Someone Like You ~ Sid/Nikki ff P12 pg 17

 

 

 

Rain pattered against the window as Dr Nikita Malhotra sat in her lounge drinking her morning coffee. A girl of habit, Nikki always started her day by sitting on the sofa, drinking hot espresso and reading the newspapers. She was off duty today so she curled her legs up on the sofa as she sipped leisurely from her coffee mug. On days like these she liked to take her time reading every single story in the newspaper. Since she became a doctor she felt it important to know what was going on in the world. It was a far-cry from her college days when she had been seen by her classmates as something of an air-head. Back then only fashion had interested her, but things had happened to change Nikki. Her priorities were all different now.

            The newspaper was spread out on her knee and as she leaned over to read it a strand of hair escaped her ponytail. Once she would have religiously styled her ebony tresses, but these days she preferred to keep them tied back. She scanned the page before her, frowning as she read about an increasing number of orphans on the streets of Mumbai. It broke her heart to think of all the kids forced to roam the streets. It made her feel guilty too that for so long she had lived a privileged life and taken it for granted.

            Flicking the page her eyes were drawn to the personal announcements column. There were several birth announcements that made her smile. The thought of new life always filled her with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside and her brown eyes sparkled as she imagined the joy of holding a baby of her own in her arms.

            As her eyes skimmed down the column she suddenly froze. A tremor ran through her body, making her shake visibly. The light died in her eyes and her smile faded. She sat like a statue, staring down at the page in front of her, a million emotions racing through her. A rumble of thunder sounded outside, making her jump. She looked round at the purple sky, the rain-lashed window, and she felt a cold feeling spread all through her veins. She hurriedly shut the newspaper and rose to her feet, crossing to the window and closing her window as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky.

            She pressed her back against the window, breathing deeply. Tears were rushing to her eyes and it was too much of a struggle to hold them back. The thunder rumbled again and she felt as if it were rumbling inside her, shaking her to the very core. She closed her eyes, but the image of that page burned brightly behind her eyes.

            Just then the door to her apartment opened and she jerked, her breath catching tightly in her chest. A man stood in the doorway ' Dr Abhimanyu Modi, her boyfriend. She flushed, embarrassed to be caught looking so wild and frightened in front of him. He was looking at her with a slight frown, that assessing light she had seen him give his patients many times in his eyes. She became acutely aware that she was still pressed against the window and with a nervous laugh she crossed the room towards him.

            "Abhi, you?" she said, trying her best to smile. "I thought you were working this morning?"

            Abhi's frown deepened and she averted her eyes. His gaze was hawkish. He never missed anything and she didn't have the strength ' or the courage ' to explain anything to him.

            "You sound disappointed," Abhi said. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

            "No! No, it's not like that!" she protested. She made herself reach out and squeeze his hand. "I'm just surprised that's all."

            "Hmm," he replied, still eyeing her suspiciously. "Well, the truth is, I changed shifts. You see, this morning I got a call from my aunt. She had some good news."

            Nikki tried to smile but it hurt her jaw. She felt so fake as she walked with Abhi to the sofa.

            "Remember I told you about my cousin, Siddhant?" Abhi asked, picking up the newspaper.

            Nikki felt the cold feeling slide down her spine again and her stomach churned. She nodded, forcing her smile wider though all she wanted to do was scream in anguish.

            "Well, he's just gotten engaged," Abhi told her. "Look."

            He handed her the newspaper. Mechanically she reached out and took it, every part of her body feeling icy cold. She didn't need to look down, but she made herself to please Abhi, and there were those torturous words in front of her eyes in huge black letters:

            Dr Siddhant Modi to wed Dr Riddhima Gupta.

            She felt the nausea surge from the pit of her stomach. Abhi was busy explaining to her how Riddhima was a beautiful woman who had recently been promoted to head surgeon at Sanjeevni hospital, but Nikki hardly heard him. Her eyes were focused on the picture of Sid, fatter in the face now, but still with that dazzling smile and those sparkling eyes, and all she could think about was the last day of college, standing in the rain, watching him walk out of her life forever..

its good please continue

 

Thanks Sushi 🤗       I always think of Sid-Nikki as continuation of TiaRa and whenever I hear the song I imagine Tia feeling all this if things had turned out badly for her and Ranveer. Also, I wanted to write a sad story for Sindhu, you know how much she loves sad stories. 😳😆 

do continue soon😳

This is like a dream come true ...an actual sid nikki story ...you finally gave wings to my imagination ...actually our imagination ...I m so happyyy ...I m so gonna write a more detail post once this weekend gets over ...you know na how badly stuck I m during weekends...will come back tomorrow and write about the story ...but seriously I loved it ...it has everything that makes me grin 😃 and you have no idea what I felt about it ...just lemme come back tomorrow ...but till then if u need u can post the second part ...I so can't wait for it 😍

 

Awww that's so sweet Sayani, am glad you liked it 🤗

I will post the next part tomorrow, promise.

