Aarya knew the moment she stopped feeling safe in silence.
It wasn't fear that stirred inside her—it was restlessness. The kind that crept in
when hiding began to feel like surrender.
London had given her a life she could breathe in. It had given her love, warmth, and a
second beginning. But it had also given her distance, and distance had slowly
turned into a wall she no longer wanted to hide behind.
She stood by the window, watching the city glow under a restless sky, when the
decision finally settled.
She would go back.
Her husband noticed the change before she
spoke. He always did.
"You've made up your mind," he said.
"Yes."
The answer came easily.
"I want to return to India."
He waited. He had learned that her decisions were never sudden—they were
conclusions reached after long battles fought quietly.
"I can't keep pretending parts of my life don't exist," she continued. "I rebuilt myself
here, but rebuilding isn't the same as closing a chapter. Some stories demand
to be faced."
She turned to him, her gaze steady.
"There are people who still believe they have power over my life. As long as I stay
invisible, they're not wrong."
He leaned against the wall, listening.
"There's someone I need to see," she said. "Someone I've been avoiding because I was
afraid of what I might find."
He didn't ask who.
"Arjun," he said softly.
Her expression tightened—not in pain, but in truth.
"Yes."
She took
a breath.
"I don't know what kind of person he is now," she said. "He was never easy. Even as a
child, he carried too much awareness. Too much restraint."
She looked down at her hands.
"He may not like me. He may look at me and feel nothing—or worse, irritation."
She lifted her eyes again.
"I'm not going there expecting warmth. Children like Arjun don't give affection easily.
They test people. They observe. They decide in silence."
Her husband moved closer.
"If he rejects you?" he asked.
"I'll accept it," she replied. "What I won't accept is disappearing again."
Her voice hardened.
"I won't become another absence he has to explain to himself."
A quiet understanding passed between them.
"And Rudra?" he asked.
Her jaw set.
"He believes I'll return," she said. "That belief wasn't born from hope—it was
planted deliberately. If I stay away now, it becomes truth."
She straightened her shoulders.
"I won't argue. I won't defend myself. I'll simply exist openly. As your wife. As a
mother. As someone who no longer bends."
He studied her for a moment, then nodded.
"They won't be ready for that."
"I'm not doing this for them."
That night, sleep came in fragments.
Aarya lay awake, thoughts drifting back to a
small boy who rarely smiled, who loved quietly, who watched the world like it
might disappear without warning.
She wondered if he had grown colder.
Sharper.
If fate had shaped him again, she suspected he would not be gentle with anyone.
Not even
her.
And she would respect that.
Morning came with clarity instead of fear.
She told her husband how she would return—without secrecy, without hesitation. No
hiding. No pretending.
"I won't move carefully anymore," she said.
"I'll move honestly."
He smiled faintly. "That's more dangerous."
She returned the smile. "I know."
Preparations began quietly. No announcements. No dramatic returns.
Just movement.
Later that night, Aarya stood in the nursery, watching her child sleep. The soft rise
and fall of his chest anchored her.
"I won't vanish again," she whispered.
Outside, the city was calm.
India waited.
Not as a threat—but as a reckoning.
And this time, Aarya would meet it fully awake.