Previous Adilie Oneshot: Passion & Destruction
https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/5205193
Wrote this randomly... should probably be a fanfic, but I’m sticking to oneshots only. This was meant to be a sequel of sorts to my last oneshot, but reading that isn’t required.
As much as I love slow burns, sometimes happily ever after’s are needed too so here’s my attempt at that. A bit of positivity... A girl can dream, right😳
Happy reading,
Tina
AdiLie OS: Karvachauth
Imlie knows something is not right even before she’s fully awake. Her eyes blink open, the white canopy overhead billowing ever so gently. She smiles for a moment in wonder up at it, marveling that it is hers, that this is all real. That she is in Delhi, far from the dust and clamor of Pagdandiya.
That smile fades though as she recalls what today is. Why the hall outside is noisier than usual for this time of day. It’s Sunday, and she doesn’t have even her college classes to occupy her time with. Swallowing, she forces herself to leave the warmth of the bed, her movements mechanical. She knows she can hide here no longer. Even if she claimed to be ill, the Tripathis would not leave her be. Not even today. They’d all rush to her room, crowding around her. Babusaheb would insist on calling a doctor, growling at her to take better care of herself.
Her heart feels so full when she thinks of them, this family that’s accepted her, but is still not hers, just as he isn’t...
She steels her jaw. Babusaheb, along with the rest of the family, belong to one person—Malini Didi. Try as she might, she cannot bridge the divide that separates her from them. Perhaps she’s destined to be alone, she muses. An outsider even when surrounding by faces, bereft of a father’s love, a husband’s acceptance...
She washes and dresses, plaiting her hair with trembling fingers, telling herself it’s just an ordinary day.
But it’s not.
It’s the early hours of the festival every married woman in Pagdandiya awaits all year long for, a timeless ritual she’s witnessed and scoffed at in the past. Her mother had always watched the proceedings with undisguised longing, tormented by the lingering ghosts of broken hopes, and that too had steeled Imlie’s resolve. She’d vowed to never be like the other women in Pagdandiya, refused to allow her fate to be tied to another’s.
Fate must be laughing at her now.
Her throat feels tight as she reaches for the door knob. She plasters a wide smile on her lips, though there’s nothing much to be done about her eyes. They are tinged with pain, the same terrible agony she once glimpsed in her mother’s eyes now graces hers. Imlie pushes open the bedroom door and all but runs out, walking right into a brick wall.
But it isn’t a wall. It’s moving and warm and smells so good like—
“Be careful,” Babusaheb mutters. His voice is hard, but his touch is the opposite. His hands grasp her shoulders with great care, straightening her. Setting her away from him.
The beautiful woman beside him gives a laugh. “What is your hurry today, Imlie?” Malini Didi asks, amusement glinting her in eyes. “Are you fasting for someone special too?”
Her face pales, her eyes dart toward the one person she should be avoiding today of all days. But she can’t seem to. She feels powerless as she meets his turbulent gaze, and for a moment she thinks she sees her own pain mirrored in those inky depths. She blinks and turns away, but even then she can feel his gaze on her, singeing her with its heat.
She knows what he’s seeing, a village girl, dressed in an unsightly cream-colored salwar kameez, her face drawn, her wrists and neck bare of any adornments.
She wishes she could ignore him. But today, gazing at Malini Didi hurts almost as much as looking his way. She’s wearing a vibrant red-gold saree, the sindoor and black and gold beads on her neck all impossible to overlook. Next to her, Imlie feels little more than a troll.
The woman opposite her has no idea what she’s struggling with. She lays the back of her hand against her forehead. “You’re not sick are you? I’ve never seen you so quiet.”
“I’m fine, Malini Didi,” she lies with a bright, albeit false smile.
Her husband’s wife grins back at her. “You’d better hurry to the kitchen today, there is a lot to prepare.”
She doesn’t need to be told twice, darting away, needing to put space between herself and the man still watching her.
