(the evening of the wedding...)
Chameli was truly done. She had died a hero's death, Anika thought. Chameli had not given out until she was out of the floral decked mansion, away from the driveway hung with fairy lights. Chameli was a true friend, a loyal friend to a girl who had very few of those in her life. The slipper had not torn into two until she had gotten Anika away from the wedding festivities. Chameli had been on her last moments all day, but the brave slipper had not ripped until her mistress was on the road leading to her own home, a good few miles away from the fancy cars and loud music, the shimmering chandeliers and the glittering guests of Shivay Singh Oberioi's wedding. Anika picked up the red slipper, as she stumbled to the side of the road. Her eyes had been watering all day, but she had managed to suppress it, mostly.
All in all, it had been a good day. She sniffed valiantly now, nodding her head fiercely even though there was no one to see her gather her strength, gather herself. She had been quite good, given everything. Billu-ji of course had tried to make this, her last day with him, an absolute hell of earth. How would he manage from tomorrow? she thought. When she was not there? And the day after? Who would handle the man, his anger, his insanity, his demands, and his temper tantrums? Who would give him back word for word, stand up to that ego? Who would cherish the laughter and mischief, the kind heart that was hidden deep beneath those eyes of chipped ice? Someone else, of course, she told herself, her inner voice for once, oddly strangled ... she even knew who ----the newly minted Tia Singh Oberoi would be in charge. She was going to have to do all that, if not for herself, then at least for him. Stop him from becoming a ruthless caricature, a creature of stone. She would have to be his.. Anika.
Anika felt boneless right now. She shook herself, tossing her hair back, taking the final few steps away from the road and over to the side, where a single lamppost stood as the sentinel of light against the black night sky. In the distance, the fireworks display she had spent weeks planning burst into the indigo sky, streaks of light from the Oberoi Mansion piercing the velvet darkness. The effect was magical, as she had predicted it would be. But right now Anika could not even turn her head to look at the fruit of her labor, her head slumped wearily back, against the pole. Clearly she had been working too hard. She sank down underneath the lamp-post, still holding her torn shoe in her hand. She nestled against the pole. She was getting utterly dirty, and what would he say to her if he saw her now? "Look at you, you crazy fool." he would say. "You are the very filth of the street, literally."
Anika shrugged, uncaring. She was never seeing him again, after all. The cheque for her job was safely inside Chikni, and she was determined to cash it first thing tomorrow, and get herself and Sahil the hell out of this city. She would get them away, go somewhere where she could get Sahil's treatment started, with the generous bonus Dadi had tucked into her hand. Maybe she would enroll herself in night classes, finish the college degree that Sahil's parents' death had interrupted. After having lived with the Oberois for all these months, Anika had realized the importance of an education more than she ever had before. She was self respecting, but not stupid, no matter how many times he questioned her brains, her intelligence. She knew it. Logic. She would take English classes too, she decided, she would learn ALL the words there were in the English language, even more than the ones he knew, and she would use them too, when she wanted to. She could get herself started on the path to improving herself and Sahil, forgetting these past few months of hell.
She blinked, her eyes smarting with the gathering tears, her throat closing, her heart clenched like a fist inside her chest--her own body betraying her even as her mind fought on, still valiant. She had survived. She told herself this, even as she felt the storm break inside her. She had survived his taunts, hatred and attempts to break her, with her dignity, if not her heart, intact. These past few days had been filled with his provocations. It had been an exercise in her ability to tolerate, to stand tall while he tried to break her, force her to her knees.
Anika closed her eyes, her eyelids heavy. "It's nothing," she told herself, even as she felt herself break down, her eyes welling with salt tears. Still, she told herself it was just being sleepy from staying awake last night. She had stayed overnight. There had been so much to do. The mandaap was not done, and a thousand details she had to fix had kept her back at the Mansion. Dadi-ji had looked at her with a peculiar expression, and told her to stay. He had just stared at her across the dinner table, his jaw working, as his family glanced at them both, no one breaking the charged silence, not even Rudra.
