Page 61 of ARIDHI: His Never-Ending Desire

I’ve closed deals worth crores without blinking.

I’ve stood in rooms where people hang on my every word.

But now, in a house too quiet and a bed too cold, I’ve become the kind of man I once swore I’d never be.

The kind who reaches out to the other side of the bed at 2:17 AM.

The kind who stares at her lipstick mark on his white shirts longer than necessary.

The kind who, God help me, whispers her name into melodies I play with my guitar.

My fiancée. My future wife. My every damn thought.

They told us to stay apart until the wedding.

“Rituals. Traditions.” They said.

If only someone could explain how to silence the kind of longing that tastes like her laughter and burns like her absence.

She left for Mumbai yesterday. And already, there was a kind of silence that even Delhi's chaos couldn't smother.

It wasn't in the streets or in the corridors of the Rathore mansion.

It was in the space beside me, once occupied by a woman who carried entire galaxies in her voice and built empires between sips of coffee.

My Ardhangini.

Even if not officially yet. She always had been.

Now that she was in Mumbai, building her dream project at a time, I found myself spiraling in the oddest ways.

Pausing when I heard her favorite song.

Saving reels of her book boyfriends I knew she’d smile at.

Checking flight schedules like a man on the verge of insanity.

I can hear the soft sighs she let out after finishing a book, ringing in my ears.

Damn, I am missing her long rants about fictional men who set the standard too damn high.

I used to tease her for it.

“You’re competing with characters who don’t exist.” I’d say.

She’d smirk, “Maybe. But if someone can write it, someone can become it.”

And damn it, she was right.

I can become for her.

?

I walked into my study, once a place of work, now a place of dreams and fantasies. I knew what I needed to do.

Yes, I’m not here to work. Work means nothing when she’s not here to tell me I frown too much.

I’m here to build something for her I promised earlier.

I sat in the leather chair where she used to curl up, legs folded, nose in a book, her world spinning somewhere far away from me and yet still mine.

I called the head carpenter at 11:48 PM.

He thought I was drunk.

“I want a library.” I said.

“Any specific style, sir?”

“No,” I murmured, “Just build a world that would feel like her.”

I'm crazy without being drunk.

?

I spent the whole night and the next morning sketching the designs myself.

I wasn’t an architect. I was a businessman. A realist. But for her? I’d build fiction with my bare hands.

Floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves on one side. A window seat, cushioned, with a view of the garden. A soft reading light—warm, not white but pink.

A wall-mounted ladder because she always said, “If I can’t climb for books, is it even a real library?”

But then I am here to become her personal ladder.

There should be a space for a singular statement, her favorite quote, the one she has written in her social media bio, tagging me along with.

“Some people live a thousand lives through stories, but my favorite life will always be the one I live with you.”

A smile spread on my lips.

And then I curated a list of her favorite genres and characters, based on all the posts she has ever liked and all the small notes she places in her books.

Enemies-to-lovers. Morally grey men. Fierce female lead. Forbidden romance. Fantasy.

I ordered leather-bound editions, special prints, and annotated classics because she reads them whenever her business projects betray her.

After that, I made a list of what I needed to become.

“You are already perfect.” I could hear her voice. But still I want to be close enough to the stories she loved.

The man who kissed like tension built for chapters. Who fought like there was war in his blood and love in his bones. Who stood in the rain, stubborn and soaked, just to apologize right.

Who said “stay” and meant forever.

Later that evening, I sat in the half-finished study, surrounded by wood dust and design catalogs.

I pulled out my phone and texted her.

“What color do you imagine when a fictional man pins his woman against a wall and whispers, ‘You’re mine’?”

The message got seen in a matter of seconds. Three dotes appeared but then disappeared.

Finally she replied, “Burgundy. Why?”

Because that’s the color of your library walls now.

I thought while smiling. But I replied, “Just wait till your wedding night.”

I picked the exact shade of burgundy for the walls, and ordered a velvet armchair big enough for her to fall asleep reading in.

I can’t forget a secret drawer that only she knows about because she’s dramatic like that.

I’m building a library, yes.

But more than that, I’m building every version of love she’s ever read and wished someone would live for her which I will.

Because this wasn’t just a library. It was my promise in paper and wood. A vow written in tropes and plot twists.

That for every chapter she ever cried over, I’d give her a real one worth living.

That every time she missed her fictional men, she’d look at me and think, “Maybe I wrote him into existence.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’m insane.

I’m here designing a fictional man’s gestures into real-life blueprints. Folding pages into love notes. Trying to out-romance men who don’t exist, all because of her.

I want to become the “he didn’t just love her, he studied her, memorized the tilt of her laugh, and the shape of her silence” type of man.

God, I miss her so much.

Not just her voice or her touch.

I miss being the man who made her forget every fictional lover she ever dreamed about.

And I’ll become him again. No, I’ll become the one who outwrites every damn story on her shelf.

Mumbai looked the same.

Buzzing, relentless, unapologetically alive.

It had only been a day since I left Delhi, and yet, the space beside me already felt too vacant like I was rehearsing absence in a city that once held all my beginnings.

I arrived at the central boardroom of F1 Racing Corporation.

Some things about me haven't changed. Precision was a comfort when emotions became inconvenient.

Naksh, my assistant, entered behind me, buttoned up and caffeinated, holding a tablet to provide my schedule.

“Team’s assembling in ten, ma’am. The engineers from the German firm are in a time crunch, so the prototype walk-through will be brief.”

