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Do I Have Your Attention?
Arnav parked his car haphazardly as he tried Khushi's phone one last time. When they'd last spoken this morning she'd been awkward and had even avoided his question when he'd asked where she was. Then she'd refused to pick up any of his calls for the rest of the day only angering him further. He expected her to be in the living room with Nani and Di but he couldn't see her as he walked in the house. He wondered if she was still out, wherever it was that she'd gone.
He felt a mix of anger and panic upon opening his bedroom door and not seeing her there either. His eyes immediately went to the window and he breathed a sigh of relief at seeing his wife sitting cross legged on a chair looking up at the slowly darkening evening sky.
He removed his jacket and tie leaving them on the chair before striding out to the poolside. Any other day he would have stopped to admire how angelic and beautiful she looked but having spent 7 hours wondering about the well being of his wife had done nothing to improve his mood today. Normally he couldn't get her off the phone but today they'd only spoken once and even then she'd been distracted.
'Khushi!'
She looked up at him startled as if he was the last person she expected to see, 'Arnav?'
Arnav reached over her to the table beside her and picked up her phone and pretended to examine it.
She'd gone from startled to nervous now, 'what are you doing Arnav?'
'I was just checking if it works and obviously it does. So do you want to explain why the hell you didn't bother to pick up any one of the million calls I made to you today?' He threw the phone back at her and she clumsily caught it, still staring at him.
Khushi looked from the phone in her hands to Arnav's face. How dare he throw her phone at her like that? As if they were the same Khushi and Arnav of 2 years ago. So much had changed between them but his anger never seemed to change. Just who did he think he was? 'What's wrong with you? What if it broke?!'
'I don't care about the damn phone, Khushi! Answer my question!'
Khushi stood up indignantly, she'd been so looking forward to Arnav coming home today and the first thing he did was shout at her! 'Oh did you ask a question? I couldn't hear it over the sound of you shouting!' She started to walk past him back towards their room when Arnav held onto her elbow and stopped her.
Arnav took a deep breath and tried to control his anger,' Khushi, I'm sorry for shouting but I was worried!' he pulled her closer and smoothed her hair away from her face, 'I thought something had happened to you.'
Khushi felt the usual flutter in her stomach whenever Arnav was this close to her. She wasn't good at holding grudges and whenever Arnav did something she usually forgave him within moments of him apologising but she wasn't going to let him get away easily today. She moved her elbow from his grasp and started towards the room again. When she got to the door she stopped and turned to look back at Arnav. 'You don't need to worry about me anymore, I've found someone new that can take care of me now.'
Arnav watched Khushi go into the room perplexed. 'What the...' What was she talking about? Someone new?
He followed her into the room where she was tidying away his jacket and tie, 'Who are you talking about?'
Khushi looked at him with a sort of dazed smile on her face and sat down on the bed clutching his jacket to her chest and leaned back against the pillows.
'Khushi!'
'Huh?' Khushi woke out of her daydream and remembered what she'd been trying to do. She avoided meeting Arnav's eyes as she knew she'd never be able to do this if she looked at him. 'Erm... Arnav, the thing is... I... The reason I didn't answer your phone today... Erm...'
'Khushi, spit it out!'
That settled it; she'd been having second thoughts but now she was definitely going to do this. Khushi stood up dropping Arnav's jacket. 'There's somebody else that I... I love and I went to meet him today.'
Arnav felt as if time had stopped, as if the world had stopped turning, all he could see was Khushi. His Khushi, his wife, his love claiming to love someone else.
He stood up immediately and clutched her shoulders tightly. 'Who? I'm going to kill him Khushi, who the hell are you talking about?'
'Arnav, let me go!' Khushi struggled to get out of Arnav's grip but he was holding her too hard in the way that he had often done when they first met. 'Don't even think about it! I won't let you do anything to him Arnav, I won't let anybody touch him!'
Arnav saw the honesty in Khushi's eyes. There was an emotion there that he had often seen when she looked at him; an emotion he'd thought was exclusive to him. She was telling the truth. There was someone else that she loved as much as he'd thought she loved him. Arnav stepped back in shock and horror stumbling over his own feet.
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