Frozen - Shivika FF | ✓

Chapter 31 : Dilemma

Anika inched her face away from his shoulders, after she ran out of tears. She quickly used the back of her left plam to wipe her tears. She tried stepping back but he held her in place. She closed her eyes. Why did it always feel so right to be in his arms?

"Shivaay!" She whispered.

Shivaay took a deep breath and loosened his hold around her. He pulled a little away. His gaze falling on her face. Her eyes were lowered, a tinge of pink on her cheeks with traces of dried tears.

"Anika," he said softly, his hands moving down her back to rest on her waist. "A day before the wedding, during the final dress trial ..." he paused to see her eyes lookup at him. One look at her and he knew she understood what he was talking about.

"You wanted me to say something," he went on, his gaze not leaving her eyes.

Anika nervously looked everywhere- his chest, his shoulders, the air between them but in his eyes. When his pause stretched, she looked at him. 

"I want to--"

"It doesn't matter now," she whispered. She didn't want to hear anything any more. 

"It does, Anika. Because I still feel that way." He confessed.

Anika looked at him through the length of her eyelashes. Her heart was beating vigorously and her breaths were short. 

"You didn't say anything when you had to." She voiced a complaint, trying her best to deter him from saying the words she always wanted to hear.

"Because I was living under a rock. Okay?" He said and then took a deep breath, "Anika, you...you've changed me and my life. You've..." he looked into her eyes, as though searching for something.

Anika was taken by surprise when his right hand reached out to hold hers. He gently guided her hand to his chest, almost over the place of his heart. Anika hitched in a breath feeling the warmth of his body.

"You're important Anika, you've always been. You've been there for me when no one understood me. You've tapped into those parts of me that I usually kept just to myself. You are special, Anika. Very special. I know, what I did was wrong. I know you'll probably never forgive or forget how badly I treated you. But I am pleading you to give me one more chance, Anika. I promise, I won't make you regret it."

Anika hadn't really expected him to reach that far. She stared at him with disbelief. He was the same man who couldn't get a word out without hesitation, when it was to appreciate her.

"You know I sparingly use sorry and thank you. It's not because I am arrogant. It's because I believe in myself. I don't feel the need to say a thank you if I deserved something, if I worked for it. I don't find the need to say sorry until it's really my mistake. I am sorry, Anika, for that every tear I have caused. Please, give me a chance, just one more chance... I won't disappoint you."

Anika was tongue tied. She didn't expect any of this from him. The walls of ice she had built around her had melted so fast. Her mind warned her to be aware of a trap that could break her patched up heart again.

She made a mistake by looking into his eyes. Because she was taken back in time. To all those heartwarming memories they shared. To all the times he saved her from falling and held her hand. Her gaze moved down to her hand on his chest, she could tell that his heartbeat somehow, strangely, matched her pulse.

She swallowed the small lump of emotion and stared at him. Her heart was moving towards him, dragging her chained mind along which was trying it's best to move in the opposite direction.