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*******
POV AUTHOR
(Continuation of chapter 8)
The living room had shifted from a buzzing celebration to a warm cocoon of sleepy laughter and half-eaten desserts. Cushions had been dragged to the floor. Fairy lights still flickered like fireflies on the ceiling. Everyone was lounging-some wrapped in shawls, others sipping chai. The air was thick with the comfort of belonging and the scent of freshly brewed elaichi tea.
Rohan and Rahul were mock-fighting over the last slice of pizza. Mahi was scrolling through the hundreds of photos taken that day, cackling at everyone’s most embarrassing poses. Jaya Sharma was holding court as usual, legs tucked under her as she mimicked her husband’s off-tune karaoke from earlier. Even Tara’s dad, Suresh, sat smiling-genuinely, fully-for the first time in what felt like years.
Tara, nestled between her mother and Tarun on the carpet, looked around with the kind of gratitude that only comes after loss and reunion. She glanced at vivaan, sleeping peacefully on a pillow nearby, his tiny face relaxed in a way only children knew how to.
Then she turned, blinking thoughtfully.
“Waise…”she said slowly, eyebrow raised, voice teasing, “yeh sab planning thi kiski? How did all of this even happen?”
(By the way…whose plan was all this? How did it even happen?)
Everyone fell silent.
Tara’s gaze swept over the room until it landed on her father.
He smiled. A soft, knowing smile. Then sat straighter and said gently:
“Let me tell you.”
FLASHBACK – One Month Ago
It was a quiet Sunday in the Sharma household. The hum of the fan blended with the faint clinking of utensils. Shruti was in the kitchen, kneading dough while humming an old Lata Mangeshkar tune. Suresh sat on the sofa in the living room, glasses perched on his nose as he scribbled into a ledger. Outside, the city buzzed in its own rhythm.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
“Shanti, dekho kaun hai gate par!” Shruti shouted over the running tap.
(Shanti, see who is on the door)
The house help, a woman in her 30’s with oiled hair tied into a bun, wiped her hands and went to open the door. She pulled it open to find a tall, clean-shaven man standing there with steady eyes and a quiet air.
“Uncle-aunty ghar par hain?” he asked politely.
(Uncle aunty is at home?)
She frowned slightly, unsure, then nodded and let him in. He followed her silently into the hall.
“Sahab, koi aaya hai aapse milne,”Shanti announced.
(Sir, someone has come to see you)
Suresh looked up from his ledger and-froze.
The pen slipped from his hand.
Standing before him, as if out of a ghost story, was Tarun Verma.
Shruti, hearing the unfamiliar voice, came into the room wiping her hands on her dupatta. The moment her eyes met Tarun’s, she stopped mid-step. Her mouth fell open.
A full five seconds of silence passed.
Then-
Suresh stood up abruptly, rage flashing in his eyes. “YOU!” he bellowed, storming forward. He grabbed Tarun’s collar in a flash of fury that stunned the whole room.
“How dare you come here now?! GET OUT! Out of my house!”
Shruti gasped and ran to his side. “Suresh ji! Chhodiye! Yeh kya kar rahe hain aap?” she cried, tugging his arm.
(Suresh ji! Please stop! What are you doing?)
But Suresh was livid. “Aaj nahi chhodunga main isse! Iske wajah se meri beti ne joh jhela hai! 13 saal!”
(I won’t let her go today! Because of her, my daughter has suffered for 13 years!)
Through it all, Tarun didn’t flinch.
Didn’t raise his voice.
Didn’t defend himself.
He simply said, “Uncle, please. I beg you. Sirf ek baar meri baat sun lijiye.”
(Uncle, please. I beg you. Just listen to me once)
His voice cracked. His eyes-not pleading, but honest. Unshaken. Vulnerable.
This was not the arrogant boy they once knew.
This was a man who had suffered. Survived. And returned.
Suresh hesitated-perhaps from exhaustion, perhaps from the sincerity in Tarun’s tone. Shruti, placing a calming hand on her husband’s chest, softly said:
“Suresh ji… ek baar sun lete hain. Baithiye. Aap bhi baithiye, beta.”
(Suresh ji… please listen once. Have a seat. You too, beta, please sit down)
Suresh exhaled sharply, stepped back, and dropped onto the sofa. Tarun sat, finally, for the first time in 13 years, facing the people he’d once called family.
Shanti brought water. Shruti placed it before him, quietly.
Suresh looked at him with cold eyes. “Bol. Kya kehna hai?”
(Speak. What do you want to say?)
Tarun inhaled deeply.
