R A Y A A N

It’s strange, the way life works.

Five years ago, I couldn’t stand the sight of her. Arvi. The girl who dared to walk into my world like she belonged in it, all fire and stubbornness and a soft heart she tried too hard to protect. I thought she was a storm. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

I had no idea she’d end up being my calm.

And now, I watch her from across the room her hair loosely braided, a soft smile on her lips as she flips through her notes. She’s humming something under her breath, probably some old Bollywood tune, and Vanisha’s drawing on the floor nearby, crayons scattered like confetti.

This?

This right here is what happiness looks like.

I’ve built empires, closed million-dollar deals, led boardrooms filled with the sharpest minds. But none of it none of it ever gave me the peace that this quiet evening in my living room does. With Arvi. With our daughter. With our memories and our mess and our mended pieces stitched together like a tapestry only we understand.

There was a time when I thought I’d lost all this.

I still remember the night she left. The silence that followed. The guilt that clawed at my insides every time I saw Vanisha look for her in the shadows. I was angry angry at the world, angry at myself, angry at Arvi for leaving… but mostly, I was angry because I knew she’d only left to protect her heart. And I hadn’t done a damn thing to stop her.

Vanisha was the only thing keeping me tethered to some version of myself that resembled a man. A father. But a husband? No. I wasn’t that anymore. I was just a broken version of a man who used to love too hard and lost too much in the process.

But Arvi… she came back.

And God, I didn’t know how badly I needed her until I saw her again.

The first time I saw her after five years, my heart didn’t race. It roared. Like it had been sleeping and someone finally turned on the lights. She walked into my office like she didn’t already own every corner of my heart. Like the air hadn’t thickened the moment she stepped in.

And now now she’s here. In this house. In our home. In my arms every night, tangled in the sheets, her breath against my neck, her legs brushing against mine under the quilt. She’s here when Vanisha calls out for Mama in the middle of the night, and she’s here when I get home from work, smiling like she waited all day just to see me.

She’s here.

And I’m never letting her go again.

It wasn’t easy, getting back here. There were words unsaid, wounds unhealed, and grief that hadn’t yet stopped bleeding. Vanisha’s death left a scar on us all but Arvi… she bore the brunt of it. Everyone blamed her. Even me, for a while. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did. Until I saw the way she mourned. Quietly. Endlessly. Like her soul was carrying a weight no one else could lift.

And yet, when we met again, she didn’t throw that pain in my face. She stood there, tall and proud and somehow still so achingly fragile, and she forgave me.

That’s the thing about Arvi.

She forgives. Even when she shouldn’t. Even when I didn’t deserve it.

Now, every day feels like a second chance. Every smile she gives me, every plate of food she serves, every gentle brush of her fingers over my hair when she thinks I’m asleep it’s all a reminder that we’ve made it back. That we chose each other again.

I remember the first morning she woke up in my bed after all those years. She looked disoriented, like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to be happy. Her first instinct was to check on Vanisha, as if she needed to anchor herself to our daughter to believe any of this was real.

But when she turned to me, her eyes wide, unsure I just pulled her back under the covers and told her, "You're allowed to rest now. You're home."

That morning, we didn’t speak much. We didn’t need to. The silence between us wasn’t heavy like before. It was warm. Comfortable. Like we’d finally found a language that didn’t need words.

Now, our days are filled with little routines. I wake up early sometimes just to watch her sleep. She’s the only person I know who can make silence feel like music. I come home by seven sharp, no matter what meeting I have to reschedule or what deal I have to delegate. Because nothing, nothing, comes before her anymore.

Before us.

She makes fun of me sometimes says I’ve gone soft. But I know she doesn’t really believe that. I’m still the same in boardrooms, still the man who doesn’t take no for an answer, still the one people are a little too scared to cross. But Arvi? She gets the version of me no one else has seen. The version that listens to her rants about pediatrics modules and school lunch boxes and Vanisha’s latest obsession with glitter pens.

I never thought I’d fall in love with the mundane. But here I am head over heels for grocery lists, school pickups, and late-night study sessions.

And her. Always her.

There are moments, sometimes late at night, when we talk about the past. Not to relive it but to understand it. To hold it gently, like something fragile, and then set it down so it doesn’t weigh us down anymore.

She asked me once, “Did you ever think we’d come back to each other?”

I told her the truth.

“No one in this world could’ve stopped me.”

Because that’s how love works. Real love. It bends. It breaks. But if it’s meant to be it finds its way back.

I know I failed her once. I let the world, my grief, my pride, cloud what I knew deep down that she was never the enemy. She was the home I kept running from. But now? Now, I run to her.

Every single day.

She has this laugh low and breathy and entirely too contagious. Vanisha has the same one. It echoes through the house like wind chimes on a breezy day. When I hear it, something inside me settles. Like the universe is telling me, this is it. This is where you’re supposed to be.

Tonight, she cooked again.

She always insists on doing it herself once a week, even though we have staff. Says it keeps her grounded. I think it’s her way of showing love, spoonful by spoonful. And God, those lauki ke kofte? I could propose all over again.

Actually, I did.

Right there at the dinner table. Vanisha rolled her eyes and called me dramatic. Arvi almost dropped the spoon. I meant it, though.

I’ll marry her a thousand times if it means she never forgets just how much I love her.

After dinner, we cleaned up together. She still insists on washing the dishes herself. I joined her, drying plates while she washed. It felt good normal, human, intimate in a way only routine things can be. She told me about her upcoming quiz and I offered to help. She laughed like I was joking.

“Business school doesn’t count, Mr. Oberoi,” she teased.

I just smirked. “Still graduated top of my class.”

We bantered. We flirted. We played. And later, when the house was quiet and Vanisha fast asleep, we lay beside each other in bed, our limbs tangled, breaths synced, hearts open.

She asked me softly, “What if I hadn’t forgiven you?”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Then I would’ve kept apologizing until you did.”

And I meant it. I would’ve spent my whole life making it right. Because she’s worth that. Every second. Every effort. Every word.

This love… it wasn’t born perfect. It was forged in fire, tested by time, broken and rebuilt. It’s real. It’s raw. And it’s ours.

We’re not the same people we were when we met. I was colder. She was more guarded. Life hadn’t yet bruised us in all the places that now feel tender. But maybe that’s what makes it beautiful now this version of us that knows pain and still chooses love.

If you’d told me years ago that I’d be here waking up to the sound of tiny footsteps, sipping morning chai made by my wife, helping with math projects and pediatric flashcards I would’ve laughed.

But now? I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

This is my peace.

This is my home.

This is my always.

I love her, she loves me, She gave me Vanisha my princess my everything, In the end I know I never was a good husband to her but she was A good wife, A good DIL, now a good mother.

She was always so responsible, holding every relation close to her, my family did bad to her even, I did bad to her but she forgive me, my family.

Now I only have Her and my little princess, It is my life now and I love every bit of it.