Shikha pass through the old corridor with another level of excitement and anderline thumping in her heart, she is grinning because she loves finding hidden things. Her entire attention was on two things.
First – need to figure out the secret of the old rooms
Second – have to make sure her father doesn’t catch her

Not that she is sneaking to meet her boyfriend, because worse than that she is going to find about her father’s best secrets about that room for years.

“There are no secrets beta, it’s just a set of old rooms, where documents of worth years are stack together and some old things of your grandparents, stop being so excite it’s not like you’re going to find some treasure or worst you will find a file containing documents that says you’re adopted, because we really don’t live in Bollywood. “

Her father always replied the same thing with a dramatic eye roll which looks fake.

No way she would believe that, if that is really true why her father always keeps that keys in his pocket?

Not that she doesn’t trust her father, of course, she can trust him with her life.

After losing her mother at an early age, her father is her only family.

She was not old enough to understand what happened to her mother but one day she was back from school and she saw her father kneeling down to her mother’s body, crying loudly his eyes were puffy and red, other neighbors consoling him.

“it was a heart attack” the only explanation her father gave her and she didn’t ask for further.

Both of them lean on each other after that, it takes months for her father to coming out of the loss of a life partner.

They were made for each other still universe separated her parents.

It took months for her too, to have a life were her mother was not there, she was the best friend shikha never found in anyone, but biya bua helped both of them to get back to normal life.

Her father put smile in front of her and the world so that shikha can feel relax to have a normal life.

Now that she is hitting the adulating life slowly, she can understand how it is difficult to pretend.

Coming back to the present, she increased her speed still looking behind to confirm that the yellow dim light of her father’s room is on, it is on that means he is fast asleep.

She finally managed to steal the keys from her father’s wallet, she thought may be her father will figure out but is still obvious to the matter.

She decided to take the advantage, their house is typically big for the two people but its gifted by her mother’s parents years ago, so some rooms still have those vintage designs and furniture.

The backyard is big, blossoming with her father’s gardening skills, the back part attached to backyard has two rooms with oldest designs and those both room contains the secret.

Well, not entirely as the first at the left room contains most of the things from her grandparents – vintage thick yellowish books, journals, photo frames, some old furniture, their old clothes, documents and probably lost of lizards.

The second room is the real deal to figure out.

She rubs her palms with excitement as she put the keys and the door open with crack sound, she has to push hard to open it as it was heavy.

May be she really hopes, she figures out the truth of being adopted, because her father having other secrets creates an uncomfortable nervousness in her heart.

When she entered, a tube light lit up dimply around the room, bright enough to figure out the room.

She closed the door carefully, and she stand there for a minute to admire the vintage designs with the most disgusting smell.
The room was large, she has to squint her eyes to see the other corner that contains bundles of wires, some tires? furniture (again? ), Some plastic chairs thrown carelessly at another corner.

In the middle of the room, two big bookshelves probably seen in libraries in movies are standing with the end number of books.
Both shelves has name on it – “grandparents” and “sushmita “
She directly went to the second shelve, she touches the name of her mother with her curious fingers and can feel her warmth from the name.

This shelve contains some of her mother’s favorite books, her journals, newspaper cuttings, her photographs from childhood, frames same as her grandparents and so many documents.

So her father was right, it’s a normal documents storage room, she huffs with an annoyed sigh.

“No exciting stuff from this adventure”, she sighed again.

As she was about to leave, something from the shelve fell right into her left toe, wincing with pain she picked it up and it was a thick journal its pages coming off, yellow color everywhere, smells like rotten eggs.

When she opened it, she wishes, she so wishes that she had never opened that journal leaving it out there without looking at that so that her world will not be this destroyed.

The first thing she notices is his father’s passport size photos in the formal attire, some other photos of him in casual wear, his passport which she is not able to recognize because the design and format are way too old.

As she thinks its s normal journal, the next page made her heart stopped.

There was a full picture of her father with a woman that is not her own mother – probably the picture was old, the page was folded at the right, she has no idea what type of cameras exist at that time because she has CLEARLY no idea which time zone is this?

At bottom its written in red letters “TO FOREVER RAJ AND KHYATI “

So the woman name is khyati, khyati mehra as next pages are full of her portraits in black and white too, some of the childhood pictures of her father and this woman joint together by gum or something, love letter containing her father’s handwriting.

She probably knows what she is looking at, her heart knows, that’s why it is beating faster but her mind refuse to accept the reality trying to find some logical explanation about this whole situation except it doesn’t exist.

Her eyes are filled with tears became the images blurry.

Is her father really had an affair behind her mother’s back?

Worst of all, what if he still has that affair since her mother is no more? this thought made the dread pit in her stomach stronger.
She refused to believe all that, her father is the nicest man in the world, may be it was all in the past
Except the next picture was from ooty, both of them styled like 2018 or 19 clothes, in a romantic pose she remember that at that time she had to stay with biya bua as her father had to go ooty for work.
So this was the reality, there is date bottom of the picture 20th February, 2018, this was after her mother died, this was after too many years when her mother died.
Her father is having affair; he is still having affair.
With this though she kneeled down refusing to utter a single word.
Her entire life changed, her childhood was nothing but a lie?
The anxiety panic attack starts shaking her, but she refused to acknowledged, her mind is throwing all type of scenarios in front of her eyes and she just closed her ears with her hands and closed her eyes.
Taking deep breaths doesn’t help much, but she tries to be normal as her medicine are not with her right now.
Then suddenly another thought cross her mind which made her stand with a jerk and shock
What if her father is the one who forced her mother to suicide? she never asks for detail explanation from her father about the suicide.
What if
What if
What if
What if her father is a criminal?
What she will do? she has no one except him.
Before she can think anything
There was a loud knock at the door;

“Shikha, I told you to stay out of there “ his voice was calm.
And she freezes right there!