by Shilpa Suraj
Alisha opened her mouth to say ‘you never asked’ but realized that it wasn’t true. They hadn’t asked today either.
“I was ashamed,” she said, the truth of it an unknown entity. “Ashamed to tell you that the confident, educated, feminist daughter you’d raised had allowed something like this to happen to her. I was so ashamed of myself. Of who I’d become.”
“Oh, Alisha.” Her mother’s broken whisper had her closing her eyes. “None of that was your fault. He-“
“No, Ma. All of it wasn’t but some of it was. I let it happen. I stayed. I didn’t fight back. Not until the very end. I was so ashamed and so broken that I didn’t have any fight left in me. I’m not ashamed of what he did to me. I’m ashamed that I allowed it for so long. I should have left. I always knew you both would support me and, yet, I didn’t have the courage to tell you what was happening. To tell you what I wanted. Even when I knew that I just had to tell you and you’d do anything to make sure I could have it.”
Reaching over, she wiped her mother’s tears unaware of the ones trailing down her own cheeks. “Please don’t cry. I needed this. I needed the time to accept what happened to me and to forgive myself for letting it happen.”
Her father ran a trembling hand down her hair but stayed silent. The three of them sat in the quiet of the night, each lost in their own thoughts until Alisha spoke again.
“I’m not going to make the same mistake again.” Swallowing the tears that clogged her throat, she said, “I’m going to tell you both what I want now and I’m going to ask for your help in making it happen.”
“What do you want, sweety?” Her father asked, even as knowledge darkened her mother’s eyes.
“More like whom, Dad.” Steeling herself, she met his eyes. “Vivaan. I want Vivaan.”
---***---
The chemotherapy wasn’t working. Vivaan sat at the desk in his bedroom and reviewed the copy of the case notes for the hundredth time. He’d escalated the case to his seniors too and none of them could find an alternative solution to the treatment his team was already working on.
“What’s with the ferocious frown?” Arav asked. He was lounging on the bed and scanning his phone, looking more relaxed and peaceful than he had in a long time.
Vivaan’s still aching heart gladdened at the sight. His brother deserved the break from everything that had been going on in his life.
“A complicated case,” Vivaan sighed. He tossed his pen and stood up, stretching to ease the kinks in his neck and shoulders.
Arav put his phone down and sat up. “Want to talk about it?”
Vivaan opened his mouth to reply but was silenced by a resounding crash as a rock came hurtling through their thankfully open window and slammed into their cupboard before falling to the ground in pieces.
Both brothers stared in shock at the sight of the debris on the bedroom floor.
“Bloody hell.” Loud and fluent cursing carried up to them from the open window. “It was open.”
“I asked you to toss a pebble at the window not a bloody boulder.” An aggrieved male voice replied. A very familiar voice.
Vivaan and Arav cautiously approached the window and looked out at a very strange sight. Arjun and Alisha stood in their garden arguing furiously. Even stranger was the fact that Arjun appeared to be carrying a ladder.
Arav cleared his throat. Two irritated faces looked up at him.
“Hello,” he said, sounding unsure of what to say next.
Vivaan stayed frozen in place, his eyes on Alisha. She looked…well, she looked a bit insane. She was dressed all in black with her hair tucked into a black ball cap.
Arjun set the ladder against the wall and stood back, his hand sweeping out in an extravagant gesture completely unlike his normally restrained self. Alisha, who was still refusing to meet Vivaan’s eyes, started to climb up the ladder noisily.
“What the hell?” he murmured. He’d told the woman he wanted a lifetime with her and she’d decided to burgle his house in retaliation?
Alisha stopped climbing and clattered to a stop when her head was level with the window lintel.
“Hi,” she said, her embarrassed smile lighting up her gorgeous face.
“Hi,’ he answered, nonplussed. “If I’d known you were dropping in for a visit, I would have opened the front door for you.”
Arav laughed, the sound making them both turn to look at him.
“Would you like to come in?” Arav asked Alisha, who shook her head. He leaned out of the window to address Arjun, “And you?”
Arjun waved him off. “Not right now.”
Giving Vivaan a bemused look, Arav stepped away from the window and sat down on the bed.
