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The first man took a step forward, but Jaanvi’s voice cracked the room before he could speak.
“You.”
It wasn’t a greeting. It was an accusation. A wound given sound.
Her chest heaved as she stepped away from Aarav, placing herself like a shield between the bed and them.
“You all… don’t deserve to see my Aarav,” she spat, her voice trembling but loud enough to make even the beeping of the monitor seem distant. “Not after everything.”
Rajveer’s eyes narrowed slightly everything?
The woman in the front, dressed in deep maroon, flinched at the words but quickly masked it with a cold look. One of the young men’s jaw tightened. The older man’s face remained unreadable, like stone.
From the back, a sharp voice sliced through the tension.
“Don’t you dare raise your voice, Jaanvi.”
It was one of the young men, his tone dripping with the kind of authority only used on someone you think you own.
Yuvaan’s head snapped towards him instantly the protective anger rising almost on instinct
His brows knitted in shock used and threw away? What the hell was she talking about?
but before he could speak, Jaanvi turned.
Slowly.
Her eyes snapped to the young man who had spoken, and when she did, the room felt colder.
“Don’t.”
One word, but it was heavy enough to make him take a step back.
Her voice grew stronger. “Just don’t you dare talk to me in that tone. I’m not that old Jaanvi you all used and threw away.”
Lavanya’s breath caught. Tara’s gaze softened, sensing layers here betrayal, abandonment, cruelty.
Rajveer glanced at Yuvaan, but Yuvaan was staring at Jaanvi like he’d never seen her before. This wasn’t the quiet, compliant woman he’d grown used to dismissing. This was fire.
The young woman from the back whispered something to one of the older ladies, who gave her a look that silenced her instantly.
The man with the grey hair finally spoke, voice calm but dangerous. “We didn’t come here to fight. We came to see the boy.”
Jaanvi laughed not out of humor, but the kind of bitter laugh that sounds like it could shatter into sobs any second.
“Oh, now you care? Now, suddenly, my brother matters to you?” She took a step forward, her hands curling into fists. “Where were you when he needed a home? When we had no food? When I...”
Her voice broke, but she forced it steady again. “When I begged you to just… stop making our lives hell?”
Yuyaaan’s brows drew together. The words no food burned in his mind.
The maroon-clad woman’s lips thinned. “Jaanvi, you’re exaggerating ”
“Exaggerating?” Jaanvi’s voice rose, and for the first time, everyone in the room saw the depth of the hurt she carried. “Do you want me to remind you of the nights I slept on the floor so Aarav could have the only blanket we had? Or the way you’d look at me as if I was filth just for existing? Do you want me to tell them” she gestured toward the Raghuvanshi, “ how you made me believe I was cursed? That my life was just… repayment for a debt I never owed?”
The two younger men exchanged glances, one of them shifting uncomfortably. The young woman bit her lip hard.
Lavanya stepped forward slowly, her voice gentle. “Jaanvi…”
Jaanvi didn’t turn to her as she replied " No.. bhabhi let me say ... She was still staring at her family no, her blood, but never her family.
Her chest was heaving now, breaths short and sharp, as if the very sight of them was pulling every old wound wide open.
“You’re not here for Aarav,” she said finally, voice low but deadly certain. “You’re here because you can’t stand that I built a life without you. That I kept him safe from you.”
The older man’s eyes hardened. “Watch what you say ”
“No.”
Her voice cut him clean off. “You watched me suffer for years and said nothing. You all made me beg for love like it was a favour I had to earn. And now you think you can walk into his room and pretend to care?”
Silence followed. Only the monitor beeped steadily.
Yuvaan glanced at Rajveer again, both still processing the storm unraveling in front of them.
Lavanya finally moved to Jaanvi’s side, touching her arm gently. “You don’t have to say more… not if it hurts,” she whispered.
For the first time since they walked in, Jaanvi’s eyes softened just a fraction at the quiet kindness. Tara joined them, her presence in a silent wall of support.
But Jaanvi kept her gaze fixed on the people who had once been her entire world land and had destroyed it piece by piece.
