"Everything was fine..." Siddharth continued after a long pause, though this time his voice had changed slightly. It no longer carried the same calm steadiness from before. Something heavier had settled beneath it now.

"Until we found out that in April 2025..." he looked away briefly before finishing quietly, "...you were pregnant again."

The room fell silent around them.

"You were almost two months pregnant."

Aarohi stayed quiet, listening carefully while his words slowly filled the suffocating atmosphere of the mansion.

"And this time..." Siddharth paused, the faintest flicker of emotion crossing his otherwise controlled face, "...we were genuinely happy."

His jaw tightened slightly before he continued.

"It wasn't accidental like before."

A faint pause followed.

"We both wanted the baby."

There was something disturbingly raw in the way he said that sentence. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just painfully honest.

Aarohi unconsciously kept staring at him now.

"We had planned for it," Siddharth continued quietly. "For the first time in years, things actually felt..."

He stopped himself midway as though the word itself felt dangerous to say aloud.

"Normal," he finally finished in a lower voice.

The silence afterward stretched heavily between them.

Then suddenly, something dark passed through his expression. So brief yet so intense that even Aarohi noticed it immediately.

"But everything changed on June 15."

The atmosphere shifted instantly after those words.

Siddharth leaned slightly forward now, his elbows resting against his knees while his fingers slowly intertwined together.

"We both woke up in the middle of the night," he said quietly. "It was around midnight, maybe later."

His voice had become slower now.

"You were screaming."

Aarohi's brows furrowed faintly while listening.

"You were in unbearable pain," Siddharth continued, his eyes no longer focused on her now but somewhere far away inside his own memory instead. "At first I thought maybe it was some normal complication or stomach pain..."

He swallowed once before continuing.

"But the way you were crying..."

The muscles in his jaw visibly tightened.

"...I knew something was wrong."

A faint silence followed before he continued speaking again.

"I immediately took you to the hospital."

The room around them remained completely still now.

"And after the tests..." his voice lowered further, "...the doctors told us that the fetus inside you had already died almost two weeks earlier."

Aarohi's fingers slowly tightened together unconsciously hearing that.

"They said your body was now trying to remove it naturally."

For the first time since starting the story, Siddharth's composure visibly cracked.

A single tear escaped his eye silently and slid down his cheek before he quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand, almost immediately, as though even allowing that much emotion outside felt unacceptable to him.

Aarohi watched him quietly.

"We didn't have any other option," Siddharth said after taking a slightly shaky breath. "Keeping it any longer could've caused a severe infection..."

His eyes briefly closed for one second.

"...or killed you too."

The heaviness in his voice deepened with every word now.

"So I signed the consent form."

A faint silence followed.

"I didn't even think twice."

His fingers clenched together tightly while speaking.

Then, finally, he looked at her again.

"And I still remember your screams when they took you toward the operating room."

Something inside his expression darkened painfully at the memory.

"You were begging me not to let them remove the baby."

The words came out rougher this time.

"You kept crying... saying it was still your child."

Aarohi stayed frozen, listening to him.

"But it was necessary," Siddharth continued quietly, though his voice sounded almost strained now. "There was no other choice."

He took another shaky breath before continuing further.

"So I had to do it."

Silence swallowed the room completely afterward.

Even the air between them felt heavier now.

"After the operation..." Siddharth continued after a few seconds, "...you refused to see me."

Aarohi's eyes lifted toward him again,n slowly.

"All you did was cry."

His voice had become emotionally exhausted now, stripped of the cold control he had maintained earlier.

"You stopped talking properly to everyone."

He paused briefly.

"You didn't even allow Ritvik near you."

That statement carried visible pain behind it.

"Here..." Siddharth exhaled slowly, "...he was crying because he couldn't understand why his mother wouldn't meet him..."

A faint pause followed.

"...and there, I was trying to handle him while my mother stayed beside you day and night, trying to comfort you."

His eyes lowered slightly.

"Your parents came."

Another pause.

"Your friends came."

Then quieter—

"Everyone tried."

The mansion remained silent except for his voice and the distant sound of the wind outside brushing against the trees surrounding the estate.

"And somehow..." Siddharth continued slowly, "...after days of convincing, they finally managed to persuade you to come back home with me."

His face darkened slightly again afterward.

"But even then..."

He looked at Aarohi directly now.

"You completely shut me out."

Aarohi remained still, her expression tense while listening carefully.

"You barely spoke to me in the hospital," Siddharth said quietly. "And even when you agreed to come back with me..."

He stopped speaking suddenly.

The pause this time felt wrong. Heavy.

Aarohi immediately noticed it.

Her brows pulled together faintly before she looked at him and asked quietly,

"But what?"

