Author - Hello lovelies 💗
I'm really sorry for making you wait. I've been cought up with my studies, and things get a little hectic.
I don't know about you... but writing this chapter left me in tears. Not just for Meera. Not just for Adi. But for both of them. For their pain, their battles.
I know they're fictional - characters born my imagination - but I've been feeling them like they're real. Living with them. And writing this chapter, along with the next 3-4 chapters. There were moments I had to stop writing just to wipe my tears. That's how personal this has become. And I truly hope... that when you read it, you feel it too.
Thank you for being with Meera and Aditya's journey.
Thank you for reading, feeling, supporting.
Love you all endlessly. Stay with me.
The storm has just begun.
*******
Happy reading!
Let's start,
Author's POV,
Her eyes filled with emotion. Her hands were on his cheeks, her touch soft, her fingers shaking a little. Her voice come out as a whisper, full of pain and concern. "Adi... Adi... please... let me do this..."
His dark eyes stared at her, surprised, as if trying to understand what changed.
He looked at her with unreadable intensity, then without warning, snaked his arm around her waist and gently pulled her onto his lap.
"What did you just say?" his voice was low, almost teasing.
She lowered her gaze, lips trembling, but didn't respond.
He says with a soft smile, "I wanted to hear what you just said... I thought maybe you'd never say it. I'm happy, jaan... I'm so happy. This is just a scratch if you take my name with so much love like that, I swear I'll do this every day."
She sobbed as she touches his wound, her hands trembling.
"You're bleeding so much... and still think this is funny?" she cried, her voice cracking with fear.
"No, jaan... not at all," he whispered gently.
"How can I joke when my ziddi baccha is this serious?"
Her eyes were filled with tears, lips trembling as she tried to hold herself together. But he kept staring at her, like nothing else in the world mattered more.
Then he added, more softer this time. "But you know what shocked me more than the pain?"
"Hearing you call me 'Adi...' with so much love in your voice."
"Mujhe nahi pata tha mera baccha mujhe itne pyar se Adi bolega..."
"I never knew that just one word from you could make my whole world stop."
She sniffed, looking at his hand.
"Shh..." he murmured near her ear, the heat of his breath brushing her skin. "Stop crying, hmm?"
He smiled, despite the pain. "You're not supposed to cry like this, jaan. You're supposed to yell at me, fight with me, call me names... not hold me like I'm dying."
Her mind went completely blank. All she could see was his hand... the wound.
His voice was low, calm, but it carried the weight of a quiet warning. "You know your husband doesn't like seeing tears in those beautiful eyes."
Meera trembled in his hold, her lashes wet, her voice almost a whisper, came out in a soft plea, "Please... let me help you. Please..."
He tilted his head, brushing her tear-soaked hair from her face with slow fingers. "Help me?" His voice was smooth, dangerously soft. "First, tell me... will you ever repeat this kind of mistake again?"
She shook her head instantly, her voice desperate. "N-No! Never... I swear! I swear on... us."
The moment those words left her lips, something shifted in his eyes. He extended his wounded hand to her with the same commanding calm. "Then take this. Fix it."
She was still sobbing softly. He wiped her tears again, this time more softly, and gentle. "But for God's sake, jaan, stop crying. Your tears do something to me... something I can't explain."
She tried to nod.
Then he asked to tease her, "Did you bring the first aid box?"
She shook her head like a guilty child. "N-No... I didn't... I didn't think..."
The moment she tried to stand, he pulled her back swiftly, wrapping an arm around her waist again.
"Why are you so stubborn?" he whispered against her ear.
"Stay," he ordered gently. "It's right there... in the drawer beside us. Take it out."
Still sitting in his lap, with nervous hands, she opened the drawer. She took out the kit and began cleaning the blood on his hand. Her hands were small, unsteady... yet gentle.
He kept watching her with a softness in his eyes. The way her brows furrowed, the way she held her breath every time she dabbed the cotton like she was the one in pain.
"AHH..." he hissed, only to tease her, just to watch her panic.
And panic she did. Her eyes widened in horror. "So-sorry... did I hurt you?" she asked, before he could respond, she blew softly on the wound. She carefully started wrapping the bandage around his palm.
He didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on her face so earnestly, so innocent, and so entirely his.
That raw, unfiltered worry in her eyes for him.
At that moment, the clients entered, breaking the silence.
"Oh! Sorry, Mr. Singhania to disturb you," one of them said awkwardly. "But we must leave now, something urgent has come up."
"That's fine," Aditya replied, eyes still on her. "I'll send Isha. She'll handle the paperwork and get the deal signed."
"Perfect," they replied.