The rest of the day passes slowly with no other awkward run ins with Babusaheb. She tells herself she should be grateful to be spared, but that would be another lie. The growing pit in her stomach, the way her eyes dart up every time she hears footsteps, anticipation making her breath suspend, all prove how she is far from grateful. Disappointed, in fact. She’s grown accustomed to Babusaheb, to sharing a few words with him, smiling with him. Sometimes he’s even made her laugh aloud. A sigh escapes her as she bends and sets the broom in her hand against the corner wall.
“When will this moon arrive?” Malini Didi wonders aloud as she walks into the kitchen.
Behind her is Babusaheb, but he hasn’t noticed her yet. She thinks she senses his restlessness, but it’s gone a second later, hidden behind a smile that doesn’t look quite right.
She will never admit it aloud, but she’s catalogued every one of his smiles. She hadn’t meant to, and if the knowledge is hidden deep inside her, in a place no other will ever know of, it can’t be wrong, can it? Sita Maya knows she’ll never act on what she feels for him. Never. But this small indulgence still leaves her feeling guilty, and yet, there’s no stopping it. His smiles draw her to him every time.
She’s seen his grin when he’s with his family, one filled with love and a bit of exasperation. Then there’s the carefree one when he’s with the children. She’s quite partial to that one. And then there’s the smile she associates with rainfall, laughter and her Shehri Langoor. The memory feels like a secret only the two of them share.
This smile though is wrong. All wrong. It doesn’t light up his eyes, doesn’t make her heart thunder or her palms grow sweaty. This one makes her go still. Because she somehow knows he’s hurting, but why? He’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted, hasn’t he? She presses herself into the corner, wishing she could disappear.
“Moon, just eat something already,” he says gruffly.
“Stop it, Aditya.”
He shrugs. “It can’t be long now. You would think one moon could make a special request to another moon.”
Malini Didi giggles, holding his chin. “That’s unfortunately not how it works, husband.”
The way she touches him so easily makes Imlie ache for some reason. She knows she will never have this. There will be no romance in her life. For a girl who’d feared matrimony, run away from any inkling of love, the knowledge shouldn’t hurt, but it does. Scalds her more than she can say. More than she will ever admit.
She doesn’t move as the two of them leave from the door they’d just entered from. For a moment, she scarcely breathes. And then a single tear slips past her eyes before she can stop it.
The moon glows in the night sky as Malini turns to face him. Aditya tries to smile at her, but fails. Beside him his mother and father, Malini’s parents, his cousins, aunt and uncle are all beginning the karvachauth traditions. It’s his first time standing amidst them. Last year, he hadn’t even bothered to attend.
Time has changed everything. It’s changed him too. He’s known about this festival since he was a boy knee high. He always found it a bit endearing, though he’d never admit it aloud.
Everything is as he always imagined it. His family beside him. The night air balmy and welcoming. The woman opposite him beautiful, her smile as bright as the moon bearing witness high above.
And yet, it is all wrong.
He closes his eyes and he doesn’t see Malini any longer, but her. Only her. Imlie laughs and twirls in his mind’s eye, dressed in scarlet, her hair undone and fluttering in the breeze, her hands adorned with mehndi. Her laughter echoes in his ears as she runs toward him, her face alight with pure happiness, the sindoor at her parting striking him to the quick.
His hands reach out as if to grasp her, touch her, snatch her up and never forsake her. Malini’s fingers squeezes his. He blinks his eyes open, startled.
Malini frowns. “What is it, Aditya?”
He almost says it then. Says that though she is his closest friend, he does not see her as his wife. Hasn’t for quite some time. That though he loves her, he’s not in love with her.
His eyes glisten with regrets, so many regrets. “Malini, I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This. All of this...” He swallows. “I’m sorry, but I have to stop this before it’s too late.”
“Stop what?” Malini is so convinced they’re meant to be, she cannot comprehend his words. They are an impossibility to her and he knows it.
