A Promise Forever

Chapter 5

Ela

I was just seven when my cheap excuse of a father died from liver sclerosis. He was an alcoholic asshole who loved to come home after midnight and abuse his wife and son. In a way, my mother and I were happy when he left us for good, at least we were spared from all the late-night yellings and beatings. Life was going well for a while. Now that she had to feed one less person, my mother could finally save some money and send me to school as she always wanted.

However since life always proved to be a b***h to me, she passed away the following year in her sleep. People said she had the most peaceful death but I don't understand what they meant by saying that. What is so peaceful about dying and leaving behind a son an orphan at such a young age?

But against all odds, I wasn't as unlucky as I thought I was. The young couple for whom my mother worked as a daily help came forward to adopt me. In a world where people had no time for their own children, this couple who took me in was kind and generous enough to provide me with everything they had to give, including their time and love.

At first, I believed that they couldn't have their own kids, or why else would someone want to adopt a kid like me?

But by the end of that year, my conclusions were proved wrong when they had their own son. I waited for them to realize how big of a mistake it was to adopt me and kick me out of their house anytime but nothing of that sort happened, ever. All that I got was even more love and a little boy to play with me. I loved Aadhan with all my heart and the same could be said about him, the little guy never left my side.

Even after being the luckiest kid, I felt a crumb of sadness nesting in me. I had everything that I could ever have wanted for myself. Parents who love me even if they weren't my biological parents, a little boy who called me his elder brother, then all the basics like nutritious food, shelter, clothes, education, and things that were just a dream for me a few years back but I still waited for the world to blow upon my face.

Whenever people in the name of relatives reminded us that I wasn't Aadhi's real brother and that he needed a real sibling, I understood how much ever I was loved and taken care of, I would never be his true sibling and that would apply to any future kids that were born in this house. I always tried not to get too attached to these people now I call family. There was always a chance they would throw me out as if I never exist at all. Call me insecure but can you blame me? I was still a kid and a naive one whose life hadn't been very kind to him exactly.

I had turned twelve and Aadhi four when Roja amma got pregnant again. This time I was old and wise enough to understand it but that didn't stop the fear of abandonment from crawling back into my head. For months I spend my night sleepless and expecting to be sent to an orphanage anytime after the baby arrived. Now that they are complete family, there was a greater chance that they didn't need me anymore.

It was a late September night. Aadhi and I were waiting outside a door that had the sign labor room, with Nithila amma and her husband, Kavin. He was a world-known cricketer back then and she herself was heavily pregnant but that didn't stop them from being there was their beloved ones. I could count on my fingers the very few people who treated me like a human and not like a stray puppy that somehow got lucky enough to make its way into this family. These two belonged to that category and I respected them for that.

When the door to the room opened, I shot up to my legs on seeing my foster father holding a pink bundle in his arms.

"It's a girl!!" He announced to us, "..but her eyes. You should take a look at them, Nithi.."

"Why what's wrong with her eyes?" She took hold of the baby and began to check her worriedly.

As I leaned forward with shaking legs, I stumbled back, having never seen such a piece of beauty. I felt like I was hit by a flash of lightning.

Two huge eyes stared back at me. Never seen such big ones before.

What mesmerized me evermore was that they were of different colors. One coal colored and another grey as a cloud.

I couldn't remove my eyes off her as her father fuzzed over her differently colored eyes. I didn't know what he didn't like about them.

"It's nothing serious, Nilay. Your daughter is one in a billion.." I didn't hear the rest of their conversation wondering how someone could be so imperfectly gorgeous?

But I had to agree with Nithila. She was one in a billion.

Even as a wrinkled newborn, she was too beautiful.

Too perfect to be of this world.

Ethereal.

"Do you want to hold your sister, Ela?" I remember Roja amma asking me once she woke up from her sleep.

I nodded eagerly. When she was placed on my lap and her tiny fist latched around my forefinger, I knew that same instance I would never let her down, I would die for her and kill for her to keep her protected from this world. The name they gave her was just perfect. Minmini, a tiny firefly amidst the darkness and sadness always lurking in my heart.

Even as a two-year-old, Mini would never call me 'anna' like she called her own brother. Whenever her parents persuaded her to give me respect, she would gurgle and wrap her chubby arms around my knees calling me Ela as loud as possible, as if she was taunting the whole world with that one world. I would carry her and nuzzle her chubby cheek, chuckling.

I was fourteen by then and twice the man my age but I didn't mind whatever she called me. Frankly, I never felt like an elder brother to either Aadhi or Minmini because I was always aware that we were from different blood, different people, and totally different worlds yet we were technically siblings in an unexplainable way. For the world, we were siblings, I was Minmini's elder brother, she was my baby sister and I had to protect her.

Even though Aadhi and Mini were the two closest people to my heart, it wasn't a secret to anyone that Mini was my favorite out of the two, and for a very long while, I didn't understand why. Whenever she called me Ela in her soft baby voice, I felt like a possession, her possession to be exact and I would do anything for her even if I didn't like to. She held that much power over me.