One of their wives stepped forward, observing Meera tenderly.
"Mr. Aditya," she smiled, "I must say I really like your choice. She takes such good care of you. God bless you both."
Meera, still seated in his lap, continued tying the bandage carefully. Her long lashes were wet, fingers cold from panic.
Before Aditya says anything,
The another client gasped as she entered the room.
"Oh my God, Adi! So much blood...!" she exclaimed, placing a hand over her chest. "You're unbelievably stubborn. Didn't it hurt? How are you even pretending like nothing happened?"
She shook her head in disbelief and looked at Meera, who was careful, completely focused - her brows knit, eyes filled with worry.
"If it were me, I would've passed out by now," the woman said, letting out a soft laugh.
She turned to him, smiling kindly.
"The way she's looking after you... so gently, so lovingly. You're really lucky, Adi."
Aditya finally looked up at the guests and smiled faintly. "Thank you," he said simply, his hand on her waist protectively.
As all the guests smiled and left, silence fell once again.
Meera hadn't stopped crying.
Aditya cupped her face with one hand gently, his brows furrowed. "What happened, Baccha? Hmm? Why are you still crying?"
She looked into his eyes, her voice cracking. "Adi... either you don't want to understand... or you're not even trying to understand."
For a second, he didn't react. Then his jaw clenched slightly. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said in a low voice, "Tell me what? Speak... before I lose my patience."
Her lips trembled, her tears now fast.
She looked at him with eyes full of ache and exhaustion, her voice trembling like a wounded child.
"Why don't you understand?" she said through her tears. "I need time. I didn't ask for this life. I didn't ask to be yours like this, this marriage, this... chaos. And still, I'm trying... I really am. I'm trying to adjust."
Her breath hitched, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Just think... just for a second if someone did to you what you did to me... forced you into something you never wanted."
"No..., forget doing it - if someone even thought of doing something like that to you... you would've destroyed them without a second thought."
A bitter smile formed on her lips as her eyes shimmered with more unshed tears.
"But I'm not you. I'm not the Aditya Singhania. I don't have your power. I don't have your mind. I don't even have the luxury to scream or fight back. In fact..." she paused, placing a hand on her chest, "I don't even feel like Meera anymore. I feel lost. Like I don't exist."
Her voice cracked. "Yes, I was supposed to marry someone... and in my mind, I had prepared myself to take time to adjust, to understand him, to ask for a little patience. Whether he gave it or not-that would be his issue. But at least... I would have tried."
Her eyes met his.
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"And now you... you are my husband. So I'm asking you, with whatever courage I have left... please. Let me adjust. Don't force me to erase what little I have of myself."
She let out a soft sob, her voice now almost inaudible. "I want to cry. I need to cry. A lot. But there's no one to hold me when I do."
She closed her eyes and shook her head helplessly. "I had one thing left. Just one. That you allowed me to go back to college. And for that... I'm really grateful. Because men who forcefully marry women usually lock them inside a golden cage. But you... you gave me that chance."
Her fingers gripped the edge of his shirt as she broke down more deeply.
She looked down at her hands. "But ever since I stepped into that college after marriage... not for a single moment have I felt peace. Not even for one second. My chest feels heavy, like I'm living someone else's life."
Her shoulders sagged. "What should I do? Everyone's questioning me. And no one... no one is asking me what I want. People just come and pull me. Someone from my past comes and says, 'Come with me.' Why should I? Who is he to me now? Yes, I was once supposed to marry him... but now I'm someone else's wife."
She broken. "My parents came... they don't want to understand my pain they told me to come back with them. But why should I? And if I do go with them... I don't know what you'll do in your anger, even you don't know. Only God knows what storm you'll bring, what lines you'll cross..."
Her eyes welled again.
"You say you want me to stay with you. But how, Adi? How do I stay with a man who took my name, my future, my voice-without asking me once? You forcefully married me and expect me to pretend like I chose this?"
And then her words broke, and she shattered in his lap like glass.
"I can never trust you, Adi... Never."
She looked down, her words soft but piercing. "I can't trust you, Adi. Not like this."
Her voice rose a little with anguish.
"You're a good friend for Vansh bhai. You're amazing to Kabir. You're perfect for Dadi, and his parants. You take care of your staff like family. People praise you, admire you. But..."
She finally looked at him with teary defiance. "You are not a good man for me. You are terrible. You've broken me in ways I can't explain. You're... cruel, Adi... You're the worst thing that ever happened to me."
Her words fell like stones between them.
Her voice cracked again. "I hate you, Adi... I really hate you."
She couldn't hold it back anymore.