I glanced up, “Let’s make it impactful then.”

He nodded, “Your blueprint presentation is prepped. Shall I cue the opening quote slide?”

I allowed a smile, “Yes. Keep the quote. People take innovation more seriously when you dress it in poetry.”

?

This wasn’t just another business pitch. It was personal.

The Velocity Project, a vertical, multi-level urban racing hub. Indoor circuits, customizable tracks, simulation domes, a blend of motorsport thrill and high-end lifestyle.

It was a space designed for both underground racers and elite sponsors to coexist, a structure that lived at the intersection of adrenaline and architecture.

And it was mine as I promised to my users, the day of the business event.

As I took the seat at the head of the table, the architects and investors turned to look at me.

Calm. Neutral. Curious.

“The idea is simple,” I began, pulling up the render on screen, “We don’t want just a racing track. We want a culture. A movement. And moments.”

The screen moved through the modules, race tech labs, rooftop testing arenas, commercial clubs with trackside views.

“What inspired this?” One of the German consultants asked. I paused.

Ruvit, I thought.

Well, I did. I always wanted to build something like this. But Ruvit made it happen.

His obsession with speed, our late-night car rides, the way his eyes lit up when engines roared louder than logic.

Everything about us inspired this.

Instead, I said, “The need to build something that doesn’t exist yet. And the certainty that it should.”

Naksh glanced at me, surprised by my brevity. But sometimes, restraint hits harder than grand speeches.

The room fell quiet.

Then one by one—nods, pens scribbling, murmurs of approval.

By evening, I was back home. My original home. The one my grandfather built for his family and passed to my father.

It still smelled like old books, coriander from the kitchen garden, and childhood. Familiar in ways that made the present feel like borrowed days.

I walked into the room I grew up in.

Glass shelves lined with trophies, a cricket bat, which belongs to Vinayak bhaiya, still rested in the corner.

Posters of Schumacher and Serena were still there, followed by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. All of my favourite F1 drivers.

And then, there were the photos of some of my favourite moments from dramas.

Memories weren’t cinematic. They were scattered.

My eyes landed on a chipped photo frame. The photo of me, Ruvit, Dhruv and Nandini. The one we clicked after passing class 12th.

I sat by the window where Abhir and I once made up racing leagues with our Hot Wheels.

Where Vinayak bhaiya used to tell me I’d end up running the world one day because I didn’t believe in waiting for anyone else to do it.

But now, I was waiting. For a text. A call. A sign. For him.

There’s a strange kind of stillness that settles in when the person you love isn’t around, not loud, not chaotic. Just an ache that quietly rearranges your hours.

I missed him. Not dramatically, but consistently.

In the space beside my coffee mug.

In the way my fingers hovered over my phone during dinner.

In the silence after a long day, where his voice would normally cut through like a warm blade.

I didn’t need grand gestures. I just needed the way he looked at me when I wasn’t trying to be anything but myself.

“Just wait till your wedding night.” The last message he sent me which is keeping me on the hook.

What's this man planning?

?

Later that night, as I reviewed design feedback from our German collaborators, Naksh dropped by my study.

“You skipped dinner.”

“I compensated with coffee.” I muttered, still absorbed in a lighting model.

He raised a brow, “Also, your fiancé has messaged. Want me to read it or shall I leave you two to your private screenplay?”

I snatched the phone and kicked him out.

“Don’t burn out trying to build empires. You’re already my favorite monument.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Just one second.

Because somehow, even from a different city, he still knew the exact moment I needed softness.

I typed back, “The empire I'm building right now represents us.”

He replied almost instantly, “Then it must be named after us. Aridhi + Ruvit = Arivit. What say?”

I stared at his message and couldn’t help but smile. A slow, quiet kind. The kind that meant I’d carry him with me, even in boardrooms and blueprints.

Because some people don’t need to be near to being close.

They just need to exist. Loudly, unforgettably. Like home.

I typed back quickly, “You do know I can’t keep such a name for a racing hub, right?”

Almost immediately, the three dots danced back on the screen. I could already imagine that smug grin of his.

The one that said I know I’m being ridiculous, but admit it, you like it.

“Why not? It sounds Intense. Romantic. Like us.”

I was about to reply when another message popped up, “Also, kind of addictive. Like your smile. Like your beauty. Like your name.”

I rolled my eyes so hard I almost gave myself a headache.

But God, tell me why I was grinning like a fool when numerous blueprints are spread on the table in front of me?

“That’s the worst branding strategy I’ve ever heard.” I sent.

“Oh? And yet you’re smiling while typing that.”

I bit my lip. Damn him for knowing me too well.

“Fine. I’ll name a corner after you. The slowest one. The curve that confuses everyone.”

“Excuse me?” He texted back, “I am the fastest part of your track. The adrenaline. The high-speed crash and the slow-motion heartbeat.”

I laughed out loud. How does he do this? Turn a normal night into a fairy tale?

I replied, “You’re the part of the track that looks easy but makes even professionals lose control.”

He didn’t respond for a few seconds. I waited, chewing on my thumb. And then his text popped up, “So basically, I’m the danger you still choose. Every. Single. Lap.”

And just like that, I was undone.

I leaned my head back against the chair, whispering back into the phone screen, “Always choosing you. Even when I pretend I’m not.”

This time, the dots didn’t appear. But the typing came moments later, slower this time. Thoughtful.

“I miss you, Ardhangini.”