He nodded slowly, the weight of the memory pressing down on his voice before he continued speaking again.

"When we were on the way back home..." Siddharth paused briefly, as if replaying the scene in his mind before letting it out, "...you were furious."

His eyes stayed fixed somewhere ahead, not really looking at Aarohi anymore, but at something far away that only he could see.

"You were glaring at me the entire time," he said quietly. "There was nothing else in your eyes except hate."

A faint pause followed.

"You were shouting... constantly."

His fingers tightened slightly together as he spoke, the memory clearly not something easy for him to revisit.

"You were accusing me of everything," he continued. "Saying I had detached your baby from you. That I didn't care. That I was emotionless... that I didn't even feel anything after losing it."

Aarohi's expression remained tense as she listened, her eyes still locked on him, trying to detect any inconsistency in his story.

Siddharth finally exhaled slowly.

"I knew you were overwhelmed," he said after a pause. "So I stayed quiet."

His voice lowered slightly.

"I didn't argue back."

A brief silence stretched between them again.

"I just let you pour everything out on me," he continued. "Because I thought maybe... it would help you feel lighter. Even if it meant I had to take all of it."

His jaw tightened faintly.

"I wasn't trying to defend myself. I wasn't trying to justify anything. I just—"

He stopped for a moment, then shook his head slightly.

"I just wanted you to calm down."

The room felt heavier as he spoke, the air almost still now.

"But before that could even happen..."

Siddharth's voice suddenly shifted. Lower. Sharper. Like the memory itself had cut into him again.

"...I woke up with a bleeding head."

Aarohi's fingers instinctively tightened slightly at that.

"My head was pounding," he continued slowly. "Everything was blurry. For a few seconds, I didn't even understand what had happened."

He paused again, swallowing once before continuing.

"I thought I had come out of the airbag."

His gaze darkened slightly as he recalled it.

"I looked around... trying to understand where we were."

A faint breath escaped him.

"And then I saw it."

The silence stretched again.

"Our car... had crashed into a pole."

His voice turned quieter, almost hollow.

"And behind us... a truck had completely crashed into the back of our car."

Aarohi's breath seemed to slow slightly as she listened, though she still said nothing.

"The impact was so severe..." he continued, his tone steady but heavy, "...the car was almost completely crushed."

A long pause followed.

"I remember just sitting there for a second," he said quietly, "not fully processing it."

Then suddenly his voice sharpened slightly.

"But then it hit me."

His fingers curled faintly.

"You were still inside."

Aarohi's eyes narrowed slightly as the intensity in his voice increased.

Siddharth leaned forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees again, as if the weight of the memory physically pulled him down.

"I ran toward the car immediately," he said. "I didn't think. I didn't wait. I just ran."

His breathing subtly deepened as he continued.

"People had already started gathering around the accident site," he added. "Someone was calling an ambulance. Others were trying to help open the doors."

A faint pause followed.

"The truck driver... some people from nearby vehicles... they all came to help."

His voice became slightly uneven now, as if the memory was becoming harder to hold in words.

"All I could see was you inside that car."

A brief silence.

"Your head was bleeding," he said quietly. "Your face had multiple cuts."

His jaw tightened again.

"And your eyes..."

He stopped for a second.

"...there was blood."

The sentence hung in the air heavily.

Siddharth swallowed once before continuing, his voice now noticeably strained.

"By the time they managed to get you out..." he said, "you were barely conscious."

A long pause followed.

"I remember holding your hand for a second," he added quietly, "before everything started fading."

His eyes lowered slightly.

"And then..."

Another pause.

"...I lost consciousness too."

"When I woke up..." Siddharth continued after a long silence, though now his voice sounded far quieter than before, almost exhausted from reliving everything again, "...my mother was crying."

The room remained completely still around them.

"She was sitting outside the ICU," he said slowly, his eyes lowered slightly as if the memory itself physically weighed him down. "And Ritvik..."

A faint pause followed.

"...he was crying loudly."

Something dark flickered across Siddharth's face for a brief moment before disappearing again beneath his usual controlled expression.

"He was barely three years old at that time," he continued quietly. "Too small to understand what had happened."

His fingers intertwined more tightly while speaking.

"All he knew was that his mother had suddenly disappeared."

Aarohi remained silent, her eyes fixed on him intensely while he spoke.

"My mother was trying to calm him down," Siddharth said. "She kept carrying him around, trying to distract him somehow, but he wouldn't stop crying."

A faint pause followed.

"Your parents were there too."

His voice slowed slightly further.

"They kept trying to play with him... trying to shift his attention away from the ICU room."

For a brief second, Siddharth closed his eyes as if the memory itself exhausted him mentally.

"But every few minutes," he continued quietly, "...he kept asking to meet his mom."

