"Adhrit, all I ask for, is one more chance. We have loved each other for years now. What happened suddenly that you cannot even give me, give us, a chance when that's all I am begging for?" questioned Mohini, appearing paler than Adhrit had ever seen her. Her usually smooth and conditioned hair was messed up and her face was lacking the usual glow from various treatments she used as a part of the showbiz to enrich her beauty. Dark circles were marring her porcelain skin and she seemed to have aged more in a few days than she had in years.
"Remember what I had told you about three months back before you received the divorce notice? I was looking for a surrogate mother and like you had quite affectionately offered, I went with traditional surrogacy," mocked Adhrit, his cold tone and nonchalant stare twisting the dagger in her heart.
A smile lit up on her face, ignoring the pain pulsating throughout her, and it had managed to take him by surprise.
"I am very happy for you, Adhrit. Your wish and dream of years is going to come true. But there is one thing I don't understand. How is that related to our divorce?" she asked, the pain in her eyes threatening to power his conscience which lied dormant since weeks.
"The contract with the surrogate mother states that the authenticity of the contract is subject to our divorce. I do not wish to step back from my word and that's just one of the reasons why I am intent on divorcing you. Apart from this, if you are forgetting, you cheated on me for years," he spat sarcastically, rolling his eyes and a smirk stretching his lips to one side.
"As if you haven't, Adhrit," she retorted, looking up to prevent the hot tears from spilling out of her eyes.
"What do you mean? When have I cheated over you? You even started making up things now," he muttered through gritted teeth.
"Cheating is not just physical or sexual, Adhrit. It is also emotional. Were you there beside me when my mother was on her deathbed? In fact, you did not come even two days after she had passed away. My relatives were waiting for you. They wanted the son-in-law to perform the last rites since my mother refused to have her husband give fire to her pyre. In the end, I had to go against everyone, to lit the funeral pyre of my mother. To put up a fight when you had just lost someone so dear is not easy, but I would not expect you to understand. I just expect to put the past behind us and move on. Who is the surrogate mother? I will, myself, go and convince her to change the contract," she pleaded, her form shaking with myriads of emotions as the memories of the past wreaked havoc on her senses.
Adhrit slightly stumbled back by the impact of her words but soon steadied himself. Maybe this was the reason why she always got upset when he left her alone because she was scared that she might face a similar situation and would be forced to face it in isolation, with no one by her side, he thought.
But as they say, vengeance can turn one blind - even to their own love - and can ward away logic from the recesses of mind.
"Convince her to change the contract or leave my life, Mohini? You wouldn't want to be the reason of my happiness or let anyone else be the reason, isn't it?" he taunted, laughing mirthlessly.
"I never wanted you to be bereft of happiness, Adhrit. Maybe that's why I never let my inner demons complain to you, because I knew that if I did complain, whatever little bliss was left in our lives would leave us. Maybe that's why I always allowed them to live off others and allowed them to pull me to others, even if it was just for company. But maybe my love was not strong enough to guard your happiness at the cost of my own," she whispered with a sad smile playing on her unusually chapped lips.
Honesty.
That was the quality which had once endeared her to him. She had been honest about her flings from in their adolescence. Never trying to hide but never trying to flaunt them either. Hearing her speak about it, accept her follies out in the open, and reveal the whimpering of her heart, felt like reliving the old times. But alas, he was not the old Adhrit Solanki.
"Don't. Don't try to trap me in your words. You are doing this intentionally, aren't you?" he questioned, running his fingers in his already rugged hair.
"I wish I could. When I could not stop you from leaving me in solitude back then, how can I stop you now?" she jeered at herself.
Before Adhrit could respond to her, a message on his phone interrupted his trail of thoughts. He immediately dug out the phone, knowing that it could very well be of Neysa's and she might be in the need of urgent help. Although it was from the woman of his thoughts, fortunately, the message was not sent from a situation of peril but of happiness.
The message contained the picture of the first ultrasound of their baby. Ecstasy, elation and euphoria swelled in his heart as he eyed the baby which was an extension of himself. Surprised by the chain of events, Mohini moved towards him to look at what had caused such an emotional upheaval from the usually guarded Adhrit Solanki.
The sight which she beheld had at once revealed that he was rightfully blissful but before she could notice the name of the sender, Adhrit pulled the phone away from the line of sight of Mohini.
"I am sure you would want to speak to the mother, Adhrit. Go ahead," she said, standing by her words that she would never stand between him and his happiness, as she walked away giving the much-required privacy to him by closing the doors behind her.
"Nisha! The next time you go for an ultrasound, make sure that you call me. I wouldn't want to miss this for anything in the world. I want to see this from my own eyes, want to see my baby move and respond, not just a picture," he demanded as Neysa received his call.
He heard her tinkling laughter from the other side of the phone, and it managed to calm his raging nerves like nothing before.
"Surely the next time, Adhrit. But the baby, isn't it beautiful? Both physically and the feelings associated with it," she asked, smiling through the tears of beatitude as she stared at the image of the ultrasound. The baby which they had together created- her and her first and last love; something which would be just theirs.
"Very. Just like the mother," he said, surprising himself and the woman he had spoken about.
The baby had begun weaving its magic in forging an unspoken bond between its father and mother, but will they be able to sustain it?