“Leave,” she said finally, her voice hoarse from the weight of everything unsaid. “Before I forget this is a hospital.”
Her tears flowed freely now, but her voice didn’t break. It carried weight. It carried the truth.
“They are my family,” she said finally, the words tasting like poison in her mouth. Then she shook her head, her laugh bitter and cold. “No… not family. Blood, maybe. But family? Never.”
The room was silent except for the sound of her breathing. Everyone was watching her now not just the strangers, but her own husband and in-laws, who had never seen her like this.
She turned her head toward Lavanya, her voice trembling for the first time.
“Bhabhi… we call someone family when we get love, care, affection, and respect from them, right?”
Lavanya’s lips trembled, unsure if she should nod or speak, but Jaanvi continued before she could.
“But from them,” she spat, turning her eyes back toward the group, “I never got any of that.”
She took a deep breath, but it shook violently. “I wasn’t that bad, was I? I wasn’t a monster. Then why? Why was I treated like I was some… shame they had to hide?”
Her voice cracked then, and something inside her seemed to shatter.
She took another step forward, her gaze never leaving them. “Tell me how would you feel, bhabhi how would anyone here feel when your own family throws you out of the house at the age of twenty? When they tell you that you’re nothing but a burden? When they lock the door behind you so you can’t come back? And you’re standing there… with your little brother, Aarav, who was just fifteen, looking at you with those terrified eyes because he didn’t understand why the people he loved just threw him away too?”
Her voice broke completely then, the weight of those memories crushing down on her. Her knees seemed to weaken, but she didn’t fall.
Lavanya’s hand flew to her mouth in shock, her own eyes welling up.
Tara’s breath caught, her heart aching at the image of a teenage Jaanvi and a scared little boy left alone in the world.
Rajveer’s jaw tightened anger, not at her, but at the kind of cruelty that could do this to someone.
Yuvaan… Yuvaan just stared, utterly still, the reality of a life, he had asked her about her life but she never talked about them and it hit him like a punch to the gut.
The strangers shifted uneasily, some looking guilty, others still holding onto their cold indifference.
But Jaanvi didn’t care anymore. For the first time, she wasn’t swallowing the pain to keep the peace. She wasn’t pretending.
Her voice, though shaky, carried finality.
“You never loved me. You never wanted me. And after everything… you think you have the right to stand here and look at my Aarav? No. You lost that right the day you threw us out.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Outside, the wind rattled the windows. Inside, the Raghuvanshi living room felt smaller, heavier and every person in it weighed down by the truth that had just been unleashed.
And for the first time since she had stepped into this house as Yuvaan’s wife, Jaanvi had shown them not the quiet, obedient woman they thought she was but the girl who had once been broken… and was now daring them to break her again.
The air in the room seemed to turn heavier, like a thick fog pressing against every breath. The fluorescent lights above hummed softly, throwing pale light on the sterile white walls and the faint scent of antiseptic in the air. But in that moment, all those background sounds and smells faded for Jaanvi. Her eyes once sharp with guarded calm were now burning with the kind of rage that had been buried for years, shimmering in silence.
Her hands trembled, not out of fear, but out of the effort it took to keep her voice from breaking. She stood very still, the faint rustle of her saree barely audible, yet her presence suddenly felt like the loudest thing in the room. Yuvaan was watching her, still in shock that she hadn’t even spared him a glance since those people had walked in. Lavanya and Tara exchanged puzzled, uneasy looks, their curiosity deepening with every passing second.
The people who had entered now stood in a loose line near the doorway, their expressions a strange mix confusion in some, cold indifference in others. Three men, all in their early fifties, their suits and expensive watches broadcasting wealth, but their faces carved with arrogance and age-old superiority. Two women in rich sarees both draped in silks that shimmered under the harsh lighting stood slightly apart, their noses tilted as if the hospital air was beneath them. And then there were the younger ones: two men in their late twenties, shoulders squared, eyes sharp but flicking restlessly between Jaanvi and the others; and a young woman, maybe twenty, her beauty striking but her expression unreadable.