 

Hehehe that's my job na, to realise our dreams. 😳😆  Ever since I sent you the song this idea kept building in my mind, and seen as though my vm making is on the back burner right now I decided I could write it down instead. Lolz, yeah, weekends are a bad time, but I can be patient. I am still tweaking the second part, so it's okay. Will post it tomorrow. 😳  I can't wait to read your thoughts.

The beautiful transformation from Tia to Nikki is again another thing I loved ..oh why on earth do I want Sid happy getting married to Riddhima is something I need to understand ...I actually played the whole story in my mind and there he was happy and now why he is happy is something I will tell u later ...first I wanna read your version and I so can't wait ...

You know I was playing Rachie's mix after reading ur story and something happened and I felt so saddd ...sobsss I can't wait ...give the next part now now ...I will cry then 😍 do I sound like a maniac ...why do I enjoy this so much 😆...You while reading this another song came to my mind ...have u heard this song Gravity by sara bereulles ...the song so defines this situation now 😍

 

We are obsessed with love stories that start with bitterness na 🤔😆  But you are right, this was always what drew us to Sid-Nikki, and what makes them so great for a story like this. It came so naturally to me, just like that while hearing the song, and that hasn't happened to me in a while. I sent you the vid with the lyrics, didn't I? I wanted to keep the tale as close to that as possible. For me that song is all about thinking you have moved on and then getting this news out the blue and realising that you never really got over someone. I read an interview with adele, she said she wrote that song after hearing about an ex-boyfriend getting married and it made her so mad cause he told her he never wanted marriage. I wanted Nikki to feel something similar, but, as you will see in the second part, her whole life has been affected by losing Sid.

 

Hehe, I won't tell you what will happen, that will be revealed in time, but I was surprised to hear you say you want Sid to be happy and marrying Riddhima. Can't wait to hear your reasons for that. And yes, Rachna has to take credit for her mix because she was the first to come up with this idea of Sid and Nikki relieving their memories as Tia and Ranveer. 😳  I have indeed heard Gravity, it's a fav with many mix makers. I think there was a CB mix on it, gonna search it out again now you reminded me of it. 😳

 

Okay, second part coming up, maha excited to know what you make of it. I am thinking your opinions might change after reading it...

 

 

 

 

"You are so selfish, Nikki!"

            Even after all this time those words cut through her like a knife. Her heart physically ached as they ran through her mind over and over again as she stared at the white building across the street. It was still raining heavily and she clutched her umbrella tightly. Her palms were sweating and the umbrella kept slipping from her grasp. With a sense of irony she mused that it was kind of how she felt about her life right now.

            She stared at the hospital with its white exterior and brightly lit windows that glowed through the rain, reminding her of headlights. They hurt her eyes but she didn't look away; she couldn't look away. Her heart was racing and despite the humidity her skin felt icy cold. She couldn't decide if she was crazy or stupid or both. She shouldn't even have been here. It had been five years since those words shattered everything in her world, five years in which her heart had been slowly stitching itself back together, in which she had been making a new life for herself. Why was she risking all that she had built up from the wreckage of her life just to see someone who she meant nothing to?

            The rain was dripping off her umbrella and splashing on her feet, reminding her of that last day and how she had been soaked to the skin. She had run out of the dorm after him, in too much distress to think about taking an umbrella or a jacket with her. She had been wearing her favourite dress that day, she recalled: the cream one with the halter neck, the one she had been wearing the day she first met him. The rain had run in rivulets down her arms and legs, but she hadn't noticed until he was gone.

            "Sid, where are you going?" she had shouted into the rain as he stormed across the courtyard. "I was only joking!"

            "No Nikki, you weren't!" He had spun round so quickly she'd nearly crashed right into him and the rage in his eyes had practically burnt her skin. "You meant everything you said, I know it."

