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He wasn't looking at the door, he wasn't! Was it so wrong that he wanted to pace the floor of his own foyer? Abhi glanced at his watch in frustration. It had been an hour since Aakash had called the Aroras and still there was no sign of that Chashmish. Why was he expecting anything from her anyway? Why would a liar, gold digger and all-around cunning woman care enough to run across Mumbai in the rain for the sake of the grandmother-in-law from her farce of a marriage? Especially after she had been so unceremoniously insulted? Even if she deserved it! But the venom in his mind towards Pragya had diluted slightly. Try as he might, he couldn't forget the sight of her as she had left his house. A walking corpse; that was what she had looked like. And as much as he tried to label her agonized sobs as her best performance, the (admittedly small) rational part of his brain urged him that not even a trained actress could fake that broken look in Pragya's eyes. And as much as he tried to resist it, tendrils of guilt closed around his heart, as they always did.
Suddenly, Abhi was jolted out of his reverie by the harsh trilling of the doorbell. Unthinkingly, he darted further into the house and up the stairs. For some reason he wanted height on his sight when he first caught sight of her.
The door opened and she walked in but Abhi could only see the top of her head and the edges of her flowing anarkali (muted mauve this time). She was closely flanked by Bulbul, Purab and Aakash (that traitor!) who moved in tandem with her as her shield. Was she really that cowardly and aware of her guilt that she needed bodyguards to step into her sasuraal? As they moved to the stairs, he finally caught a glimpse of her face. In the three days since she had left he had thought of her almost constantly, alternating between anger, hurt and reluctant sorrow but it was a relief to see her face again. She looked gaunt and withdrawn, shadows as dark as bruises underneath her eyes. But she was here, and Abhi felt the unease that had settled heavily on his shoulders lift a tiny bit. She finally looked up and held his gaze for a moment, before sliding it down as though she had seen nothing of more consequence than wall clock. That stung. Her eyes he noticed, still looked dead, but they had lost the hunted look they had carried in recent days. Again that twinge of guilt caught him, only to increase when he saw the trio of Aliya, Tanu and Mitali bhabhi reach the foot of the stairs. From this vantage point they really did look like lions trying to have fun with their prey.
"Well, well, well, look who we have here. Couldn't stay away from the luxury very long, could you?" Tanu taunted.
"Better than you at least. You couldn't even bring yourself to leave at all." Woah! Where had that side of Chasmish come from? She hadn't been like that in weeks!
"How dare you come in here and - " Tanu started but Pragya and her "bodyguards", as Abhi had termed them, just brushed past her and continued up the stairs.
Although he hadn't taken his eyes off her since she had entered, Abhi was still not prepared for the full force of her gaze as her eyes met his. "Where is she?" she asked simply, without any of the emotion that usually coloured her voice. All Abhi could in his flustered state was wordlessly point to the bedroom but before he could gather his wits, Pragya had hurried past him into the room and shut the door in his face.
She had thought that she was all cried out, especially when she had managed to move past Abhi without flinching but seeing daadi lying on that massive bed, so frail yet her eyes so full of love, set Pragya off again. "Daadi!" She cried, diving into the older woman's waiting arms.
"Kaisi hai tu, meri Pragya?" [How are you, my child?]
"Dadi, muhje aapse yeh poochna chahiye. Please muhje maaj kijiye daadi - sirf meri vaje se aap aaj is halat mein hai. Muhje maaf karna daadi." [Dadi, I should be asking you that. Please forgive me daadi - I am the sole reason for you being in this condition. Please forgive me daadi]
"Pragya..."
"And I know how that wretched MMS looks but please believe me, I never, did anything wrong! I was - "
"Pragya," daadi interrupted, "I never asked you for an explanation." Pragya looked up in surprise. "I know that you of all people can never do such a thing." At her daadi's kindness, Pragya's sobbing intensified. Daadi laid a hand on Pragya's trembling head, the poor girl looked so broken.
"Thank you daadi. But you know, it's not the numerous allegations of being characterless that hurt me the most. It's that...he doesn't believe me at all. Won't even give me a chance to explain." At that moment, safe in daadi's embrace, Pragya was almost tempted to blurt out the rest of her thought process - that staying in his household, in this marriage was looking like a futile endeavour. She wanted to lament that her belief that her husband had, if not love, at least a little respect and trust for her was a delusion, that her husband was never, ever going to see any good in her.
However, she stopped herself. For all his faults, Abhi had always been honest with her about their marriage. He had blurted out the reason for their marriage on the second day itself and even more recently, when Tanu had proposed marriage, Abhi had told her first. Out of the respect she somehow still had for Abhi, she wanted to tell him about her decision regarding their marriage before she told anyone else, even daadi.
So Pragya took her leave of daadi, promising to be there when she woke up. She opened the door to daadi's room and stumbled back as Abhi almost crashed into her. Steeling herself, she said, "I need to talk to you."
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