[ In three man , jaanvi's dad is middle brother: Kabir oberoi,
the eldest brother is Nithin oberoi,
the youngest brother is Dinesh oberoi,
and now two women,
one of them is Aarohi oberoi ( she is the second wife of Kabir)
and another one is minakshi oberoi wife of Dinesh oberoi
two young man , kartik oberoi son of Nithin,
naksh oberoi son of Dinesh and nitya
the young woman maya oberoi daughter of Aarohi and Kabir]
Everyone in the room looked at them with mild confusion… except Jaanvi. In her eyes, there wasn’t confusion there was a storm. Shock, yes… but it was buried under layers of burning hate. Hate so sharp it almost made her eyes glisten.
Her voice finally wavered, and the tears she had been holding back for years shimmered in her eyes. She took another step forward, her fingers curling into tight fists. “We didn’t even have time to take our clothes. Just two bags. That’s all. And still… still I told myself maybe I deserved it. Maybe if I had been better, they would’ve kept me.”
The hospital air seemed to grow colder. Even the younger woman in the maroon saree shifted slightly, her grip tightening on her clutch bag.
Jaanvi’s gaze hardened as it moved to one man in particular. “What was my fault?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp again, like a whip. “Why didn’t anyone blame my dear father?”
Gasps rose softly from the few bystanders who had been watching quietly.
Her eyes locked on him Mr. Kabir oberoi. Tall, broad-shouldered, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back perfectly, the kind of man who exuded power without trying. But in that moment, he looked… caught. Not guilty, but defensive, like a king being challenged in his own court.
“Did I ever ask you to give me birth?” Jaanvi’s voice broke into something between rage and despair. “No, right? Then why, huh? You never loved my maa. And even on her death bed…” Her voice faltered, and the tears finally escaped, rolling down her cheeks as her breathing grew ragged. “…even then, you were busy with your… Pa.”
Her finger lifted, trembling but pointed like a weapon, to the woman standing just to his right draped in a maroon silk saree, diamond necklace glittering under the lights, her kohl-lined eyes widening just slightly under the sudden accusation. Mrs. Aarohi oberoi.
The stepmother.
Aarohi didn’t flinch much only the slight twitch at the corner of her lips betrayed the annoyance she was trying to hide. “Jaanvi…” she said softly, as though speaking to a stranger, not a daughter.
But Jaanvi’s laugh cold, hollow cut her off. “Don’t say my name like that. You don’t get to.”
The room was dead silent now. Even Yuvaan, who had never seen Jaanvi’s mask slip this far, was staring at her like she was an entirely different person. She had never never spoken about her past. Not to him, not to anyone. And now here she was, her secrets spilling into the air in front of strangers and enemies alike.
She took a deep breath, wiping her face roughly, but her hands still shook. Her eyes roamed over each of them the men, the women, the ones who had taken away her home and a bitter smile curved her lips.
Jaanvi’s words became sharper, louder. “Yes, her. My stepmother... no, my maa’s replacement who stole my father long before my mother even closed her eyes for the last time.”
The room was still, except for the faint, uneven sound of her breathing. The chandelier above them trembled ever so slightly from the weight of the atmosphere.
Lavanya’s eyes were glistening, but she didn’t dare move. Yuvaan, though his jaw was tight and fists clenched, stayed frozen because this was the first time, the very first time, Jaanvi had ever spoken about her past.
Jaanvi’s gaze flickered between them, her eyes wild with years of unanswered questions. “You think I forgot, Papa?” she hissed. “How you didn’t even come to hold Maa’s hand when she asked for you? How did you let her die without seeing the man she loved one last time?”
Her voice dropped, low and breaking, as if the child inside her was finally speaking through the cracks in her armor. “You… let her die alone.”
The words hung in the air like shattered glass, sharp and cutting, impossible to step over without bleeding.
Mr. Kabir oberoi didn't’t speak his lips pressed in a thin line, his eyes avoiding hers but the silence was louder than any excuse he could have given.