“Uncle. Aunty. Pehle toh… I’m sorry.” His voice was raw, low. “Mujhse jo bhi hua… uska sabse bada dard Tara ko hua. Aur mujhe pata hai… uske baad aap dono ne bhi woh dard jhela.”
(Uncle, Aunty, first of all… I’m sorry. Whatever happened with me… the one who suffered the most was Tara. And I know that after that, both of you endured that pain too)
He paused, looking down at his hands. And then, slowly, he began to speak.
He told them everything.
How the accident 13 years ago was worse than anyone had imagined. How he had been in a coma for six months. How, when he woke, everything had changed.
His Bade Papa-had taken control. And he had made it clear: if Tarun ever tried to return to Tara, he would ruin her. Emotionally, socially, financially. The threats weren’t hollow. The man had power. And a hunger to destroy.
“I wanted to protect her,”Tarun said, voice shaking. “I knew if I came back then, I’d be signing her pain slip. So I made a choice. I disappeared. I cut ties. And I decided…”he paused, “…I’d come back only when I could erase every threat around her.”
Shruti clutched her dupatta. Suresh’s eyes darkened with a complex storm of emotions.
“Uncle, I spent 13 years building myself. Brick by brick. From scratch. I created an empire strong enough to fight anyone who ever harmed her. And I did. Each one-every single person-who tried to break her spirit… I broke their power instead.”
Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“But now, the war is over. And the only battle left is for your forgiveness.”
The room was dead silent.
Sitting across from them, Tarun paused for a moment. The words he was about to say had lived in his chest for years-unspoken, festering, waiting for a day that sometimes he feared would never come. And now, here he was. In the living room where Tara had once tied her shoelaces as a child. Where her laughter used to echo. Where her tears were wiped away. Where her roots lived.
He turned his gaze toward Shruti, her eyes wide with disbelief and soft emotion. Then back to Suresh, who sat rigid-half skeptical, half stunned.
Tarun’s voice dropped to a quieter, steadier tone. Low, but unwavering.
“I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness easily. I’m not asking you to forget. I’m just asking you to let me try to make it right. But… I came here today for two things.”
His voice faltered for a heartbeat-but he continued, heart in his throat, sincerity in every word.
“First, I needed to apologise. Not through a text. Not through Tara. Not from a distance. Face-to-face. To you both. Because the hurt I caused… I know it didn’t just break her-it broke this home too.”
He looked down at his hands, and then back up. There was no arrogance in him now. No trace of the once impulsive, proud boy they remembered. Only a man stripped bare by time, guilt, and unshakable love.
“Second…” He exhaled, hands clasped tightly as if holding onto the very air. “Second, I’m here to ask for something most people would go to the girl for. But not me.”
He looked them both square in the eye.
“I’m here to ask you… for Tara’s hand in marriage.”
Shruti gasped.
Suresh’s jaw clenched slightly. “Kya kaha tumne?”
(What did you say?)
“Uncle… I want to marry her. I’ve loved her every day since she left. But I can’t face her-not even tell her how I feel-until I have your blessings. Not just out of respect… but because I know where her happiness lives.” His voice softened. “It lives in you. And if she senses even an ounce of pain in your eyes because of me, she’ll never be truly happy.”
There was something both ancient and sacred in his words. Like the kind of love that doesn’t just claim-it bows. It doesn’t ask “what do I deserve,” but “how can I earn this?”
Shruti placed her hand over her chest, tears rising, unblinking.
Suresh was silent. Breathing heavily. Staring at him like trying to read a language he hadn’t spoken in years.
Seeing their stillness, Tarun leaned forward slightly-urgently, vulnerably.
“I know it’s too much. It’s sudden. I know this feels like a storm out of nowhere. But please… let me be completely honest. I am deciding to go to LA this month to confront her. But I’ll only go if you both say yes. If you forgive me. If you trust me again with your daughter’s life.”
He blinked, and a sheen of moisture lined his eyes.
“Tara is the love of my life. But you are her world. So before I ask for her hand… I am here, today, to ask for your permission-to beg for your forgiveness.”
There was something achingly poetic about it. In a world that celebrates grand gestures in front of crowds, Tarun’s most heroic act was one of humility-coming to the doorstep of the people who raised her, offering his soul before he dared reach for her hand.
It wasn’t just a proposal.
It was penance.
It was a vow.
That he would never just take Tara-but he would earn her, through them.
The room was suspended in silence.
Suresh looked away, fists clenched tightly-trying to process, to digest a truth he wasn’t prepared for.
