Dare Trilogy | Book 3 Editing | ✓

1.19.5 | Between Trust & Safety

Originally Posted on March 18th, 2017 | Edited on May 10th, 2018.

Just found out @billu2001 has her boards coming up. All the best dear! ~

A R N A V . . .

| . . . C H A P T E R . . .  1. 1 9 . 5 : B E T W E E N - T R U S T - & - S A F E T Y . . . |

"Daddy!"

I walked into the house to see him rushing towards me. Aarav. The one person in this entire world who could automatically put a smile on my face. I bent to lift him up as he reached me and kissed his cheek. "Hey Champ."

"Still mad?"

I shook my head, "Never around you baby." It was understandable why he'd ask that. When he'd gone to bed last night, I was mad - as I had been the last few days.

He broke into a smile and moved about to get me to put him down. I did and he held my index finger to pull me towards the couch and forced me to watch cartoons with him. I didn't mind though. After returning from meeting Khushi, I was in a better mood.

I wasn't sure how to react to her close friendship with Angad but she seemed at ease and happiest I had ever seen her so I chose to focus on that. And, after weeks, I had talked to her. I was only mad at myself that it took for her to text me when she wasn't feeling well for me to go to her.

She wouldn't talk about us... our estranged friendship and I couldn't push her. Not sure I wanted to bring her back in my life with how drastically things had changed in the last few days. If being wrapped up in college rumors broke our friendship, I worried what would happen if she got accidently wrapped up in my family life.

I won't risk that.

Lavanya appeared from the kitchen, "Ah, you're back. He's been asking for you since he woke up."

I informed, "Yeah, I had to go see someone. Make sure they were alright."

She nodded and though she didn't ask, I had a feeling she knew it was that someone I had talked to her about during the holidays. "Lunch is almost ready. Go freshen up?"

"Sure," I shifted Aarav to the couch from my lap and instructed, "Don't trouble mommy too much, okay?"

He nodded playing with his toy truck and Lavanya smiled at me in understanding when I passed her.

I was forever in debt to her, I knew that and I'd never forget that for everything she did for me. I wasn't Aarav's dad and she wasn't his mom. Yet, that is what we told everyone. In reality, he was Anjali's son. I only adopted him as I would rather have people know he is my son than give Anjali a hard time because she had a son out of wedlock. They would never understand this wasn't out of her will either.

She was raped and this was the result. She chose to keep the baby.

No one, not even my uncle, aunt, or Kripa knew about Aarav and Anjali's relationship. We told everyone he was mine. When Anjali found out she was pregnant, I had her shift here to Australia with me, lying to my uncle with the excuse that it was my first year of college and I wanted her here while I settled in. No one other than her doctor ever knew she was pregnant, except for Lavanya when she visited out of the blue and upon finding out, she became the front face. I tried so hard to talk her out of it but she wouldn't listen.

She kept saying everyone would ask who the mother was and forced me into letting her help. She claimed I had looked out for her and always been there for her and it was her turn. Even when her family turned against her and disowned her on finding out she was pregnant as a teenager, she didn't back off. With no fault of hers, she took every single blame on her head and still stood strong. I was being strong for Anjali but at the end of the day when I would break, Lavanya would be there for me.