I didn't realize when my protectiveness for Minmini turned into possessiveness but as she grew up, I watched teenage boys swamping around her and I had to control the urge to wipe them off the face of the earth. Don't get me wrong, isn't that the responsibility of elder brothers to be all alpha and protective about their baby sister? I was just trying to be like one or maybe I didn't know where the boundary lay.

And then one night that possessiveness turned into a feeling more confusing and enigmatic in nature. The night when she pressed her lips on mine. Although it was just for a fraction of a second, I am ashamed to admit that I nipped and tasted her strawberry-flavored lips. Thank god, I pulled back right before diving into that one soul-crushing kiss.

I was furious at her but I tried to brush it off lightly at first. Mini was still a teenager and just being sexually experimental but even amongst all the anger, I was glad she didn't go around kissing any other man. I don't know even want to imagine what I would have done to that poor man in that case.

Ever since I turned twelve years, I had this recurring dream in my sleep where I was standing in the middle of nowhere. Only surrounded by trees, wind, and coldness, I stood searching for something that belonged to me from the moment I laid eyes on it but I didn't know what it exactly was. It felt like it's always been close to me but I did not recognize it and kept searching and searching, all in vain until a flash appeared on the horizon.

The silhouette of a beautiful woman glided near me.

Her dark brown curls blew in the air, making her look even more angelic. Although she was a faceless woman, she was breath-taking in my eyes. She was small, petite and so very delicate. We would stand there for hours and hours, staring at each other. When she was satisfied with drinking me in through her eyes, she would lean into me and take my lips in the most gentle kiss ever possible. Again we would stay there rooted kissing each other for eternity. I believed that woman was my soulmate and I would meet her soon.

That particular night after Mini had kissed me, I dreamt again. I kissed my soulmate's lips like a thirsty man, finally having a drink of elixir from his oasis. My one hand was buried deep in her brown locks while the other coiled around her delicate waist to keep her insanely close to me. When we pulled apart after what felt like forever on earth, I saw her eyes for the first time.

To my sheer horror, I saw Mini's brown-grey pair of eyes staring back at me. I fell back, I literally did. When I opened my eyes from the horrific dream, my ass was plastered flat on the floor and not on the bed that I slept on. I woke up in cold sweat, shaking like a ribbon and gasping for air. My body felt tight and hard in places that shouldn't be when you imagine your supposed little sister.

'What the f**k?!'

What terrified me, even more, was the fact that I loved it, I mean kissing Mini like that, holding her softness flush against my hard body. I relished in the feel of her lips against mine and wanted more, more than I could explain to myself. I felt as if she was the one I have searched for and wanted something all along.

'My God.." I palmed both my eyes to lash out the growing irritation but whatever I did, I could never shake off the image of us kissing so passionately. She apologized a hundred times and begged for my forgiveness but I could hardly look at her the rest of the weekend until her parents arrived home. That night I realized something. I would never be able to look at her or be anywhere near her without the sinful images corrupting my mind.

In my defense, those feelings that I harbored for her were totally alien to me. I loved Mini throughout my entire existence but never in that sense. Now I doubt I would ever go back to loving her like that ever again. It was the same night I made the biggest and life-changing decision. To stay the hell away from her.

I don't know why I chose the Army though, maybe because the strict lifestyle was what I needed to straighten me a little. I loved my adoptive family, no argument with that but the distance was really necessary. Me being far away from them was the only way to keep them safe from me. I didn't want to be the monster who tore this family apart by wanting their only daughter. I didn't want to commit betrayal.

I strongly believed that physical distance would bring emotional distance between us and as time passed, we both would forget the stupid kiss. Honestly, that kiss was anything but stupid but I would never admit that.

I met Veena during my training in the military. She was a good friend and if Mini hadn't kissed me and tainted my brain, maybe, maybe I would have fallen in love with Veena. She was kind, smart, and very brave. Not to mention, we shared the same past, in fact, her's was even more brutal than mine, being grown up in an orphanage, and having no one to love her.

The moment she put forward a proposal, I didn't think twice before accepting it. I had to completely remove Mini from my head and what other better way than getting involved with another woman, a real, mature woman. For most of it, we were posted in different field jobs. After six months into the proposal, when Veena attempted to kiss me for the first time, which fortunately or unfortunately was the last of any physical contact between us, I expected to see her in my dreams. How silly of me, right? To my frustration, the only woman that blessed me with her appearance for Mini. That night our kiss wasn't sweet and innocent but was hard and savage as if she was punishing me for kissing another woman.

In spite of the distance I put between us and the years we stayed apart, nothing changed much. I comprehended it the moment I saw her again all grown up and even more gorgeous than before. For years, I denied it but that was the harsh reality. I hated Mini more than I ever did for what she did to me, for the tattered innocence and love that I had for her. No matter how much we tried, nothing would go back to how it was. I would never be able to be the brother that the world expected me to be.

What kind of an elder brother does that?

A sick one.

And how would her parents feel about that?

Betrayed.

A/N:

Happy Monday folks,

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SwaRam