by M. V. Kasi
The first time, she fed her daughter, and burped her; it scared her so much that she immediately called for the doctors to ensure her daughter was okay.
“Your daughter is fine, Mrs. Manthena,” one of the doctors said.
The doctor then asked Ajay to pick their daughter, before beginning to take Sia’s vitals. Sia reluctantly complied.
“We need to check if your recovery is going smoothly, Mrs. Manthena,” said the doctor. He also mentioned that Sia would have to stay at the hospital for a week to ensure that the recovery was permanent.
She sat quietly as her blood pressure and heartbeat were being checked. Her eyes were completely drawn towards the sight in front of her.
Ajay was holding their daughter on his shoulder, and gently swaying to put her to sleep.
Why can’t I remember everything?
A few hours ago, when she had woken up from what seemed to be a deep sleep, she was told by a doctor that she had been in coma for three weeks, and also that she had delivered a child.
Her memory was failing her and she couldn’t recall much. Everything had felt groggy. But she did have a vague memory of Ajay giving her an ultimatum to either marry him or that he would take away her child.
That made her go ballistic. Especially after the hospital staff informed her that her daughter was with the father.
But now... looking at Ajay and their daughter, she felt confused.
The kiss from a while ago made her recall bits and pieces of their married life.
She had gotten along with Ajay. They were both happy at some point but what had happened after that? Why did the feelings of distrust towards Ajay still linger inside her?
Maybe a call to Dr. Patel can help her remove the cobwebs still stuck inside her head. But the call would have to wait until later. Much later. Until after she was satisfied holding her daughter close, the way she had desperately wanted to right from the moment she heard about her pregnancy.
“All done, Mrs. Manthena. You are doing great, but you should still take as much rest as possible to make your recovery faster,” said the doctor.
After the doctor left, Ajay sat next to her on the bed and put their sleeping daughter on top of her chest. “She’ll be more comfortable like this. I’ll watch her as you nap,” he said.
Sia felt extremely grateful. But she didn’t have the energy to thank him properly. She simply held her daughter safely and slipped into a content sleep.
* * *
Much later that evening, she woke up and fed her daughter again. Ajay and she had a simple dinner together. She was about to put her daughter to sleep when she had her first visitor.
Ajay left the room to give her privacy. He had used the pretext of taking their daughter outside for fresh air while she slept. She felt quite grateful.
“How are you, Sia?” Varun asked, looking relieved as he saw her.
“The doctor’s said I’m doing fine. I feel fine as well,” she replied. “How are you Varun?” she asked. She felt reluctant to talk or deal with their mission. She wished she could purge everything apart from her daughter, from her mind.
If only it were that simple. “What has been happening since I was in... coma?” she asked.
“Nothing much, Sia. I wasn’t able to get in touch with the hacker either. I guess that teen needs a constant supply of money to be able to proceed.”
Sia nodded. “I’ll reach out to him soon. But what about the camera footages? Why are we still not able to catch anything significant on those?” she asked.
Varun looked unhappy. “He’s always surrounded by people these days.”
“I’m still monitoring them,” he said. “And I have already checked with the caretakers at the orphanages and also the hospitals. None of the children ever showed signs of abuse.”
“You think he stopped abusing children all of a sudden?” she asked.
“No. I think he’s being cautious. He’s getting more and more involved in politics and doesn’t want to risk it.”
“What about the people surrounding him?”
Varun frowned. “None of them seem the kind to offer much information. They seem to value him as some sort of demi-god.”
“Values can be bought for the right price, Varun. We need to hurry up on this or he’ll get even more cautious,” she stressed with a growing intensity. “I’m ready to splurge more money on anything or anyone that can be bought and could help our cause.”
“I know. Trust me when I tell you, I’m already on it.” He paused for a second. “By the way, I need to tell you something,” he said.
“About what?”
“Your husband,” he replied
Immediately, she clammed up, trying not to show anything on her face. “What about him?”
Varun looked uncomfortable. But with a determined look, he forged on.”I think there is something going on between him and... his ex-fiancée.”
“You mean Jyotika?” she asked, relaxing slightly. She felt guilty for not telling Varun about her growing relationship with Ajay. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t ready to reveal that part to anyone, until she understood it completely herself.
“They’ve been friends since childhood, Varun. And Jyotika had been helping him take care of my daughter while I was in coma.”
Varun didn’t look convinced. “I don’t think it’s friendship I saw, Sia. I saw them being intimate. Physically. I caught them right in the act. And the worst part was that they were standing just a few feet away from you. They were hugging and even holding your daughter while they... touched each other intimately.”
Sia looked at Varun’s uncomfortable face, and felt both pity and guilty. She knew he would hate it if she let any of it show on her face.
At twenty one, Varun was relatively young. His life experience had made him lose his innocence in a brutal way. But he still remained relatively innocent about most things that made people human. He still couldn’t decipher why two people might want to hug, or simply touch each other for comfort, without being sexual.
She couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t like she had been wise and informed of such things until Ajay began to show her the softer side of human emotions and touches.
“Ajay must have been drawing comfort, Varun” she said gently. “But thank you for letting me know. I know you meant well.”
Varun looked embarrassed.
“I’m going to remain at the hospital for a week. You can continue to visit me or get in touch with me on my phone.”
“I think it’s better to remain in touch by phone. I don’t want Jagadish Naidu, your husband or anyone else to be suspicious about what we both are discussing.”
“Okay.”
“Take care, Sia.”
“You too, Varun. Be careful and don’t hesitate to reach out to me for anything.”
“I will.”
After Varun left, Sia called Anjali to ensure that everything at work was running smoothly during her absence. Once she was convinced that things were fine, she sat back and waited for Ajay to return.
Ajay returned with their sleeping daughter and gently placed her tiny body on the wide hospital bed. Sia shifted closer and held her infant daughter. Before she could drift into sleep, she felt Ajay sliding next to her on the bed, and wrapping his arm around her and their daughter.
Her mind and heart at peace, she drifted into another blissful sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I hate you. My only ambition is to destroy you.”
Sia woke up with a gasp.
He heart was pounding. She slowly recognized the familiar couches and a large picture window of the hospital room where she had been staying over the past week.
She had spent one of the most idyllic weeks with Ajay and Anika at the hospital. There had been no outside intrusion or thoughts to break their happiness.
Until a while ago.
Her nightmare not only woke her up, but also managed to bring her crashing down to reality.
Feeling di
soriented, she slowly sat up, trying to make sense of what she heard and felt.
Was that a dream? Or was it real?
Dreams had always been a major part of her life. Sometimes she couldn’t differentiate between reality and illusion. Up until lately, most of those illusions had been giving her much comfort and security. Enough to make her hang onto them and not let go of them that easily.
But she knew. Those particular words uttered by Ajay—about hating her, and wanting to destroy her—were actually real.
Bile rose through her chest and she felt her lungs constrict, making it difficult for her to breathe. She felt like throwing up.
“Are you alright?” a deep voice that had played a major role in her recent illusions asked her from somewhere next to her.
She turned her head and looked at him. Memories continued to swirl inside her head. A mixture of emotions began fighting with each other, until one emotion that was still raw, overpowered everything else.
A feeling of betrayal.
Ajay’s familiar face was watching her in concern and confusion. He still looked very approachable, caring and absolutely gorgeous.
All lies.
She felt the betrayal deep in her chest, devastating her as it spread to every inch of her body.
“I remembered,” she said with a cold look, even as her heart continued pounding with the memories. How could she not remember the conversation? And worse, her confrontation with her uncle!
Ajay’s look turned guarded. “Oh? What exactly do you remember?” he asked quietly.
“Everything,” she spat out. She felt the pressure building inside, filling her up with anger and misery. She fisted her hands, fighting the misery, until all that was left was anger. “I remembered that you targeted me for your personal revenge. I remembered that you played me while joining forces with my uncle. I remember everything!”
Ajay didn’t reply. He looked at her beseechingly, almost as if he were willing her to look past their last confrontation.
It worked.
Especially when he was holding their daughter over his shoulder, and patting gently. He was watching calmly, with the same look she had been associating with security and love over the last few months of their marriage.
She couldn’t remain cold or angry with him. No matter how much anger and betrayal she felt, she couldn’t ignore the sight she had always yearned for. To have a normal family with security and love.
She shook her head to snap out of the spell he was again putting her though. Her eyes might have taken precedence over her rational thinking, but she couldn’t completely ignore his betrayal. She looked at him in anguish and defeat.
“You betrayed me,” she said. “All the while, I thought I was using you, an innocent man, to achieve my goals. But you were actually using me, while also playing with my emotions.”
The expression on his face changed immediately. Carefully, he placed their daughter on the cradle next to the bed before turning back to her with blazing eyes.
“Using you?” He scoffed in disbelief.
“Yes, you made me trust you,” she said.
He scoffed again. This time bitterly. “You never trusted me. Not even for a single moment. And I only wish I could have used you!”
She was stunned at his bitter retort, and with the look of anger on his face. He moved towards her, until he loomed. Until she fell back on the pillows.
Then caging her between both his arms, he snarled out his next words. “You have no bloody idea; how it is to fall in love with someone you have hated most of your life. Someone you know was manipulating you with her lies. And yes, I did want to punish you, make you suffer, and maybe even hurt you. But I couldn’t. Because I was falling in love with you!”
She shook her head, trying to push out whatever lies he was trying to feed her again. “You are lying,” she whispered.