And that was the moment everyone realized Jaanvi hadn’t just been silent all these years because she was private.
She was silent because her past… was built on betrayal deep enough to destroy anyone
“You all taught me something,” she said finally, her voice calmer but heavier, carrying the weight of years of scars. “That blood… doesn’t always mean family. Sometimes, it’s just the same color in your veins… and nothing else.”
Jaanvi look's at them again " Now please do me a favor please walk away, turn your face again like you all did years ago, leave me and my Aarav alone please... just leave" she wisperd mearly, her eyes drafted back to Aarav lifeless body tears flowing freely
Without another word, they turned and walked out.
But not before minakshi paused at the door, looking back and in her eyes was something strange. Not guilt exactly, but something deeper…
And it left a question hanging in the air, one no one dared ask yet.
The ICU room, already heavy with grief, seemed to grow colder not the kind of cold that comes from air-conditioning, but the bone-deep chill of death.
It was the kind that seeps into your skin, into your lungs, into your soul, as if reminding you that warmth would never return for the one lying still on the bed.
Aarav’s lifeless body lay under the thin white hospital sheet, his face pale and serene in a way that mocked the chaos in Jaanvi’s heart. Machines that had once beeped steadily were now silent; their cords hung loose, like soldiers retreating after losing a war. The sharp scent of antiseptic mixed with the faint metallic tang of blood, but beneath it all, there was that unmistakable stillness death’s final perfume.
Jaanvi’s fingers, which had been clutching the cold steel railing of the bed, tightened until her knuckles turned white. Her breath came in shallow bursts, like she was afraid that breathing too deeply would confirm the truth that he was truly gone. The walls seemed to close in, the beeping from distant corridors echoing louder in her ears, as if the world outside dared to move on while hers had stopped.
The door clicked open, soft at first, but in the tense silence, it sounded like a gunshot.
A nurse stepped inside, her white shoes squeaking faintly against the polished tiles. She was young, her face composed with that trained, clinical calm that medical staff wore like armor. But to Jaanvi, her very presence felt like an intruder in this sacred, fragile moment.
The nurse’s eyes flickered to the bed, then to the gathered people, before settling on Jaanvi. Her voice was low, almost apologetic, but it carried the kind of detachment that only comes from saying the same thing too many times in a lifetime.
“It’s time…” she began, pausing for a fraction of a second as if giving them a final chance to object to the inevitable. “…It’s time to get the body ready. Then you can take it home for the last rituals.”
Her words sliced through the air, brutal in their simplicity. She didn’t say Aarav. She didn’t say your brother. She didn’t say the person you love most.
She said the body.
The body.
Jaanvi flinched like she had been struck. The word rattled inside her skull, echoing, poisoning every thought.
That’s what he was now? A body?
Aarav, who used to chase her around the house just to steal the last piece of chocolate. Aarav, who stood like a shield in front of her when their so-called family threw her out into the street. Aarav, who stayed up all night when she was sick, making bad tea but refusing to leave her side. Aarav, whose laugh could pull her out of the darkest pit.
And now… just a body?
Her lips trembled. Her throat burned.
“No…” The word tore out of her like a wounded animal’s cry, raw and desperate.
She shook her head violently, as if denial could reverse the ticking clock. “No, not yet… please, not yet.”
She staggered forward, her hands trembling as they hovered over his face, afraid to touch, afraid to feel how cold he already was. “He’s not ready to go… I’m not ready to let him go…” Her voice cracked, and the last part came out almost as a whisper, like a confession she had been dreading to admit even to herself.
Her knees felt weak, the sterile white floor blurring beneath her tear-filled eyes. She could hear murmurs around her Lavanya’s choked gasp, someone shifting uncomfortably, the faint shuffle of the nurse’s feet but all of it was distant. The only sound that mattered was the deafening silence from the bed where Aarav lay.
She reached out finally, her fingertips brushing his cheek. It was like touching marble smooth, unyielding, cold. She recoiled slightly, biting her lip hard enough to taste blood, because that coldness was final. It was irreversible. No matter how much she screamed, begged, prayed he would never open his eyes again.