The heaviness in the room deepened further.

"He couldn't understand why nobody was allowing him inside."

A faint breath escaped Siddharth slowly before he continued.

"And that's when the doctors finally told us the reality."

His eyes opened again, darker this time.

"You were in a coma."

The sentence settled heavily between them.

Aarohi unconsciously stiffened slightly, hearing the confirmation aloud.

"No one knew when you would wake up," Siddharth continued. "No one could guarantee anything."

His voice remained steady externally, but something underneath it sounded hollow now.

"The doctors said it could take weeks..." he paused briefly, "...months..."

Another pause.

"...or maybe never."

The silence afterward felt suffocating.

"For almost eleven months and six days..." Siddharth continued quietly, "...you stayed unconscious."

Aarohi's fingers slowly tightened together in her lap again.

"And during all that time," he said, "the entire family practically lived around hospitals, reports, treatments, and prayers."

His eyes lowered again.

"My mother visited temples almost every week."

A faint pause.

"Your parents stopped going to most social gatherings completely."

Another pause followed before he added quietly,

"And Ritvik..."

The mention of the child again visibly affected him.

"He slowly stopped asking when you would wake up."

Something inside Aarohi's chest tightened hearing that.

"He would still sit beside you sometimes," Siddharth continued softly. "But eventually..."

His jaw tightened slightly.

"...he got used to your silence."

The atmosphere around them became unbearably heavy now.

Siddharth leaned slightly back against the couch again before continuing further.

"It became a routine for me after that."

Aarohi looked at him carefully.

"Every night after work," he explained quietly, "I would take Ritvik with me to visit you."

A faint pause followed.

"I didn't want him to forget his mother."

The sentence came out painfully simple.

"So every evening," Siddharth continued, "we would sit beside you for hours."

His voice lowered slightly further.

"Sometimes he would talk to you."

Another pause.

"Sometimes he would just sleep beside your hospital bed."

A faint breath escaped him slowly.

"And sometimes..." his eyes darkened slightly at the memory, "...he would ask me why you never answered him anymore."

The silence afterward stretched painfully long.

Aarohi stayed completely still now while listening.

"Then finally..." Siddharth continued after another pause, "...you woke up."

For the first time since speaking about the accident, the heaviness in his expression shifted slightly.

"When I told Ritvik that his mother had finally opened her eyes..."

A faint pause followed.

"...he was probably the happiest person in that entire hospital."

The slightest softness crossed Siddharth's face again while saying that. Barely visible, but real.

"He kept trying to come inside your room even before the doctors allowed him."

The room remained silent afterward for several seconds.

Finally, Siddharth looked directly at Aarohi again and spoke quietly,

"So..."

A faint pause.

"That's everything."

His voice returned calmer again, though emotionally drained now.

"That's the entire story I had to tell you."

Then after another moment, he asked softly,

"Any questions?"

Aarohi kept staring at him intensely for a long time without speaking.

Her mind felt chaotic again, though not in the same way as before. His story sounded too detailed. Too natural. Too painfully ordinary to immediately dismiss. Yet the horrifying memories inside her mind still refused to disappear.

Finally, after several silent seconds, she spoke quietly.

"So that's why..."

Her voice sounded slower now.

"...you weren't telling me anything."

Her eyes searched his face deeply.

"Because you were guilty."

Siddharth looked at her silently for a few moments before finally nodding once.

"Yeah."

The answer came without denial.

Without excuses.

"Because I didn't have the courage to break your heart again," he admitted quietly. "Not after everything you already went through."

His eyes lowered briefly.

"I knew hearing about the baby again would destroy you emotionally."

A faint pause followed.

"And honestly..."

For the first time, his voice sounded genuinely tired.

"...I was scared too."

Aarohi stayed silent.

"It almost broke our family apart once already," Siddharth continued quietly. "And waking up from a coma only to hear that pain again..."

He slowly shook his head.

"I couldn't do that to you immediately."

The room fell silent again afterward, but this time the silence no longer felt empty.

It felt dangerous.

Aarohi kept staring at him for several long seconds after he finished speaking. The silence between them felt unbearably heavy now, filled with confusion, fear, frustration, and something else she herself could not understand.

Then suddenly, she scoffed.

The sound was sharp enough to instantly break whatever fragile calmness had settled between them.

"And you seriously think," she said slowly, her voice dripping with disbelief, "that I would believe all this crap you just told me?"

Siddharth's expression changed almost immediately.

The faint exhaustion on his face disappeared, replaced by visible anger.

"You think I'm lying?" he asked flatly, though the dangerous heaviness in his voice had already returned.

Aarohi stood up from the couch abruptly, anger flashing across her face as well.