Vivaan turned back to Alisha who was still peeping up at him like the mole in a whack-a-mole game.
“What’s going on?”
“Dr. Vivaan Kapoor,” she said, “I needed to ask you something.”
Behind her, Arjun groaned and sat down on the grass.
“What?” she snapped, looking down at him.
“It’s not an interview, woman. Couldn’t you have come up with a better opening line?” he growled back.
“Alisha,” Vivaan tapped her on her shoulder. Her head snapped around, her long ponytail whipping across his face. “What’s going on?” he asked, brushing her hair aside.
“You’re my Juliet.”
Vivaan froze.
“Except you’re in a bedroom and not on a balcony and I’m obviously a terrible Romeo. I was trying to throw a stone at your window to get your attention but the window was open and now I’ve dented your cupboard,” she said, glumly.
“You were supposed to use a pebble.” Arjun’s laconic voice came from behind her.
“Shut up,” she hissed over her shoulder.
“I’m your Juliet?” Vivaan’s quiet question brought her attention back to him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
A slow flush worked its way up Alisha’s cheeks as she met his eyes. “I’m in love with you, Dr. Vivaan Kapoor.”
Vivaan’s heart jolted like someone had tried to revive him with a defibrillator.
“Arav,” he said, softly. “Get out.”
Arav moved towards the door but Alisha stopped him with a quiet, “Please don’t leave.”
She met Vivaan’s eyes and said, “I want them to stay. I want them to hear what I have to say. I want you and the world to know how I feel about you.”
“Alisha, you don’t have to do this.” He held out a hand, silently urging her to come into the room.
She shook her head in denial. “I do have to do this. I want to do this.”
“I want everyone to hear what I have to say. I’ve spent most of my life believing I’m not capable of feeling much romantically. I thought I was frigid. And then you happened. You brought feeling back into my life, Vivaan.”
She took a deep breath and repeated. “You brought feeling back into my life. I can’t go back to living without it. I want you. I choose you. I only hope you’ll choose me too.”
Behind him, he heard the bedroom door open and close as Arav left the room. A scuffling noise from the lawn told him Arjun was doing the same.
“Alisha.” He held his hand out once more. “Please?”
She took his hand and allowed him to help her into the room. Pulling away from him, she put some distance between them before turning to face him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t.” He was already shaking his head before she’d finished the sentence.
“I hurt you. I had no right to.”
She came to stand in front of him, her eyes meeting his, a wealth of pain in them. “You are my light, Vivaan. The light I’d forgotten could exist. The light I’d forgotten I needed.”
Vivaan slid an arm around her waist drawing her closer until her head nestled against his chest.
Alisha sighed, nuzzling her cheek against his. “You’ve ruined me. Nice will never be good enough again.”
; Everything inside him unclenched. Vivaan hadn’t even realized how hard he’d been working to hold himself together until he had Alisha in his arms again.
He tightened his grip on her and buried his face in her hair. The strength of his feelings caused a hard shudder to run through his body.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice rough with unspoken emotion. “You won’t change your mind?”
In answer, Alisha drew his head down and kissed him. Desire whispered through him even as his heart expanded.
“I love you, Vivaan,” she whispered against his lips, the words sending a shudder through his body.
“I love you too. God, I love you so much.” He kissed her again, a promise from his heart to hers. “I will always love only you, Alisha.”
“Good.” She tugged at his hair so he’d look at her. “This is it for me. You are my only.”
“Your only Juliet?” he teased, smiling.
“You don’t like being Juliet to my Romeo?” she grinned. “You could be Heathcliff to my Cathy?”
“Please,” he snorted. “I can do better than that.”
“Better than Heathcliff?” Alisha’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline.
“Well, I haven’t read too many of the classics but I could be…” He struggled to come up with a name.
“Vivaan to my Alisha,” she finished, softly.
“Yes,” he agreed. “That I can be.”
THE END
About The Author
Shilpa Suraj
A published author with Harlequin India, Locksley Hall and Juggernaut, Shilpa Suraj writes stories that are sweet, tender, angsty and passionate. While romance and women’s fiction are her favourite genres, she believes that at the end of the day, all that matters is the story you tell.