Then, slowly, quietly, he placed a hand on her shoulder. It wasn't forceful. It was gentle. Too gentle.
His fingers moved to the back of her neck, and gently he pulled her toward him. She didn't resist - because deep down, she wanted to cry. And she did.
He held her tightly in his arms, both hand protectively wrapped around her, as if shielding her from the weight of everything she was carrying.
She was holding him tightly, crying hard, her sobs shaking her whole body. Her face was buried in his chest, and it felt like she was trying to stay strong but everything inside her was breaking.
He couldn't take it.
Watching her cry like that hurt him deeply.
It felt like something inside him was dying with every tear she shed.
And guilt. So much guilt.
Because he knew... he had done this to her.
He was the reason.
He let her cry.
Because he knew - she needed this. She needed to let it out.
He slowly slid his hand along her back, soothing her, his touch was so soft.
And in the softness, broken voice, he leaned down and murmured in her hair, "Breath, jaan... please... just... breath..."
She sobbed into his hold.
"I hate you, Adi," she whispered brokenly.
"I hate you so much. I hate your anger. It terrifies me."
He whispered near her ear, "And...?"
She cried harder. "I hate your power. I hate the way you use it. It makes me feel small... invisible."
Again, his voice was calm, almost painful.
"And...?"
She clutched his shirt as if choking on her words. "I hate your actions..."
He whispered, again, "And...?"
"I hate the way you took everything from me without asking. You took me away from my parents. Now they hate me because of you."
He asked her again... almost in a whisper. "And...?"
He wanted her to open her heart. To speak the things she always kept locked away.
And more than anything he wanted to listen - not as the man who hurt her, but as the man who just wanted to understand her.
Her final sentence shattered in her throat.
"I hate that I don't even hate you as much as I want to."
"I hate that even after everything... I still want to understand you."
Then, still wrapped in his arms, her breath shallow and shaky, Meera spoke again-her voice soft, broken, but laced with clarity.
"Adi... I can't even call you selfish," she whispered.
Her words weren't spoken out of anger, but from a place that trembled between care and helplessness. She pulled to face him, her eyes red, her lashes soaked.
"You've become so obsessed... so madly consumed by one girl... that you're willing to destroy yourself in the process."
Her eyes brimmred with fresh tears as her gaze locked with his. "You're not just hurting me... Adi... you're hurting yourself, and I can't stand that. You punched a mirror, a wall, or whatever came in your way just because I wasn't listening, just because I said something you didn't want to hear."
She looked down at his hand again-bandaged, but still bruised. Her fingers hovered over it gently, trembling, hesitant. "You hurt yourself... because of me."
A sob escaped her throat before she could stop it. She shook her head furiously, her voice rising, desperate, "I know I said I hate you, and maybe I still do... but Adi... I never wanted this. Never wanted to see you like this."
Her hands gripped the sides of his shirt tightly, knuckles turning pale. "Please... promise me. Never hurt yourself because of me. Please, don't ever do this again... not for me, not because of me."
Her voice broke again as she buried her head in his chest, muffling her pain. "I'm not worth that kind of madness... not that kind of pain. I can't handle it. It kills me to see you bleed - because of me."
Her head rested against his chest, she just let herself break. Then slowly, as if trying to herself together, she covered her face with her trembling hands, trying to calm herself down.
"I... I can't bear to see you like that, Adi... I JUST CAN'T..."
He said nothing. He just held her tighter.
"I know I'm disappointing you. Maybe I'm disappointing everyone around me. But trust me, Adi..." her voice softened again, "I never wanted to hurt anyone. Not even you."
Her body shook with the weight of everything she had been holding in.
"My parents..." she whispered, "they treated me like a fragile doll. My father never raised his voice in front of me. Not once. Because he knew loud sounds scared me."
Her voice broke again as more tears fell.
"But how could I have known... that this was going to be my life? That this noise, this storm... would become my reality?"
She pulled back a little, looking up at him through blurred vision, voice cracking with childlike vulnerability. "If I had known... maybe I would've learned to be stronger. Maybe I would've prepared myself. Maybe... I would've stopped being afraid."
She clutched his shirt tightly again.
"But I didn't know... I didn't know that the girl who was once scared of her father raising his voice... would one day become the wife of a man who doesn't even know how to talk without getting angry."
That line hung in the air like a knife.
She broke down again, sobbing against him, fists clenched at his chest. "Why didn't anyone prepare me for you... Adi...? Why didn't anyone warn me...?"
Her voice shook with self-blame.
"But I didn't know. So I stayed soft. I stayed weak. And now... now everything feels too heavy for me. And no matter how hard I try... it's just never enough."