"Yes," she snapped without hesitation. "Because anyone can make up a story like this."

She pointed toward him accusingly.

"For all I know, you probably stole this entire emotional drama from some movie."

Her breathing had become uneven again, while frustration kept pouring out of her.

"Or maybe," she continued bitterly, "you tortured some poor writer to death and forced him to write this story for you."

Siddharth immediately stood up too.

The atmosphere shifted dangerously the moment he rose to his full height in front of her.

His eyes darkened visibly now, anger simmering beneath the coldness he usually carried.

"So you don't believe me," he repeated again slowly, his voice lower this time.

Aarohi shook her head instantly.

"What proof do you have?" she demanded.

For a second, Siddharth simply stared at her silently, almost like he was trying to control his temper before it snapped completely.

Then, without another word, he suddenly grabbed her wrist.

Aarohi gasped slightly at the sudden movement.

"You—"

But before she could finish speaking, he had already started dragging her upstairs.

His grip wasn't painfully rough, but firm enough to leave no room for resistance. Aarohi kept trying to pull her hand back while following behind him angrily, her heartbeat slowly increasing again as they moved deeper into the mansion.

They entered a long corridor on the upper floor.

The atmosphere there felt even darker than downstairs.

On the left side, multiple doors stretched endlessly down the hallway, each leading to different rooms. On the right side stood massive glass walls opening toward a huge veranda outside, revealing the dark lawn below, along with tall trees swaying slowly under the evening wind. Shadows from the trees moved against the glass like restless figures watching silently from outside.

The corridor lights were dim, matching the unsettling dark aesthetic of the mansion perfectly.

Along the left wall, beneath several hanging paintings, large storage cabinets and drawers had been built into the structure itself, polished black wood reflecting the faint yellow lighting around them.

And above those cabinets—

Family photographs.

Dozens of them.

Siddharth stopped abruptly in front of the wall and turned toward the pictures. His jaw was tight now, frustration clearly visible on his face for the first time.

"Look."

His voice came out sharper than before.

He pointed toward one frame hanging near the center.

"This is from our engagement."

Aarohi's eyes shifted toward the picture automatically.

In the frame, she stood beside Siddharth wearing traditional clothes, jewelry covering her almost completely, while their families surrounded them,m smiling brightly. Siddharth looked younger there somehow, though his face still carried the same unreadable expression.

Before she could process it properly, he pointed toward another frame.

"This one was taken when Ritvik was born."

Aarohi's gaze shifted again.

This time, she saw herself sitting weakly on a hospital bed while holding a newborn wrapped carefully in her arms. Siddharth stood beside her in the picture, one hand resting protectively behind her shoulder, while his mother stood nearby, crying happily.

Her brows furrowed slightly.

Siddharth continued before she could say anything.

"This one," he pointed toward another frame further ahead, "was during our beach trip."

Aarohi looked again.

In the picture, she was crouched down beside a small child near the shore while both of them excitedly held a tiny crab together. Ritvik looked younger there, laughing brightly while Aarohi herself seemed to be smiling too. A genuine smile.

Something about seeing herself smile like that felt deeply unfamiliar now.

"This is our wedding picture."

Another frame.

"This one is from our Lakshadweep trip."

Another.

"This was Ritvik's first birthday."

Another.

"Our first anniversary."

Another.

He kept showing her photograph after photograph after photograph.

Family dinners. Vacation pictures. Festival celebrations. Hospital moments. Tiny ordinary memories frozen into frames all across the corridor walls.

And in every single picture—

She was there beside him.

Beside Ritvik.

Beside his mother.

Like she truly belonged in this mansion.

Finally, Siddharth stopped and looked directly at her.

"Now do you believe me?"

Aarohi stared at him silently for a few seconds.

Then suddenly she scoffed again.

And rolled her eyes.

"AI."

Siddharth blinked once, visibly thrown off by the answer.

"...What?"

"These pictures," Aarohi said flatly while folding her arms, "can easily be AI-generated."

For the first time since this entire conversation started, Siddharth genuinely looked shocked.

He stared at her speechlessly for two full seconds before finally asking,

"Huh?"

Aarohi shrugged casually while looking around the corridor again.

"Not solid proof."

Siddharth kept staring at her in complete disbelief.

Then finally, in the driest tone possible, he muttered,

"So what now?"

His jaw tightened slightly again before he added flatly,

"You're going to tell me I 3D printed that kid, too?"

Aarohi simply shrugged again.

"Who knows," she replied suspiciously. "Technology is advanced nowadays."

For several seconds, Siddharth just stood there staring at her as his patience had physically left his body.

Then finally, he closed his eyes briefly, muttering under his breath while trying very hard not to lose his temper completely.

"You are unbelievable."