Stories We Never Tell
DEDICATED TO
Everyone who still searches for hope and happiness in the forgotten world of books
There are stories of loss, darkness and destruction. But then there are always stories of hope, light and recovery, waiting to be told.
Contents
PROLOGUE
1. JHANVI
2. ASHRAY
3. JHANVI
4. ASHRAY
5. JHANVI
6. ASHRAY
7. JHANVI
8. ASHRAY
9. JHANVI
10. ASHRAY
11. JHANVI
12. ASHRAY
13. JHANVI
14. ASHRAY
15. JHANVI
16. ASHRAY
17. JHANVI
18. ASHRAY
19. JHANVI
20. ASHRAY
21. JHANVI
22. ASHRAY
23. JHANVI
24. ASHRAY
25. JHANVI
26. ASHRAY
27. JHANVI
28. ASHRAY
29. JHANVI
30. ASHRAY
31. JHANVI
32. ASHRAY
33. JHANVI
34. KAVYA
35. ASHRAY
36. RISHI
37. JHANVI
38. DR SHYAM
39. ASHRAY
EPILOGUE
TO MY READERS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A MUST READ
Copyright
PROLOGUE
A simpler time; a time when life didn’t move at this frenetic pace, when love meant something, and what you owned was worth less than who you came home to. When people measured their wealth by the number of people in their lives that truly loved them and who they loved in return.
When life wasn’t about what someone wore or where they lived. When family and friends mattered, and a person’s pain meant something other than someone else’s entertainment. Technology and social media were supposed to bring us closer together, to help us identify and understand that we are not alone, but somehow it has become twisted, skewed into a show of how many materialistic items one person can accumulate and how much abuse another can take. We watch and wait for them to slip, to fall, as confirmation of their humanity. To make us feel better about our own imperfections as human beings.
And in the end? When all is said and done, will it matter? What possessions you owned, what car you drove, how many people pretended to care. Does any of this madness mean anything other than that we once breathed? I don’t think it does. I think all that matters is that we were happy and that we were loved. That there were people, not things, surrounding us when times were dark, and that somehow, we always managed to find our way back when we were lost.
1
JHANVI
Heartbreak. Have you ever felt it? The undeniable pain; a moment, a realisation, changes the course of your life. When one action, whether it is your own or that of another, forces you to choose. Choosing between leaving them behind or clinging to a memory of what was. Heartbreak. A human condition, a threat to our sanity that only takes a moment to change our lives.
I had found out about Puneet’s latest fling through a friend. After he was caught the first time, he promised that it was just a temporary slip: he’d had too much to drink, and the girl had come on to him. In the ensuing confrontation and fall out, Puneet had insinuated that I set him up for failure. I had somehow led him into making out with the girl at the club because of my lifestyle. I had, of course, denied this to begin with, telling my boyfriend that I would not take responsibility for his infidelity, but fighting with him to get my point across was tiring. My life—or certainly the latter part of my teenage years and now as an adult—was spent avoiding conflict. Not that I lacked the backbone to stand up for myself. But my sense of self told me that my words hurt people, and hurting people meant that I was imperfect. A fate worse than death, as far as I was concerned.