            Shivering, she had stared up at him feeling defensive and indignant. What did he expect, for her to leave everything, her friends, her modelling, to travel to some backwoods place to care for people with horrible diseases? And just because she had said she would rather die than live in a camp with communal eating and bathing quarters he was threatening to leave her.

            "If you loved me you would stay here with me," she had said in a fit of pique. "You wouldn't abandon me for those stupid villagers."

            The memory of those words made her cringe now. One silent tear stole its way down her cheek as she saw the contempt fill his eyes. In that moment he had hated her, she knew, and she couldn't blame him anymore.

            Her phone buzzed, pulling her from her memories. She glanced down at it and saw Abhi's name flashing on the caller ID. Abhi. Her heart ached with a different sort of pain now and she experienced a stab of guilt. If he knew she was here and why what would he think?

            At first she hadn't known Abhi was Sid's cousin. She had met him three months ago when he took over at the hospital where she worked as head of the paediatric ward. His sometimes abrasive manner had irked her and they had engaged in many battles of wills, but then one day she had heard him discussing his family with one of the other doctors and he had mentioned his cousin Siddhant. Her heart had stopped for a second, but she had told herself it couldn't be the same Sid. Siddhant was, after all, a popular name. Yet the next again day she spoke nicely to Abhi for the first time and after a few days she had casually asked about his family. He had shown her a picture taken a few years ago and then she had known for certain.

            Abhi had spent his childhood and his adolescence in America, therefore he hadn't seen Sid in a long time. The last had been nine years ago at a family wedding. He had no idea that she had gone to college with Sid, let alone how close they had been; she had lied about which college she attended. She tried to tell herself that she hadn't gotten close to Abhi because of Sid, but the guilt that spiked inside her now was proof of the lie.

            "Hello?" She answered her phone at last.

            "Nikki, where are you? I'm at your apartment and you're not here." Abhi sounded anxious on the other end of the line. "Did something come up?"

            "No," she answered, hoping he didn't hear the slight hitch in her voice. "I just needed to pick up some things at the market."

            "Well tell me where you are and I will come pick you up," Abhi told her.

            "No, it's okay," she said hurriedly, heart lurching. "I'm meeting my friends for coffee in a while. I haven't seen them in ages, so I can't just bail on them. I'll see you later okay."

            She hung up before he had a chance to protest.

            "I'm sorry, Abhi," she whispered, staring down at her phone through her tears. "But I had to lie to you."

            She inhaled deeply, squeezing her eyes shut to stem back the tears. Since she struck up her friendship with Abhi a part of her had hoped, no expected, this might happen one day. Always in the back of her mind had been the idea that through Abhi she could reach out to Sid again. It had all seemed so simple two months ago but now she found herself hesitating as she opened her eyes and looked at the blurry outline of the hospital. Despite everything she did care about Abhi and she couldn't ignore the stabbing sensation in her heart when she thought of all the lies she had told him and how he would feel if he knew. Would he understand, she wondered?

            "You've come too far to turn back now, Nikki," she told herself.

            And she needed this, she reasoned with herself. For five years she had been rebuilding her life with the distant hope that one day she could show Sid that he had been wrong, that all he had accused her of was not true. She had to show him she had changed.

            Just then her eyes were drawn to three people exiting the hospital. They were all dressed in white coats, with ID badges hanging from their pockets. Doctors. There were two men and a woman, but Nikki's eyes were drawn to the man on the right. She would know him anywhere. The face was slightly rounder, the cheeks fuller, and the hair was messier, curling about his ears and the nape of his neck, but those large, deep brown eyes were the same. The dazzling smile hadn't changed either. Seeing it now made butterflies shoot through her stomach. It was Sid.

            The other man and woman started to walk down the street, but Sid remained on the sidewalk, talking on his phone. Nikki's heart gave a massive thump. Now was her chance, she realised, and without a second thought she darted across the road, only narrowly missing being hit by an auto-rickshaw.

            She approached him from behind, her heart pounding with anticipation. As she approached she heard his voice, deep and rich, and it sent shivers down her spine. Her cheeks were beginning to flush as she stopped behind him and her chest felt tight, as if there was no air in her lungs.

            "Miss you too," he said and then cut the call.

            Just as she had hoped he turned in her direction. He was smiling, a smile that made his eyes glow warmly, sending her heart fluttering. He looked directly at her and the smile froze. His eyes widened with surprise and his lips parted in a silent gasp. She held her breath, finding it nearly impossible not to grin like a maniac at him. For a long two minutes he just stared at her and then, finally, he spoke.

            "Nikki?"