Memories flashed behind her eyelids, violent and merciless. Aarav laughed with her in the rain. Aarav promised, “As long as I’m alive, you’ll never be alone, Jaanvi.” Aarav held her when the world turned cruel.
And now, he had broken that promise no, not by choice, but by the cruel hands of fate. Still, the betrayal stung as sharply as the grief.
The nurse took a step forward, clearly accustomed to families breaking in moments like this. “Ma’am…” she said softly, “We need to...”
“NO!” Jaanvi’s voice thundered in the room, startling even herself. It wasn’t just grief now it was rage. Her tears blurred everything, but her voice carried the raw weight of a sister being torn apart. “You don’t get to touch him yet! You don’t get to call him a body! He’s my brother, he’s still mine he’s still Aarav!”
Her breathing turned ragged, her chest rising and falling in painful heaves. She pressed her forehead to his, whispering shakily, “You can’t leave me like this… please, Aarav… wake up, na… say something, scold me, fight with me, anything, but don’t just… don’t just be this silent.”
Her tears fell onto his still skin, sliding down the curve of his jaw. She clung to him like a child clings to a toy during a nightmare, as if her grip alone could anchor him to this world. But the silence remained. The cold remained.
It was only when Lavanya’s trembling hand touched her shoulder that she realized she was shaking uncontrollably. The room swam before her eyes, and somewhere deep inside, she felt something break something that would never fully heal.
Because in that moment, Jaanvi knew.
The nurse was right.
He wasn’t Aarav anymore. He wasn’t the boy who laughed in the rain, or the one who promised to protect her.
He was a body.
And the word, as much as she hated it, was the only thing left.
Yuvaan didn’t think.
He just moved.
The moment the nurse’s words sliced through the room, Jaanvi’s knees almost buckled. Her gaze stayed locked on Aarav’s still, pale face the same face she had kissed goodnight for years, the same face that used to light up at her voice. Now… it was just a shadow, skin stretched thin over lifelessness.
Her lips trembled, a strangled sound escaping her throat, somewhere between a sob and a broken gasp. She stepped forward, fingers shaking as though she could will him awake by touch. But before her hand could reach him, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind.
Yuvaan.
He pulled her back not roughly, but firmly, as though afraid she might crumble into pieces too small to gather back together.
“Jaanvi,” he murmured, but his voice barely reached her.
“No” she choked out, twisting in his grip, her small hands clawing at his arms in desperation. “Let me go, Yuvaan! Please… please… I just… one more ” Her voice cracked so violently that even the air seemed to flinch.
The orderlies were already moving toward the bed, their white gloves and muted footsteps too loud in the oppressive silence. A faint metallic rattle came from the tray they pushed in cold scissors, linen sheets, sterilized cotton the sound of finality.
Jaanvi’s breath came in shuddering bursts. “He’s… he’s my brother,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving Aarav’s face even as Yuvaan tightened his hold. " Mere bacche ke tarha pala hai Maine aarav ko"
“I raised him, Yuvaan… I held him when he cried, I fed him when Maa wasn’t there, I… I taught him to tie his laces...” Her voice dissolved into sobs, her chest heaving against his. “And now you’re taking him away from me… like he was never mine to love.”
Her feet dug into the floor, resisting every inch Yuvaan tried to pull her back. Her nails scraped his forearm in her struggle, but he didn’t flinch he just anchored her, chest pressed to her back, arms a cage that tried to shield her from the sight she couldn’t bear.
The white sheet slid slowly over Aarav’s body.
“No!” Jaanvi’s cry tore from her throat, raw and jagged, ripping through the stale hospital air. It wasn’t just grief it was protest, it was refusal, it was a wounded animal’s desperate snarl at the world that had taken too much.
Her tears blurred her vision, but she could still see the outline of his face through the fabric the familiar slope of his jaw, the stubborn arch of his brows. She remembered scolding him for not eating enough, teasing him for always stealing the last sweet from the fridge. And now those memories stabbed sharper than knives.
