Her Broken Dream [√]

Chapter 15:" The Wrong Conclusion"

Three Days Later.                    

Everybody copes with distress differently and Gauri had chosen to hide, it has been three days since she last saw him or her best friend. And yet every time they visited, she would lock her room door and refuse to come out. When she first woke up and saw him beside her, she freaked out and screamed at him to leave her alone, because it reminded her of that night. And before he left she saw the look on his face, the worry etched in his face made her falter because she didn't think she could see him again and not spill her heart out.              

 When Lavanya and Kavya visited her the next day, she locked the door against them because she didn't want them to see her either.  Her son Rahul was confused because his visit to Arnav's house was suddenly canceled and last night he asked her if Arnav no longer wanted to be his friend.  She had kept telling herself and her parents that she needed some time, but she could no longer afford to have four years of time because now she had a son who won't be able to cope up if he saw her breaking apart.          

" Arnav just left" her mom spoke up and she only nodded her head in answer, she had seen them look at her with concern as if they fear for her, and she also noticed that they began to check on her every five minutes. But as much as she tried, she couldn't unlock the door either to her heart or her room yet. And when her son barged into the room next to tell her about all he did with Arnav, she relaxed that at least one of them was keeping her son happy. She learned from Ishann that Arnav had taken Rahul out for the day to visit his family since he missed them.

 Ishaan was another person who seemed lost whenever he was around her, she knew that her brother had to grow up fast because of her, he had to keep her secrets and see her screaming at the nights whenever she had her nightmares which were almost every night at first which was one of the reasons she had married Arun because she had hoped to give Ishaan a normal life, which would have been impossible if she continued to live with them.          

Gauri had called her psychiatrist yesterday and told her about the new developments, she had asked if Gauri was ready to confide to someone other than her family and Gauri answer had been a firm No, but her mind kept thinking about what her psychiatrist said before ending the call, " You are holding on to everything close to your heart, give them a chance to share your pain and people may surprise you by being strong enough for both of you." She heard those words but she couldn't come to terms with them yet.         

Gauri knew Kavya or Lavanya won't be able to cope with it, not because they weren't strong but because she knew they would feel guilty, she didn't want them to feel guilty for what happened to her. Gauri never blamed them and she didn't want to disrupt their life with the truth, especially when her best friend was getting married to the love of her life, she will not be able to live with herself if she destroyed her friend's happiness.  So telling them was out of the question.

 But  Arnav was different, he had no reason to feel guilty and he had always been stronger than the rest of us, and most of the times he had been her confiding board as they grow up. She had no reason to keep it from him, except for the fact she still loves him.  And also because she didn't want him to feel the burden of keeping it a secret from his sister, those were reasons she held on to for so long but the truth had been simple, she didn't want him to realize how broken her life had become after that night.

 It was because of that she refused to see him now, he had seen her struggling with nightmares, seen her have a panic attack, know about the fact that Arun couldn't trust her with their son and he had seen her become a shell of the person than the one he knew and fell in love, but the real reason had been the fact she didn't want him to think of her as a weak person, he had been to war zone almost lost his leg and must have seen horrible things and yet he didn't let it define him unlike her.