She had worked feverishly until past midnight, trying to forget everything, trying to forget the other woman who would sit with him on this wedding dais that she was carefully daubing with real gold leaf and crystal strands. Finally, she had gone to her room, exhausted, but of course, her night was not done. He had come to her room, drunk after Rudra's "Bachelor Party," and she had felt her body singe with the flame of his eyes wherever his glance rested.
He had brought "Ms Anika No Last Name" his sherwani... Shivaay had slurred, his lean body propped up against her door. Omkara had been with him, holding up one arm, or Anika would have shut the door right in his perfect face. Om had watched his brother, and then her, his eyes flitting from her stoic face to Shivaay's sneering one, Om's expressive eyes saying everything his voice did not utter.
"Here it is" Shivaay had said, shaking the garment on its hanger, the sleek navy velvet and silver work catching the room's dim light. It was the wedding outfit that she had picked for him. He would wear it for her, tonight, he said, laughing harshly at some joke only he was privy to. Omkara had protested, softly. "No," Shivaay had stated, staring at her, the smirk still twisting his smile into something ugly. "No-- Ms Anika No Last Name will see me in it, so she can admire it, and change the simple buttons into ones more fitting an Oberoi." She had stared at him, at the cruelty on his face. Shivaay went on-- It was a huge amount he was paying her--- this was a little extra work for an employee. She didn't mind, did she?
Diamond buttons had tumbled from his hands, glittering onto the floor. "Just one of those stone buttons can feed someone like you for a month," Shivaay had slurred, staring into her blank eyes, trying to see into a soul she had hidden behind a wall of silence. Omkara had shifted then, blocking her from his brother, and Shivaay had shrugged into the sherwani, turning to her with the garment hanging off his body. She would have to fix those buttons up for him, he had said, his eyes mocking. Tia would be taking them off his body on his wedding night, but he wanted Anika to put them on him now.
Silently, she had let him talk, her weak heart aching as she took him in, the tousled hair, the eyes glittering more than the diamond encrusted buttons he carelessly dropped all over her room. She, who had never knelt before her fate now fell to her knees before him. One by one, she had sewed on the buttons, her eyes held in a vice like grip by his mocking, hatred filled gaze.
Omkara had left, muttering to himself. She had stayed on her knees, greedily gulping the air that was scented with his expensive cologne. When she finally stumbled to her feet she was lightheaded from tiredness, from fighting so many things, so many people, including, most of all, herself. His hands had dug into her arms as he lifted her close to him, his face inches from her.
His voice had been hoarse as he had asked her, "Why?"
One question, to which she had no answer. What was he asking, anyway? Why, what? Why was she Ms. Anika No Last Name? Why did she have to meet him? Why had she not fought for him? She, the eternal fighter, why had she not fought him, fought his beliefs, so they could have something? Why had he not fought for her? Why was fate this way, making them equals in every way that did not matter, while making them worlds apart in every way that did? Why did they feel this heat, this dangerous pull,when neither of them wanted or needed the other? Why she had handed him over, gift wrapped, to a woman who was so much lesser than her in every way but blood? Why was her blood so unknown, so badly tainted? Why was his own blood as blue as his eyes, as pure as his lineage? Why was she not breaking before him? She had not said anything, not answered him, and Omkara had returned with Rudra, who had then taken their drunk brother to his bed, leaving Anika to his unanswered question reverberating in the empty room. "Why?"
The whole of this day had continued with the questions, the taunts-- this morning, and the whole day, he had showed up wherever she was, interrupting her work with his questions. She had chosen silence, for the first time in her life. All day, he had demanded that she answer him--- Why? Why were her eyes red? Why was she silent? Why would she not speak to him? Why was she not wearing the new clothes Dadi and Priyanka had chosen for her? How dare she show up for his wedding day dressed in her old jeans and tattered shoes? Low class stuff did not fit the evening's theme, he had taunted. Her appearance was an insult, he had sneered, even as she struggled to control herself and to leave him to the future he had chosen, the one he had been born to choose.
