The Weight of Four Years

For a moment, Arnav didn’t move. His fingers drummed slowly on the armrest of his chair, a habit Isha remembered well from the days when he was holding back his words.

“A secret?” he asked finally, his voice calm, but his eyes sharper now. “About me?”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She had thought of this moment for years — rehearsed it in her mind, rewritten it a hundred different ways — yet, here in his presence, her chest felt tight, the words stuck like thorns in her throat.

“Yes,” she said at last, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “It’s something I should have told you a long time ago. Something I should never have kept from you.”

Arnav leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the desk. “Then tell me now, Ms. Kapoor. Or are we still playing the same game from years ago?”

The jab was deliberate. And it landed.

Her fingers curled into her lap. “I left because I thought it was the only way to protect him.”

“Him?” Arnav’s brows drew together. “Who exactly are we talking about?”

Isha’s voice trembled, but she didn’t look away. “Our son.”

The words fell into the space between them like stones into still water, ripples of shock spreading outward.

Arnav froze. For a fraction of a second, his usually unreadable expression faltered — just enough for her to see the disbelief, the sudden tightness in his jaw. “Our… what?”

“Our son,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “His name is Aarav. He’s four years old. And he’s yours, Arnav.”

Silence.

Not the comfortable kind they used to share when words weren’t needed — but the heavy, suffocating kind that made every breath feel like a betrayal.

“You’re telling me,” Arnav said slowly, as if tasting each word, “that you’ve kept my child from me for four years?”

“I—” she began, but he cut her off with a sharp raise of his hand.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” His voice was no longer calm; it was controlled fury. “Four years, Isha. Four years where I didn’t even know he existed. Where I didn’t—” He broke off, shaking his head as if the thought itself was unbearable.

Her eyes stung, but she held her ground. “I did it to protect him.”

“From me?” His voice was like ice now.

“No!” she said quickly. “From… from the life you lived back then. The people you dealt with, the business risks, the constant scrutiny. I was scared, Arnav. Scared of what that environment would do to him.”

He laughed bitterly, though there was no humor in it. “So instead, you thought the better option was to make me a stranger to my own child.”

She flinched. “I know it was wrong. But I can’t change the past. All I can do now is ask you to be part of his life. He needs a father. And you’re the only one he’ll ever have.”

Arnav stood abruptly, moving to the window. His reflection stared back at him — the same man he’d been an hour ago, yet somehow entirely different.

“He asks about you,” Isha continued quietly. “Every time he sees another child with their father, he asks me… where his papa is. And I—” her voice cracked—“I can’t lie to him anymore.”

Arnav kept his back to her, his shoulders rigid. “And what exactly are you asking for now, Isha?”

She swallowed hard. “I want you to marry me.”

He turned sharply, eyes narrowing. “So this is about convenience? About giving your son — our son — a socially acceptable family name?”

“It’s not about convenience,” she said, her voice rising for the first time. “It’s about giving him a family. About giving him you.”

They stood in a standoff, the space between them thick with years of unsaid words and unanswered questions.

Finally, Arnav spoke, his tone colder than the Delhi air outside. “You’ve dropped a bomb on my life, Isha. Don’t expect me to decide in a day whether I want to live with the fallout.”

“I’m not asking you to decide today,” she said softly. “I’m just asking you to think about him. Not me. Not us. Just him.”

Without waiting for permission, she stood, her movements slow but deliberate. At the door, she paused. “He has your eyes,” she whispered. “Every time I look at him, I see you.”

And then she left, the click of the door sounding far louder than it should have.

Arnav stood motionless, the echo of her words swirling in his mind. Our son. Four years old. Aarav.

In another part of the city, in a modest apartment, little Aarav sat cross-legged on the floor, building a tower out of colorful blocks. “Mumma,” he called out in his sweet, lisping voice, “will Papa come today?”

Isha, standing in the doorway, forced a smile. “Maybe soon, beta. Maybe soon.”

But her heart whispered a silent prayer — that this time, she hadn’t come back too late.

To be continued ~~

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