe because I kept you safe." He whispers and I relax, caving him in my arms too.

"I think there are no words made to describe how deeply I feel for you, Manik," I sigh.

"I feel just as deeply for you too, princess." He whispers back, collecting me in his arms once more as we drift off to sleep, again.

Clicking the save option, I shut my laptop. Editing can be a pain, and if it included rereading every moment that I shared with the most perfect man in this world, it was even more difficult.

Keeping my laptop the side table and resting my hand on my almost nine month baby bump, my second hand caressed the empty linen sheets on the other side of it, which always belong to him, and which was always empty since the last eight months.

Our love was a tragic story, wasn't it?

"Nandini" I heard a knock and I look outside to find Aliya smiling and waving. I smiled back generously, calling her in and she walked in, as the diamond ring shone on her engagement finger.

Whenever I see something like this, there are mixed emotions rising inside me. I feel sad, for I and Manik could never live what we dreamt for us. Like every couple in love, we both wanted to get married, have our own family. It feels breaking that we could reach no where even near it. And I feel happy, that atleast someone is living the life I and Manik wanted, that not every story ends in graveyards, and not every love is a tragedy.

"Hello," she whispered with a playful smile, keeping a hand on my baby bump.

"Navya gave birth last week. It's a boy," she giggled as she said that, so happily. Her hand played with her phone swiping through pictures to show me their child. He was so cute, had Cabir's eyes and Navya's features and I could see the naughtiness reflecting in him already.

"Oh my god! He's so adorable," I smile, an instant happiness flowing through my veins. "Navya wanted me to come and show you his pictures. She says she misses you!"

"I miss her too." I say, the smile disappearing from my lips. Zubin and Cabir had a fall out last month, they weren't talking anymore. It was something about the past, I could tell but they wouldn't tell anyone what happened. We assumed that they were just behaving like kids and would resume being normal in a day or so, but that never happened. They were pretty serious when they ask Aryamman and me to choose sides as well, but we couldn't. So I, Aryamman and Aliya were just stuck in between. But they decided to pause their fights until I was with them, because I would not allow any negatively anywhere near my daughter, and if Manik was here, he'd never like seeing his best friends fight too. So the coldness was on pause, for now.

"What are they naming him?" I had to ask. I wanted to see him, hold him in my hands and kiss him once before I go atleast.

"Abeer" Aliya replied. "Abeer Cabir Dhawan. Beautiful name," I reply back.

"I hope Abeer and Myra are friends." I keep my hand on my belly. Aliya smiled.

"I hope Zubin and Cabir let them be. You know they're barely talking and Cabir's planning to shift to New York in a month, permanently. He just wanted to be there for you... he says he doesn't have anything left in India after Manik." She informs and I sigh.

It was crazy how everything had just got fine and things had to fall apart.... again.

"But they know I want everyone to be there when I give birth to Myra, right?" I ask, she nods.

"Nandini.... I wanted to ask you something." She asks, and I nod, squeezing my eyebrows.

"If you live through this, thirty years down the lane, will you ever stop loving Manik?" She asks. I smile, delicately this time.

"How can I? You know, there's this love we see about in movies where one of the two die and we think, damn it's beautiful but I don't want such a love, I want to be happy. Because you often find yourself in an abyss then, you don't know if you have to keep holding on, or move ahead; if you choose to hold on, then you'd never know what could you hold on to— memories? Scraps of that love you revisit in dreams? Maybe. And if you choose to move on, the nightmares of a failed love keep haunting you for the rest of your time. But I never found myself in that abyss ever. Manik was always the only one for me, even after he left. He is in the blood that pumps through my veins and I have no complaints" I speak my heart out.

Aliya just stares at me with an unfashionable expression before a small smile breaks out on her thin lips.

"This might sound crazy, but if you don't make it through the birth of Myra, I'm going to be the happiest. It's going to hurt to not have you around anymore, but the fact that you'd see the man you loved so deeply again, it's going to make me happy. So happy for both of you." She says keeping her warm hand on my cold ones.

"And I wish you could explain that to them, all of them. I don't want a single drop of tear out of anyone's eye. Promise me!" I show her my eyes, and she giggled.

"Now that's a risky thing to promise." She laughs, "we love you, maybe not how much Manik did, but somewhere around it for sure!"

"Please keep my daughter safe. I know Zubin and Mukti would be great parents, but please don't let my daughter go through anything I and Manik went. Give her love, and everything I wouldn't be able to. Please be there for her," I beg and I already see Aliya's eyes filling up.

"I promise I will, we will. We'd never let her eyes cry, and when she misses you both, we'd be by her side. She'd know her parents were beautiful people, inside out. And I'd give her the recordings you've recorded for her, she'll be an amazing daughter, I know." Aliya held my hands in hers as I felt something unusual in my belly.

"I guess she kicked again. Maybe she agrees." I laugh as I get up, and take the box from the side table and place it in her hands.

"This is a chain interwoven from mine and Manik's chains, which we got from our parents. Please make her wear this when she's born, I've already told all of this to Mukti but I want you all to be a part of this. Keep me and Manik alive in your heart, in hers." I hand the box to her and one tear flows out of her eye as she catches it quickly, looking away.

It was weirdly beautiful how I and Aliya bonded. She was there by me like a pillar along with Mukti when the world accused. People pointed, they blamed when Manik died. They noticed I and Manik weren't married, and I was pregnant. People also blamed me for his death, the day he announced he loved me was the day he died. Zubin, Aryamman and Cabir put their days and nights in handling the entire situation and pressing the media down.