“I promised him…” she sobbed, voice barely coherent as she sagged in Yuvaan’s arms. “I promised I’d protect him. I swore I’d never let him be alone. And now ...” She bit her lip so hard it bled, trying to swallow the howl rising in her chest.
Yuvaan’s jaw clenched, the muscle ticking as he held her tighter. He didn’t know how to soothe her this was a wound no hand could cover, no words could stitch. So he just kept holding her, his chin against her hair, absorbing every tremor that ran through her small frame.
The smell of antiseptic was sharp in the room, mingling with the faint floral scent from Jaanvi’s dupatta. Her tears soaked through his shirt, hot against his skin.
She stopped struggling only when the orderlies began to wheel Aarav’s body away. Her fight drained all at once, replaced by a hollow stillness, the kind that comes when the heart is too tired to break any further. But her eyes swollen, red-rimmed tracked the gurney’s slow movement, as though memorizing every inch between them, as though sheer will might reverse it.
“Jaanvi…” Yuvaan whispered again, softer this time, but she didn’t answer. Her fingers clutched his wrist, not in surrender, but in a quiet, desperate plea not to let her collapse completely.
The gurney reached the door. The last glimpse she had of Aarav was the curve of his covered shoulder before the white sheet swallowed him entirely. Then… he was gone.
Jaanvi’s head dropped forward into Yuvaan’s chest, and the sound that came from her was no longer a cry, but something deeper a hollow, shattering exhale that seemed to take her very soul with it.
Yuvaan held her tighter. For once, the man who spoke in commands and carried storms in his tone had nothing to say. Only his grip spoke for him steady, unyielding, as if telling her, I won’t let go, even when everything else does.
But for Jaanvi, in that moment, it felt like the world already had.
Jaanvi’s nails dug into Yuvaan’s shirt, her body twisting and thrashing in his arms like a bird desperate to break free from a cage.
“No! Chhodo mujhe!” her voice cracked, but it was lost under the pounding in her ears. Her eyes bloodshot, wet, frantic remained locked on Aarav’s still form as the nurses began to pull the white sheet over him.
( No!... Leave me )
Her breath came in short, sharp bursts, each one more shallow than the last. “He’s just a little cold… he’ll wake up… Aarav!” she screamed, her words breaking halfway, the sound splitting like glass under too much pressure.
Yuvaan tightened his hold, his jaw hard but his eyes reflecting something unfamiliar. a shadow of helplessness. “Jaanvi, bas… bas…” he muttered, his own voice low but taut with strain, as though afraid his own heart might break if he let go.
She shook her head violently, strands of her hair sticking to her damp cheeks. “They can’t take him… they can’t… he’s mine! Maine usse pala hai, Yuvaan… main maa thi uski… main...” her voice gave out, replaced by a choked sob that rattled through her bones.
(...They can’t take him… they can’t… he’s mine! I raised him, Yuvaan… I was his mother… I…)
But the orderly was already wheeling Aarav away, the sound of the gurney’s wheels against the cold hospital floor echoing like a cruel countdown.
Her knees buckled, the fight draining out of her all at once. A strange ringing filled her ears, drowning out the world. Yuvaan felt the sudden, alarming slackness in her frame her head lolling slightly against his chest, her weight collapsing fully into him.
“Jaanvi!” his voice sharpened, laced with a panic he didn’t recognise in himself.
Her hands, which moments ago had been clawing at him, now hung lifelessly by her sides. Her lips were pale, parted slightly, her tear tracks glistening under the harsh ICU lights.
“Doctor!” Yuvaan’s shout tore through the stunned silence, but Jaanvi’s consciousness was already slipping away, the sheer force of grief too heavy for her fragile body to bear.
The last thing she registered before darkness claimed her was the sight of Aarav’s body disappearing through the door, and the unbearable thought that she’d failed the one person she had promised to protect with her life.
___________________________________________________
Hopefully you all will like it and sorry for the mistakes 🙏
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