Page 49 of Always? Forever.

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I looked over at Kartik, scared of what he must be thinking. And what he says, makes me thank my stars that I found him.

Kartik

I didn’t realise I was holding my breath until she stopped speaking.

She was sitting right there, shoulders stiff, voice low, like she was trying not to crack all over again, and somehow, I could still see it. That version of her from a memory I wasn’t even part of. Crying in the middle of a road. Begging some man-child not to be mad at her… for getting a damn coffee?

I could feel it, anger pooling slow and deep in my chest. Not the loud kind. The dangerous kind. The kind that simmers just beneath the surface and waits.

didn’t even realise my hands were clenched into fists until she looked down at them.

She sat across from me, spine straight but voice cracking, like she was trying to hold herself together with invisible tape. And still…still she managed to downplay it. To justtellme like it was a memory she’d filed away. Like it didn’t shatter something inside her. Like it wasn’t shattering something inside me right now.

“You begged him?” I asked, my voice low, too steady to be safe. “He made youbegon the street?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

I shook my head, jaw tight. “I don’t know what pisses me off more. That he let you cry on a public road like your feelings were up for debate, or that hewatchedand said something as stupid as ‘I see anger in your eyes’ like he was Gandhi and not a walking red flag.”

She blinked. I caught the hint of a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Not yet.

The image was already carved in my head like some goddamn nightmare: Samaira,mySamaira, crying on a public road, trying to soothe the bruised ego of some overgrown boy who thought her tears were an inconvenience.

I inhaled sharply, jaw locking so tight it hurt. “What kind of man lets the woman he loves fall apart like that anddoesn'tfall apart with her?”

My voice was shaking now, barely held together by the thinnest thread of control. “No. You know what? Scratch that.What kind of manwatches you cry like that and still thinks he’s the one being wronged?”

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, looking at her like she was air and I was trying to breathe again.

“I don’t care how long ago this happened. I want to rip the pavement up from where it happened and set it on fire. He doesn’t get to make you feel like that and justexistpeacefully in this world.”

She opened her mouth to speak, maybe to calm me down, maybe to say it wasn’t worth it, but I wasn’t done.

“If I had seen you crying like that, I wouldn’t have asked why. I wouldn’t have waited for an apology. I would have dropped to my knees right there with you until you could breathe again. I would have held you until the world stopped spinning. Because that’s what youdowhen you love someone.”

I reached for her hand, not gently, but desperately. Like I needed to remind her thatthiswas the bare minimum. That love doesn’t humiliate you and call it passion. Thatthis, her sitting here, raw and real and hurting, deserved reverence, not punishment.

“You didn’t lose that fight, Samaira. You survived it. And there’s a very big difference.”

She looked at me like she didn’t know whether to cry harder or fall apart in a different way.

And I meant every word when I said, “He should’ve wept just seeing you cry.”

“You deserved so much better than that scene. And that boy. I don’t care how long ago it was, I’m still furious for you.” She looked at me then. Really looked.

Not because I’d said something extraordinary. But because I meant every word.

And maybe—just maybe—that mattered more than anything else right now.

Chapter 35

Samaira

I looked at him as he said those things to me. Things I have heard my friends say to me all this time. Things I have told myself from the minute it happened. But none of it made sense until now. None of it was drilled and engraved in my head till Kartik said it. I looked at him in a different light, my ex forgotten like a piece of lint.

Kartik looked furious for me, not on me but for me. That felt good to have someone apart from your parents and friends feel that. It felt good.

In that moment, despite every attempt I’d made to deny it, despite how terrifying the realisation was, I knew I was in love with him. With this man who I couldn’t stand just over a month ago. This man who had kissed me like it meant something, likeImeant something. This man who stood by me without hesitation, who didn’t flinch when I unravelled,who didn’t shrink or lash out when I was unapologetically, messily myself.