She had held it together. She shook herself from the memories of just a few hours ago. The day was behind her, now, the day was over. Pinky Aunty's piercing, knowing questions, Dadi-ji hugging her tightly whenever she saw her running around with last minute details. She had survived Priyanka's and Soumya's well meaning attempts to make her sit down and eat something, avoided Rudra's childlike demands and Omkara's silent stare.
In a day crested with pain, just a few moments had gotten to her to brake her resolve.
When she had seen him smiling at the top of the stairs, dressed like the royal he was, the aristocrat in the inky blue sherwani, the icy silver of the embroidery a perfect match for his crystal eyes. She had needed a moment for herself then. The way his eyes had locked into hers, as she stood apart, as his mother did his aarti, one perfect brow arched in a silent challenge she could not interpret--- she had needed to go to the garden to check on the lights then. And later, the sounds of the shehnai, the arrival of Tia's bridal party, when he had grabbed her hand, and tucked her cheque into her fist, whispering that she was no longer needed, that she was done, she could leave the house, with his thanks---she had needed to...
But even then Anika had handled herself, only needing a few minutes in her office room to beat back the tears before she headed back out to do her job and get him married. She had settled Tia next to him, settled his chosen bride into the mandaap she had decorated with her own hands. She had done that final task, and left the Mansion, and Chameli had helped her to take those steps out the door without faltering, stumbling, looking back at the man sitting on the wedding dais, staring at her as she walked away.
But now, she thought, as she began to cry in earnest, now she didn't have to hold on anymore. Now, before she got home to Sahil, where she would have to put on her strength again---she had now.
Her breath escaping in panting gulps, her choking sobs rising from her throat, no longer held back by sheer willpower, sheer strength. Chameli had not let her down. Chameli understood the value of self respect, of control, of keeping up a show of strength until Anika was alone, alone at a place where she could be herself. All day she couldn't have given in to the howling pain that prevented her from taking a deep breath. She could not allow herself to feel emotions she had no right to feel and still look at herself in the mirror with any pride. She could not allow herself to feel these in front of others, in front of him. But now?
So she sat now, her body shaking with the force of her pain, her trembling arms wrapped round herself, trying to hold in a loss that seemed bigger than what her heart could contain. Never in public, only in the privacy of the night that was around her now. So now she could... shatter, without anyone knowing about her weakness, her one point of weakness. Anika sat under the flickering light of the roadside lamp, wiping her streaming eyes as she tried to focus on the beleaguered, tattered shoe in her hand.
The wire she had wrapped around the shoe fluttered to the ground. Slowly, as the pain swallowed her, at the loss of a love she had no right to, that was more like a poison than the elixr the story books promised-- as that love bit her heart and bled through her soul, Anika cried. Finally, weeks of torment, of longing poured out of her, the despair of a girl longing for a man who was as unattainable to her as the moon in the sky. The silent night and the torn slipper bore mute witness to the shattered young girl sitting huddled in the dirt, her proud, ravaged heart shattered before a loss too big to be borne.
In the distance, above the marble mansion she had left behind her forever, the last of the fireworks flamed into the night sky, and collapsed, showering sparks onto the guests below.
The wedding was over.
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CHAPTER TWO: RUDRA/SOUMYA
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(The night before the wedding..)
When the pain came, Rudra found himself walking up the stairs, heading
like a homing pigeon to the person who was haunting-- like a malevolent ghost--
the one room in this Mansion that he knew. And why
not? He would have to be allowed in there, into his own bedroom, tonight. Of all
nights, tonight, he had put up with a lot, and come face to face with emotions that
he was too sheltered to fully understand. Emotionally he admitted that he was what she, that Soumya, that motu ghost, that horrible girl always called
him-- stunted, stupid, shallow. Okay. He was all that. He would give her all
that. He didn't understand love, in any form but the fraternal version he felt
for his brothers.
But what he did know, what he had an intimate relationship with was pain. And it was a feral, deadly pain of loss, that he now recognized shining in his brother's icy blue eyes.
Soumya, Somu, Sumo wrestler. Whatever he called her --he knew she would call him a coward. Okay. He was one, but what
would she have done? Huh? In his place, if her own brother, the dead one ... sorry ... if
that long gone Bhaiya had shown her the hollowed out heart inside him?