He continued watching her, not saying anything in return. The hurt look on his face made her want to trust him again. But before it could break through her defenses again, she fought back. “I don’t believe a word you are saying. How can you fall for me? How can anyone fall for me? I am not loveable by any stretch. I am—”
“Human,” he finished for her, his face softening at her words. “You’re human, Sia. We all are. We all have our weaknesses, and our own monsters that we fight in the dark. And you happened to be mine. You were my weakness. And also my demon. You lived inside me for so long that I couldn’t purge you. And it only got worse when I met you.”
He pushed himself away from her with a defeated look on his face. He went towards a window and stared outside. “When I met you, and saw how you lived your life in fear, I realized that my life’s ambition was driven by what I thought was a frightened little girl’s lie. I felt stupid, and wanted to leave you alone. But I wasn’t able to get rid of you from my thoughts. I tried. I even wanted to get married to someone else, thinking it would get rid of my obsession towards you.”
His look turned accusing. “But I couldn’t forget you. Even when I was almost engaged to Jo, you consumed my thoughts. And I just know it will always be that way for me.”
“No,” she whispered, trying to get him to stop speaking. Yet he continued.
He looked determined. “I love you Sia, for who you are,” he said. “I love your imperfections too. I love you—even though I know you’re capable of lying, and deceiving. I just love you wholeheartedly. Desperately and unapologetically.”
She kept shaking her head, refusing to let his words affect her. “Please stop. I can’t trust you or your motives, Ajay. You already know everything about me and my life. Once I officially inherit the Naidu Estate, and get my uncle arrested, we’ll be done with our marriage,” she said.
Ajay’s eyes flared possessively, and he covered the distance between them in long strides. Holding her arms, he pulled her close, until she met his eyes. “That will never happen. We will not be done. Because I’m never letting you go,” he stated. He looked ruthless and determined as he said those words.
“It’s not up to you to decide what—”
“Oh, it is,” he interrupted. “I may love you unconditionally. But I’m not that noble to let you or Anika go.”
Sia’s heart began to pound. Not because she found the threat frightening.
Her foolish heart was pounding because it was overjoyed that he wanted to stay with her. Be with her. Willingly, despite their history together.
With great difficulty, she shook those foolish thoughts away and stubbornly stuck to her guns. “You won’t have a choice when I decide, Ajay,” she stated even though her voice wavered at the end.
* * *
Ajay felt frustrated as he watched Sia fighting what they had between them.
He knew it wasn’t the best course of action to threaten his wife who had woken up from a coma after having his baby. But the thought of her leaving him was truly unimaginable.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and opened them until he could calm down and think rationally. He sat next to her on the bed. “Sia, I know that having a relationship with a past like ours seems impossible,” he slowly said. “But don’t you think that we’ve both been through so much together that we’ve earned each other?”
She didn’t answer.
“Can you deny that?” he asked again.
Slowly, he laid a gentle hand over her shoulder. “What if I took away my past? Would you accept me if I didn’t know you from before?” he asked.
She still didn’t reply and neither did she meet his gaze.
“Look at me, Sia,” he said.
She slowly met his eyes. He saw the same look he had seen during the happy days of their marriage. Yearning.
He had discovered that despite her seemingly coldblooded need for revenge, Sia also yearned for love. She had been with a lot of men during her past, but she had never given her heart to any of them. But ever since they met, he had always felt that her heart had been involved. Just like his. She had even to
ld him once that she was in love with him.
His mind drifted to one of the happiest times, when she had confessed how she felt about him. It happened a week before she slipped into a coma.
They were both lying on the bed after setting up the nursery together with the items both he and Sia had collected over the months. He had begun to collect clothes, toys and books for a baby girl. While she did the same for a baby boy.
They had laughed together, and argued about silly things like whether an animal blanket or the cars one had to be used to cover the mattress on the cradle. Finally, when she looked tired after standing up for three straight hours, he had picked her up and carried her back to their room, where he had made slow and sweet love to her. Later, when they were both satisfied, they fell had fallen silent, lost in their own thoughts, until she had suddenly spoken.
“I think I’m in love,” she said, smiling towards the ceiling. With her heavily pregnant belly, she could only lie on her back.
But as always, he was turned towards her, watching her. There was a beautiful smile playing on her lips.
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “I really hope it’s with me,” he teased.
She turned her head, and looked at him, her smile widening. “Yes. It is with you,” she replied shyly.
He laughed. “I’m so very glad. Because I love you too,” he said before he kissed her.
“You told me that you fell in love with me. Was that a lie?” he asked her softly.
Looking at her face, he knew she was recalling that day as well.
“I don’t know if what I feel for you now is love, Ajay. But I know that I still don’t trust you,” she said.
“I already know that,” he replied in defeat.
They looked at each other quietly; each of them trying to figure out whether love without trust can exist.
A phone rang next to them, breaking the trance.
Looking at the display screen for the caller id, he cut the call, stopping the ring. “Sia, let’s—”
“We can talk later,” she said, cutting him off. There was a look of panic on her face.”I need to call someone,” she said.