The child sat between them through all the ceremonies. Payal would often look under the fall of her ghoonghat that covered the length of her face and sneak a look at her. At those times she gave her a small smile, moved by her innocent curiosity, notwithstanding the heaviness she felt then.
When it was time to exchange their garlands, she dreaded raising her eyes to him, but the instant she saw he was no different than the adolescent she'd known all her teen years, she faintly felt a relief ripple inside her, noticing the familiar crinkle that was only more pronounced now, at his eyes. He had frown lines too around his lips and a day old stubble that made him seem older than he really was. He was still the same Yash in appearance without that eagerly welcoming smile he always greeted her with.
When the phere ceremony came up next after he'd tied the mangalsutra, she stood up on her own accord, as if she was safe in the knowledge that it was only her body that was being tied to him in those rituals. As though her soul had flown some place else until that night's show would be over. He hooked his little finger with hers and as they circled the fire, a sharp pain pressed against her chest with every step. Lord! There was no way she would remain true to any of those vows and now, their vow of friendship was smudged from the new ones that were being thrust on it.
As expected, she didn't cry much in the bidaai and perhaps the little of the tears that did come, only did so from the act of treason that their marriage felt like.
If she'd anticipated any privacy in their ride together to his place, she'd been wrong about it. Payal and his little brother, Prateik, had taken the front seat with Prateik showing as much enthusiasm for all that Yash seemed to lack.
Once they arrived at her new home, the women took over with their constant chatter, with their unaccounted for lectures on her new responsibilities. On her new role as Payal's mother. What annoyed her more was that it didn't bother her as much as it did when they talked about her place in Yash's life - as the wife who had to fill-in for the shortcomings that Arpita's passing away had left him with. If their drawl and cadence in tone was to be read right, they could not have hinted more at her duty to be a partner in bed than at being a companion to share his life. Dream on, ladies! She wanted to yell back at them, but it was just their luck when Vidhi came in to take her to her bedroom.
Oh! shit...It got worse for her when it was beginning to feel like sin even to imagine spending a night inside the same room as he would be. And, as she sat in the middle of the bed taking in the flowers, the candles that flickered in the night breeze and the dimness of the room that replaced the earlier bright lights, she finally tasted the nausea in her throat that she'd been evading all evening.
After she washed her mouth, she intended to go out in the lookout for her toiletries that she'd packed along with her clothes in three large suitcases, but right after she stepped out of the bathroom, she felt the sensations of a dull ache spread in her lower belly. Her feet faltered, and she steadied her footing against the nearby wall. One hand flew to her stomach and she closed her eyes, scrunching them shut as the tightness emanated all around her hips.
"Aah!..." A low sigh escaped her lips and she heard movement in the room shortly after. Oh! Lord...Not now; not him; she found herself pleading, wanting to save face.
"Are you ok?" Before the spasms would fade, she found him standing by her side and even as she was about to answer, he took her palm that was drawing support from the wall into his hand.
"Yeah..." She spoke with much difficulty "these are just..."
"Stress cramps" He finished it for her with a knowing smile and her head flipped up in surprise ignoring the discomfort that was about to topple her down to the floor, any minute. "I see that somethings have not changed over years despite the obvious..."
She didn't bother asking him what they were and instead complied with his offer to help her to the bed. He left her alone for a few minutes and then came back with a glass of warm water with both sugar and salt mixed in. That moment, she felt a growing sense of gratitude for old friends who exactly remembered what she needed then.
Once again, she let him help her sit upright and he handed her the glass, seating himself next to her, by the edge of the bed.
"You have changed too..." She said taking a sip from the glass and feeling the warmth soothe her pain down, "You no longer look like a blanched chicken...The stubble suits you. I say, keep it..."
"Why, thank you miss" He had a smile on, amused, perhaps, from the chicken comparison she'd made, "Who is not so bad herself after the extra pounds she has put on in the last six years. The gaunt, size zero figure is not for you"
"I'm not so sure it was a compliment for me to thank you" She stopped drinking from the glass and looked at him from under her lashes.
"There goes that stupid habit of over analyzing everything..." He said and got up to fetch a change of clothes for the night. It was also then she saw that he'd filled out well over the years, making the brown-gold sherwani hang off his broad shoulders.
"Trust me...I don't anymore" She placed the glass on the bedside table and raised her voice a bit to be heard despite the stretch of the hallway, "If I had, I wouldn't be sitting on your bed now..."
"You don't have to see it as my bed...I can sleep in Payal's room and then this becomes your bed..." He came out readily mocking as he had his arms raised over his head to don a white kurta over his vest, "Or you can shift to the guest room, if that is more preferred..."
"For how long?" She slid over the pillow and lay down facing the wall. When the mattress went low at the other end, it told her that he wasn't as far as she would have liked.
"What do you mean how long?" Now, he was fully stretched beside her.
"All these arrangements and keeping up appearances...how long would we have to do that?" She said and the bleak of the black that she was staring at did a fine job of keeping the tremors from cracking her voice, "What happens after that? I'm not so sure if the other women at your home would like it if you are going to be anymore sex starved than you have already been till date..."
He only began speaking after a few seconds of deliberation and that confirmed he hadn't altered that part of him either. Anger never did get the better of him.
"I agreed to the wedding so that Payal could grow up in the maternal shadows of a woman. And when that woman is my best friend, I couldn't let it pass, knowing well that you would never put anything of mine in harm's way. Assured, that you wouldn't be vicious or selfish when it came to step-children"
"My libido was never the question here..." His tone rose from an understood ire, at her offensive innuendo, "I thought you had already considered it all when you sent the proposal through your parents to mine"
"Wait..." She turned around in bed, her forehead puckered up in a mix of doubt and a mild disgust, "What do you mean I sent the proposal? It was you who had no shame or had any respect for the tenets of our friendship and proposed marriage to me"
He'd been gazing at the roof with his one arm tucked under his head, but as she accused him of an assumed betrayal, he raised himself on his elbow and ran a hand through his hair, raking them as his eyes shifted slow towards her from a dawning cognizance.
"Shit!...they played us..." He grabbed her hand that was closest to him, an alarm pricking his eyes, "It wasn't me either, Rithi"