"You know, Adi? My papa used to tell me... that if a day ever came where I couldn't explain myself to him, he'd still never leave me. He used to say-'Even if I don't understand you, I'll stand with you.' And I believed that. I believed he understood me without needing words."
Her voice trembled, eyes glossy with unshed tears. "But today... I feel so alone that I question why I ever believed those words. Why did I put so much faith in promises that broke the moment I needed them most?"
She gave a hollow, bitter smile-one that didn't reach her eyes.
"My mom always said... 'No matter where you go, you'll always be our world.' But life... life woke me up from that fairytale. I opened my eyes and realised-no one is really the way they claim to be. No one stays. No one sees you unless you scream."
Her voice cracked softly, almost like a child who still hoped someone would come for her. "So tell me, Adi... what am I supposed to expect from you?"
She looked at him now, not with anger-but with a tired kind of honesty.
"When the people I called my own-who held my hands when I learned to walk, who kissed my forehead goodnight-they were the first ones to walk away. They left when I needed them most. They didn't even try to understand my silence."
A tear slipped down her cheek.
"They looked at me like I was the mistake they didn't know how to fix."
She swallowed hard, voice almost whispering now. "And maybe I am... Maybe I talk too little, cry too much, expect too deeply. But all I ever wanted was to be held, not questioned. To be understood... not fixed."
He still hadn't spoken.
But his grip around her had changed from possessive to protective, from dominance to desperation.
She whispered again, through choked breaths, "I don't understand anything anymore. Not you. Not me. Not this life. But one thing I do know... I can't see you in pain. I can't-no matter how much I try to hate you."
Her voice became a faint whisper, more to herself than him, "I don't know what you are to me... but I know your pain has become a part of mine..."
She wiped her tears but they wouldn't stop. "I'm sorry... sorry for not being the girl you wanted. But please... don't destroy yourself for me. Because even if I hate you... but, your pain still breaks me."
*******
They stayed silent for a while.
Her head rested against his chest, his heartbeat steady yet strained beneath her cheek. She was still curled up in his lap, and his hand rested gently on her waist, holding her as if she was the only anchor he had in a world that constantly threatened to drown him.
His wounded hand fingers moved slowly, brushing a few loose strands of her hair away from her damp face. He looked at her and really looked at her as if trying to memorize her pain, her expressions, every tremble of her lip.
Then he whispered. "I took you. I threatened you. I forced you... I know it sounds cruel. But back then... I didn't understand what was happening to me."
His thumb brushed her temple, gentle now... nothing like the monster he once was. "I swear, Baccha... I tried. I tried so hard to stop myself. I told myself I shouldn't... that I couldn't... but I failed. The moment I saw you... I swear, Jaan something inside me snapped. I don't have the words for it. I just... I couldn't breathe properly. I felt scared for the first time in my life. Scared of losing you, someone I hadn't even held yet. Scared... that if you marry someone, I'd lose you forever."
"And I don't even know what it was... I just knew one thing that moment you were mine."
"And I don't regret what I did. Not for a second. But yes... I regret making you cry. I regret becoming the reason behind those tears I wish I could wipe before they even fall."
His thumb softly traced her cheek.
But her fingers, hesitantly, clutched the collar of his shirt.
"Instead of giving you a reason to stay... I gave you a thousand reasons to hate me. A million reasons to run."
His grip on her waist tightened just a little desperate, needing her to understand.
"You know, Baccha, I've never looked at any other girl like that. I swear, I never had those kinds of intentions not even for a moment. It never even crossed my mind. My life... it was always very clear, very sorted. I knew what I wanted, who I was. Love... that's new. Terrifying."
He swallowed hard, and she felt his heart beating faster beneath her. "But when it comes to you something happens to me. I lose control. I lose myself. I would fall to my knees."
Then he pulled back slightly and looked deep into her eyes. "I can take your hate. I can handle your anger. If you scream, curse, I'll still stay right here. I deserve all of it. But I can't take losing you, Baccha... I can't... I won't survive it." His voice dropped to a whisper, one only meant for her soul.
He took a trembling breath and brought her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on the back of her hand. "Jaan, you're everything I wanted even if you never wanted me to touch you... I'd still thank the universe every single second for making you mine." He kissed the top of her head so gently his whisper soft into her hair.
He paused. His voice, once so terrifying to the world, now trembled like a boy's.
"If you want to punish me, I'll take it. Whatever you want. I'm ready for it. Punish me, beat me, scream at me... just don't become a stranger to me. I won't survive, Baccha."
"How can I explain my feelings, jaan... How?"
AND FINALLY FOR THE FIRST TIME HE BROKE DOWN IN FRONT OF HER.
********
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