Shruti, meanwhile, was already crying silently. Her heart ached at the sincerity-the trembling truth in this young man’s eyes.
And though neither of them gave an answer just yet…
They saw it. They saw the truth of his love. The kind of love that understood that marriage wasn’t just two people-it was two families. Two pasts. Two wounded hearts trying to build something whole.
And in that living room, after years of silence and shattered dreams-
Something quietly shifted.
Love wasn’t rushing ahead this time.
It was waiting, patiently, at the doorstep of trust.
*****
[One Week Later]
It didn’t happen overnight.
Suresh didn’t melt instantly. He tested Tarun. With long silences. With probing questions. With bitter memories thrown like jagged stones. And Tarun took it all. Not defensively. But with quiet understanding.
He returned every day.
Sometimes with nothing to say-just to sit outside, as if to say “I’m not giving up.”
Sometimes with old photographs. Sometimes with little stories about Tara that only they would remember.
He brought flowers Shruti once mentioned were Tara’s favorite. He brought Suresh a book he’d once quoted in passing-decades ago.
He never demanded trust.
He earned it.
And on the seventh evening, Suresh finally opened the door-not just of his home, but of his heart.
He walked up to Tarun, looked him in the eyes-still wary, but no longer angry-and slowly, wordlessly, he hugged him while patting his back.
“This is the last chance I am giving you if you hurt my daughter again I will kill you for sure!”His voice cracked slightly but it was firm.
Shruti sobbed, pulling Tarun into an embrace that had been thirteen years in the making.
And Tarun stood there, breath held, heart full-
Knowing this was the first yes.
And the most important one.
Because before he could promise Tara forever…
He had promised her family first.
*******
[Back to the Present]
The group had slowly quieted again, the murmurs dimming, as Tara still sat in stunned silence beside her father. Her hands were clasped together tightly in her lap. Her breath came a little faster, her throat working to swallow the rising lump. The words her father had just spoken still echoed in her mind.
He begged and waited seven days… for a yes. For me.
Before she could process that fully, Rohan-usually the loudest one in the room, now strangely calm-spoke up from across the circle, a mug of coffee resting in his hand, but untouched.
“That’s not all,”he said gently, eyes steady on her. “After Uncle and Aunty agreed… Tarun came to us.”
Tara’s eyes snapped up to meet his. Her brow furrowed.
Rohan smiled faintly, something like awe in his voice.”He met all of us. One by one…. all of us. And for the first time in our lives-” he glanced at the others, who nodded, eyes glossy, “-Tarun Verma begged us. Not for himself. But for you.”
Tara’s lips parted slightly, stunned.
“He begged us,” Rajveer continued softly, “to forgive you both. He said we had every right to be angry. That we were justified in feeling hurt, betrayed, confused. But he also said he couldn’t rebuild the future without mending every broken piece of the past. Including us.”
Ishita nodded, her voice a whisper: “He said if we didn’t accept you both, he wouldn’t go ahead with anything.”
Tiya sniffled, wiping a tear from her cheek. “He told me, ‘If they don’t forgive her, she’ll never truly smile. And if she doesn’t smile, I don’t want anything else.'”
Tara gasped softly.
Rohan continued, his tone brightening just slightly now.”So once he won us over-which wasn’t easy, by the way, we made him work for it-he flew straight to California. Confronted Tiya and Manav too. Apologized for the past, for disappearing, for hurting you. And then…”he grinned now, “he started planning your surprise birthday bash.”
The others chuckled warmly.
“But,” Rahul added, raising a brow, “little did he know we weren’t going to let him have the final prank.”
Ishita leaned forward, giggling.”That fake news about Uncle’s health?”
Rohan smirked. “Yep. All us.”
Tiya nodded. “It was our way of making sure you’d come back. But also… of getting you two under one roof without either of you realizing what was really happening.”
Tara’s vision swam with tears. Her chest ached from everything she had just heard.
Her father’s quiet revelation. Rajveer’s voice, low and steady, describing how Tarun-the boy she met when she was fifteen, the one who once passed her crumpled love notes behind textbooks, who taught her how to dream big and love hard-had gone from person to shadow to memory… and now, back to her.
But not before he went to everyone else first.
Before he faced her father’s wrath.
Before he sat outside her childhood home every day, bearing the weight of silence, rejection, and guilt.
Before he met her friends-their friends-and told them:
“If Tara doesn’t have your blessings, I don’t want her to say yes to me. Because her smile depends on all of you. And her smile… is my world.”
She looked at him now, standing just a few steps away.
He hadn’t spoken since.
