A Hopeful Love

Chapter 4

Divya's POV

I stare at a peaceful Pihu taking a leisurely stroll along with me, wiggling her tail and looking perfectly content.I smile despite myself and the stress reel currently playing in my head lowers a bit in volume. While Pihu might appear perfectly happy,she wasn't so two days before,the day that I picked her up from the main road away from the hill. She was limping all by herself along the stretch of the main road and on inspecting what had caused this beautiful little puppy to do so,I found a dark red wound on her paw caused by a thorn and the next thing I did was to rush her to Aashraya.

On being found by Ravi sir later,I had feared if he would not allow for me to keep Pihu as we have more animals already than we can take care of and my fear only multiplied when I saw him come in with a frown but all it took was one look at Pihu's puppy eyes that pleaded for help, and he nodded a yes.

I bring my attention back to the present, a present in which Pihu is currently strolling happily far from Aashraya and I pick her up saying, 'Oh Pihu,where are you off to?' and we cozily sit on our rock overlooking the lake which acts as a bench when I come out for walks with my furry friends. I wiggle Pihu's ears and sigh and at this moment,I feel both calm and chaos, calm for having this little puppy beside me and chaos for being me.

Yeah,I am the chaos in my life. A walking mess. A girl who can't even complete a sentence without stammering when overwhelmed. A girl who has all but caused disappointments to her parents, brought them pain they never thought I could, a pain I never thought I could make them go through but I have in a miserable way and my chest constricts at that.

My chain of thoughts is broken when I hear a rustle in the path behind and my senses stand on an alert and I am about to go check when a dog, a Golden retriever peaks it's head and barks aloud once. Pihu jumps along with me while I gasp and replies with a bark of her own. The Golden retriever moves ahead ever so slightly and heads towards us when Pihu barks again. I shush her and approach the lovely dog with a bright golden fur that is visiting us and look into its eyes that shine with innocence and mischief.

He is beautiful and I check for any injuries in paws or body. There are none and I recall if he is from Aashraya but no, he can't be from the shelter as we have one golden retriever that is still small. I wonder how this creature got here and I already feel ready to take him to Aashraya if he needs a home.

"Hey there! Hello" I greet him and move closer to stroke his fur and feel him relaxing under my touch and smile despite myself.It is just so fulfilling to see someone at ease with you and feel like you matter and that's why people choose to have pets, not to show off and all but to feel trusted and accepted that these beautiful creatures so easily provide when shown a bit of love.

I keep on stroking his fur and he moves closer into my embrace but our madam Pihu doesn't let him and starts barking to which the dog replies with his own barks and I am trying my best to silence them when I hear someone calling a name not so far away. I snap my head towards the direction of the voice and that's when I notice a man come up .

"Ronnie" I hear him call out towards the lake. He whips his towards our direction and is about to call out when he sighs a sigh of relief noticing the retriever and then his eyes meet mine and the feeling of relief is morphed in with a frown and suddenly his face is hard and eyes focused on me and I know what that is. Anger.

That's when it hits me.

God, Is he the owner of this beautiful retriever whose eyes currently hold the feeling of being caught?