She would have run too, ok?? And when the enormity of what was happening to Shivaay was
finally clear to him through his drunken rambling tonight, Rudra had
simply run from the room, too.
Leaving O behind with Shivaay, where O was still trying to
soothe a half delirious, drunk Shivaay, Rudra had instead headed, at a dead
run, to HER. And to this room she had stolen. To both, really. It was his own bedroom
after all, no matter what she---a vicious, mean, over-read,
over-confident, over the top girl did to the comfortable
mess he created in here. It was his room, and for once, for tonight,
she would have to let him have this. She would have to let him stay here, and stay with him too,
actually. He wasn't going to throw her out. He didn't want to be alone,
tonight.
There. He was saying it, and out loud too. He had no reason
not to tell her this. Not like he was interested in her, God forbid. Not like
THAT. Come on. Standards. But still, she could stay with him tonight, they
could...share. Like that one time before, when she had protected Shivaay, with
that dhaaga. Well, tonight, she would tell him, Rudra, if she could do it
again. Protect Shivaay, that is. Not for Rudra, she would do nothing for Rudra,
he knew this. They had an old and honored relationship of hatred and enmity
between them. They both took that relationship seriously. Rudra hated her, and
she of course, naturally hated him. But he trusted her brains, the over-read,
over-fat monster that she was, and her loyalty to Shivaay. Could she...help? Because
if she could---Rudra would beg her to help. No, he was begging her to help.
Shivaay--what he was facing, was no less than a life or death fight. So---please. Help.
He was losing his brother, like she had lost his. Rudra knew
this without a doubt. Oh, Shivaay would be alive, and living with them, and
around, and all that. But he would not be--Shivaay ever again, after tomorrow. Dead,
inside, so not really Shivaay bhaiya, right? Tonight he had finally
understood what Om had been desperately trying to explain to him for the past
month. Without Anika, and tied to that goddamn Lady Baba, the Shivaay he loved, Shivaay with his twinkling eyes and laughter, the Bhai with the irritating orders and overwhelming love for them all--- that Shivaay would cease to
exist. He was losing his brother and there was nothing he could do, and she
would understand this, if nothing else. So tonight, she was going to have to deal
with him, Cry Baby Oberoi. Whatever.
He trembled with the need for comfort, and Omkara was not
there, he had things to do, and as for Shivvaay ... Rudra shuddered. Shivaay
was --lost-- to them right now. And since she knew everything, Sumo, this irritating know-it-all. Talkative interfering,
showing-up-everywhere-where-she-was-not-wanted she-devil, she would have to
help him, too. Bhaiya, she called Shivaay, right? Bade Bhaiya? Well, then, she
would have to prove it tonight, then.
As soon as Soumya opened the bedroom door in response to his banging, Rudra burst
into her room and told her all this. Panting out his words in a stream that bubbled out of him,
Soumya could only stagger back and hold him as he launched himself into her
arms. Rudra, comically contorted around her as he hugged her tightly into his
hard body poured all this out to his sworn enemy. And his sworn enemy--- well,
she calmly stroked his hair as his choked sobs stuttered to a stop, and told
him.. she would help. Of course she would, Dumb Singh Oberoi that he was, was at
least right about this. She knew everything, of course she did. She knew it all for weeks, knew it well before him, too. But she could only do something if he
would stop strangling her to death and TELL her what the hell had happened at 2
in the morning, this night, the night before Bade Bhaiya's wedding.
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Chapter Three: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/4699527?pn=2
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FULL STORY INDEX:
CHAPTER ONE ---- (Above)
CHAPTER TWO (Above)
CHAPTER THREE-- Page 2
CHAPTER FOUR-- Page 6
CHAPTER FIVE-- Page 9
CHAPTER SIX-- Page 12
CHAPTER SEVEN - Page 16
CHAPTER EIGHT - Page 21
CHAPTER NINE - Page 25
CHAPTER TEN - Page 34
CHAPTER ELEVEN Page 39
CHAPTER TWELVE Page 43
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Page 50
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Edited by napstermonster - 6 years ago