He didn’t have to.
His silence was its own language. A reverent one.
Tara’s steps were slow, hesitant, but deliberate. Each one cutting through years of ache and confusion.
And when she reached him, she didn’t stop.
She walked straight into his arms.
Tarun didn’t move.
He just held her. As if she’d never left. As if thirteen years hadn’t passed. As if the boy from school who once danced awkwardly at farewell night still existed inside this man.
And maybe… he did.
She choked on a breath, her voice muffled against his chest.
“You stupid, stupid man,”she whispered, choking on a sob all at once.”You went to everyone first?”
Tarun’s voice cracked with emotion.”Because I know your smile depends on them. On all of them. And your smile… that’s my world, Tara.”
She blinked at him, still breathless.
And then-
He gently stepped back from her embrace-but not far. Just enough.
And then, in front of everyone-their friends, her parents, the world that mattered-he knelt.
A hush fell.
The room didn’t exist anymore.
Only Tara did.
Tarun looked up at her with eyes full of fire, of ache, of devotion. Not a flicker of doubt. Only a man, holding his heart out, like it had always belonged to her.
He took her hand in his-firm, warm, trembling just slightly.
And then he said, with a voice deep and raw and undeniably real:
“Tara.”
“I’ve loved you through distance, through silence, through time. I loved you when I didn’t deserve you. I love you now, with every piece I had to rebuild just to become the man who’s worthy of standing here.”
Her breath hitched.
He held her hand tighter.
“You are the first thought in my day and the last prayer at night. You are the home I didn’t know I was missing until I lost it once.”
His voice cracked. But he didn’t look away.
“And I promise, if you say yes… I will never, never let that home go again.”
“No more leaving. No more running. No more halfway love.”
“Just you. Me. A life full of tomorrows.”
He opened the box.
The ring shimmered-but it wasn’t the diamond that made her cry.
It was the way he looked at her. Like she was a miracle.
“Tara Sharma…”
“…will you marry me?”
There was no dramatic music. No violins.
Just hearts thundering. Breath catching. Time stopping.
And a single, tear-choked whisper from her trembling lips:
“Yes.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger, his hands shaking more than hers.
She didn’t wait. She dropped to her knees, pulling him into her arms like her soul had finally come home.
Their foreheads met, breath mingling.
“You’re mine now,” Tara whispered, her voice cracking, breaking open with everything she’d buried for years-pain, love, hope, and finally, peace.
Tears shimmered on her cheeks like rain kissing sun-warmed earth.
Tarun smiled, that same quiet, steady smile he used to give her in school when she forgot her locker code or looked lost in a sea of strangers. His hands gently framed her face, thumbs catching her tears.
“Always was,” he breathed.
The room faded.
The world fell silent.
And somewhere, the past exhaled.
Then-without fanfare, without waiting for permission from fate or time or even the people watching-
She kissed him.
And he kissed her back, like it was the first breath after drowning.
Not a soft, shy kiss.
And then-
In the middle of the room.
With cheers exploded and their friends hooting, whistling, screaming things like:
“Okay, SOMEONE tell them Uncle Aunty are here!”
“Seriously, GET A ROOM!”
“I’m crying and I don’t even know why!”
While Shruti and Suresh stood off to the side, arms wrapped around each other, they watched through eyes shimmering with tears. Happy tears. The kind only parents know-the kind that come when they see their little girl no longer little, but finally whole.
Their princess-after all the heartbreak, all the waiting-had found her way back to the happiness she had always deserved.
Back to the boy who never stopped loving her.
And as Tara and Tarun held each other in the center of the room, surrounded by laughter, cheers, and the echo of old friendships healed…
The world didn’t spin the same anymore.
The room vibrated not just with joy, or nostalgia, or relief-but with something sacred.
Love, finally seen.
Forgiveness, finally given.
And a future, finally beginning.
They kissed again-this time gentler, steadier. A kiss not of desperation but of peace. Of choosing. Of home.
A kiss full of years unsaid, and futures unfolding.
Not the end.
Not anymore.
Just the beginning…
-of everything.
...The End (And maybe… the start of forever.)
******
Not all true love stories get the ending they deserve in real life.
But sometimes, they get to live forever in words.
And that’s enough to remind us:
Love may take its time. It may lose its way. But when it’s real-it always, always finds its way home.
********
So finally the story has came to an end🫠🥺💖
Hey, lovelies! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don’t forget to hit that vote button and leave your thoughts in the comments. Till then byy see you soon ❤️
Thank you for your love and support!
Love from,
Miss Sharma ❤️
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