But I was left disappointed and hollow, not because they blamed me, but because they didn't want to leave Manik even after he died, after he left the world. They continued playing the game of accusations trying to break us down but we stood as strong as ever, I stood as unbreakable as I could. Mine and Manik's love was much stronger than mere accusations, if it could withstand death, then what was media?

I noticed Aliya staring at the pendant in her hand. It was a gold and silver chain, contains a small heart pendant which was made of mine and Manik's rings melted. It was beautiful, studded with diamonds, small and gorgeous.

"Nandini, this is—....." Aliya's words remained echoing in my ear as I felt something inside me again, stronger than the last time and it sent a shaken shock down my spine, and before I could realise, I was hyperventilating. I felt wet below, and water trailed down my legs.

"My water—... broke." I panted trying to catch my breaths. It was paining, a lot more than it should.

Aliya was screaming but I couldn't make out anything, I felt I was spacing out. Everything was cold and the surroundings were getting blurr, everything was a mess. I could feel hands holding me and I was in the car, Mukti kept rubbing her palm to my hands to keep me warm and Aliya held my back, massaging it gently, while Zubin drove.

It felt painful, and the doctor had already warned me, this wasn't going to be an easy birth.

I struggled to keep my eyes open but I knew I was failing when I shut my eyes for a minute and when they opened again, I was on the hospital stretcher. My friends kept speaking to me but everything was mute.

Aryamman and Cabir were there too, they all ran around my stretched and as I saw them all, my heart smiled although my lips turned colder. I felt contented looking at all of them for one last time.

The room was dark and yellow lights surrounded me, I felt injections being poked everywhere possible and tubes were passed through places I couldn't even make out, the doctors were freaking out... but I was as calm as ever.

I laid there carefreely, not even struggling to do anything anymore as my body started becoming numb. I felt the contractions but the pain overpowered me soon, and I feel back, everything was dark and cold until I, and we all, heard a cry.

My daughter was born.

Myra Manik Malhota.

When I roughly open my eyes again, I see Zubin standing in front of me, holding my daughter in his hands. She was quiet, staring back at him or probably sleeping.

I didn't know how long I was in the darkness, but now I could barely keep up. The pain was still in me despite the amount of anaesthesia they might have given me. I could feel things even after being numb with pain, and I could feel the end was near.

Zubin noticed my open eyes and he made Myra face me. "She's your mother, Myra; the one who gave birth to you," Zubin whispered to her, or to me. He was crying and smiling at the same time, my best friend was a mess because of me.

It hurt. The pain in my body was disappearing every minute as I started giving up on myself but the pain in my heart was increasing. It hurt how I could never touch my daughter, never hear her voice, never see her take her first steps and that I'd never be the one she comes back home to after a tiring day. I might be there from her but I'd be there from a distance, I'd be protecting her through whatever I can. But I'm just the lady who have her birth, I am not her mom. I wouldn't be with her when she will need me and I wouldn't ever tell her how much I love her, all I was leaving for her were a few recordings and a chain that would shine in her neck after today.

I was a horrible mother and I felt that when a tear drop slipped off my eye.

"She's beautiful" I tried smiling but I wasn't sure if anything came out. I tried gasping for air but everything was going away, I was slipping out. I could feel the pain receding and some different contraction occurring, as if the strings my souls had to my body were being broken.

I couldn't stop looking at my daughter, she was the most perfect match of me and Manik— his eyes, my lips, his complexion, our shadow.

"Hey no no!" Zubin stroke my hair but I couldn't feel anything anymore. I saw him, I was moving but he couldn't see me anymore.

"Don't give up, Nandini! Hold on, for your daughter. For me, please don't leave me!" He broke down, as I took a jerk, as if I was thrown away. My human body gasped for air but I lied still.

Everything became dark and calm, and there was a light in the end of the hall that I could see, and then I saw someone.

He was there. I could see him, he rested against a wall as if desperately waiting for someone and my eyes finally met his. I had been staring at that blank wall for hours when I was in here but all this while I didn't know he was right here, beside me, looking as radiant as ever. He wore the white shirt in which I had last seen him, an unproblematic smile covering his lips and his eyes, as beautiful as ever, stared into mine as he came forward, walking to me, forwarding his hand to me.

Was this a dream?

I looked around and I saw my friends wailing, Aliya praying in a corner, Aryamman trying his best not to cry, Mukti completely broken down, Zubin hugging Myra tight and Cabir just stared as if looking into an abyss. But suddenly, nothing mattered anymore as I rose.

"What are you wondering, princess?" His voice was soft and warm as my life flashed in front of my eyes, every time we were together and away and I was proud to say I had lived every emotion in my life, given my best and had no regrets whatsoever.

"Nothing," I whispered back as I slowly rose from my human form and kept my hand into his. He smiled and I smiled back, out eyes locking after a wait of nine long months.

My time as a human was over, and I still had no regrets. My forever waited for me, and I could see that in my love's eyes.

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Liked the update? *fingers crossed* hope that's just not crap up there.

I have never died, so I don't know how this thing works. I gave it my best from my imagination, so read it as fiction. No offence to anyone whatsoever.

An important thing I wanted to announce:

One Step Closer is the spin—off of Humesha. Yes, you read that right.

So MaNan are Myra's parents but they have died so when she says parents, she refers to Zubin and Mukti. I haven't stated anything about Abeer's parents (Cabir and Navya) in that book yet, so wait for it.

So what are you waiting for? I brought Humesha back for you all again. Go check it out lovelies and give me some love. x

Also, last one day to vote for Humesha in the Infinity Awards. Please keep voting, people. If you vote and DM me that you have voted, and I get 15+ DMs, I will update Bonus Chapter Two tomorrow and that's a promise. Y'all can also Dm me for the links people. xx

Please do vote and comment like you always have been doing.

Lots of love,
Heer. xx