Mansi's Pov:

So, here we are at the dining table, sharing the dining table with two other people, My father in law and his wife. The awkward silence fills up the whole house. They invited us for the monthly ceremony of their grandparents. It has been nearly 7 months, The first two months of rituals happened when we were still staying here, and after that every month my father-in-law invites us here.

Yash the whole time will just look at his plate and eat the food. We return to our place as soon as we finish the food. They have tried to bond with us after the deaths, but Yash never lets them near him. He doesn’t even let me talk to them.

“ Mansi, heard your father retired recently” my father-in-law asks as he puts the food in his mouth. Even though I wanted to invite them, Yash didn’t give me their numbers to contact. He never wanted them to even be close to us, so we rented a place farther from everyone, even our hospitals.

“ yeah uncle, he retired this month,” I say with a rictus. “Uncle..” my father-in-law scoffs sarcastically. Yash enraged wanted to say something but stopped as I clutched his hand to not say anything. He controls his anger so that I don’t feel uncomfortable here.

“you should have invited us, we would have attended the party,” his wife says.

Before I could any excuse, Yash interrupted the conversation by saying “It was only a family event, ”. That woman choked on her food after the crude answer Yash threw their direction. “we are your family” says in a commanding voice his father.

“No, you're not. The only family I had since childhood died and the only family I have now is sitting right next to me. Meanwhile, you are nothing to me”

“how do you think you got them as your grandparents if it wasn’t for me? You came into this world because of me, so don’t you dare raise your voice against me” The enraged father-in-law looks Yash in the eyes which are already red due to anger.

“Don’t try to be my father after all this time, you have never been one and you will never be one”

“I don’t need to try I already am”

“ You can’t become just by becoming a sperm donor, you need to take the responsibility too”.

“let's just not fight over the dining table.” She says trying to end the war between them. All fell silent and started eating their food. There was not a word spoken after that. We left the place as soon as we finished the food.

We were heading back to our home. He was driving, as usual I was his passenger princess. He takes my right hand into his left one gives it a peck. He places my hand on the gear and places his on mine. He changes the gear the whole ride that way.

Maybe this is his way of healing. Never acknowledging it, so that you never feel it. He has never been anything but nice to me. He has never been angry with me. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that. I know he is not okay but he will never admit it to me.

“Are you okay?” I hesitate to ask it, but I don’t know I was expecting it to be different this time maybe. “when you are by my side it's always far better than ok” he says the same thing. At first, I used to feel so special when he said this. Now that I know he is not ok he is just trying his best to not show the pain he is suffering, I feel deserted in my world. I feel I have never been part of his life. The world in his head which only he knows, the place I have never been.

I just don’t know what struck my head, I just lean on his shoulder, close my eyes and take a deep breath. “ I love you” Then all of a sudden I feel a jerk from the sudden break of the car. He grabbed my face and placed his lips on mine.

It feels like an eternity of not being together. I just want to live in this moment of him and I, kissing each other forgetting where we were or the people looking at us. It was only us in this world. We kissed until we lost our breath, I paused just to look around and that we had already reached home.

“so this is why you stopped the car?” I accuse him who in response just laughs out loud. “ok bye, I am going home and sleeping” I take out my seat belt and open the door. “well that’s not the plan” he smirks and says.

I close the door and rush inside the home unlocking it as soon as possible, just for him to rush behind me. He holds me against the main door as he closes it. He looks at me as our foreheads touch, he waits a moment just to kiss me the next. My arms lock around his neck, while his hands go to my waist.

He lifts me as he deepens the kiss. His hands go to my legs as he separates so that I can wrap them around his torso. He then presses my back against the door so that he can get his tongue into a dominating position which ends me moaning.

He then holds my thighs to secure my hold around him. he walks to the bedroom while not breaking the kiss. He then places me on the bed and removes his t-shirt in one swift move. I lift my hands so he could remove my top. All of our clothing just follows the lineup. He then opens the drawer ad takes a condom packet and scrapes it off with his teeth.

He puts it on and is over me. He cleared all the hair that was on my face. “I love you the most. Nothing, literally nothing is more important than you in my life. You are my whole life” he enters me as he says this. Tears just flow out of my eyes. He wipes them off as he starts to move and kiss my face.

This is all I want, Him and I. With him, I think I can do anything in my life. As all the sounds of us fill the room, as our bodily fluids mix, I hold on to him. he is my world and I am his, I think that’s enough for my whole life, and it is worth it.

And I don’t remember anything aftermath but all I remember is holding onto him as I fall asleep.

🕓🕓🕓🕓

I wake up by bristly noises, only to see him leaving home all dressed. I look at the time it was 4 am.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you but I have an emergency so I am leaving. I will make it up being in early in the evening” he comes to kiss my forehead as I frown.

I hear him locking the main door. After that, I couldn’t sleep as I was missing my warm pillow. So I open my phone just to see two notifications that I think will change my life forever.

One from my period tracker shows I missed my period by 2 weeks. And another from an unknown number. When I open it I find a message

Hey Mansi, this is Andy.

Oh god, what I am gonna do?