“Stop what, Aditya?”
Stop this farce. End this madness. Finally go to where my heart lies. He opens his mouth to tell her, to beg her forgiveness, but whatever he might have said is cut short.
Malini wavers before him, her hand rising to her temple. “Adity—”
He catches her as she faints, lowers her to the ground as her mother screams her name, as his family members run forward. Imlie is the first one to reach them, her eyes full of the same shards of pain he sees in his own reflection every day.
Much later, Imlie is alone in her room, staring up at the moon. It’s a shadowy, thin sliver. The sight is calming after a day spent in utter turmoil and she opens the window a tad more.
A knock sounds on her bedroom door, startling her, and she feels herself go still. The man who enters watches her carefully as if he fears she’ll run from him.
She should. After tonight, anything else would be a mistake. Instead, she forces herself to face him. “How is Malini Didi now?”
“Better,” Babusaheb says, looking at her intently. “She’s been admitted for observation tonight just to be safe.”
Imlie nods, fidgeting with the end of her dupatta. “I’m glad she’s alright.”
His lips curve in one of his sad half smiles, the ones that hurt the most. “I know you are. You care for her a great deal, don’t you?”
Her head snaps up. “Very much.”
Babusaheb nods. “So much that you hide your every pain, every disappointment to spare her feelings.”
Her mind reels, but she holds firm, something deep within giving her much needed strength. “I can’t hurt her.” Not now. Not ever. But she fears she may already have if the other woman were to ever learn the truth.
“Even if it hurts you every moment of every day? Destroys both you and me?”
Everything in her goes still. “You?”
“Yes, me. Your Babusaheb.”
“I... I don’t what you’re saying. None of this makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense, Imlie.” His gaze narrows on her pale face as if taking inventory of every detail. “You’ve been hurting far worse than Malini all day today, and yet, you never show it. You never crumble. Never ask for anything from me.”
“I never will.”
“You won’t have to,” he counters, drawing closer. “I know what you need. What you want.”
His palm rises between them and as it unfurls, she sees a small metal object. Shiny and filled with sindoor.
Her chest feels tight, her mouth goes dry. “No,” she mutters, shaking her head, “No...”
“Yes,” Babusaheb insists. “You know, every time I’ve applied this on you, I’ve never wanted to. I thought it was all a mistake. A hideous twist of fate. I thought you were a mistake. But you’re not. You’re... you, Imlie. My Jhali. And I can’t run from you any longer.”
Tears spring into her eyes. “You belong to Malini Didi. She’s fasted for you today and you’ve completed every Karvachauth ritual with her.” She turns to flee, but he catches her wrist as he once had in Pagdandiya, dragging her right back against him. Her breath hitches on a sob. Babusaheb is silent for a moment, and then he speaks, his voice a harsh rasp.
“I’ve done nothing with her. I haven’t broken her fast.”
“Because she fainted.”
“Because she’s not my wife.” His eyes are dark and glowing as he leans toward her. “A man only has one wife, Imlie.”
“Our marriage was not... legal. You were forced into it.”
“At the time I was. But I’ve come to accept it. How can it then not be real and binding?”
She shakes her head. “Malini Didi—”
“That wedding was a mistake, it was more about proving something to myself, my need to make my own decisions, but it was still the wrong decision.” He exhales, staring down at her. “I’m going to divorce her.”
She freezes and then struggles in his grasp. “You can’t. You love her.”
“Jhali, I thought I did. But I only care about her. I... I love you.”
Silence ripples in the charged air between them. She can’t look away from him. Can’t seem to draw in her next breath. “You can’t love me, Babusaheb...”
“I do. Very much. Nothing I’ve ever felt comes close to what I feel for you and you alone.”
“No one will accept it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Malini Didi...”
“Will be happier without me. She deserves better. Deserves someone who loves her.”
Tears slide down her face like rainfall. “You can’t love me. It’s wrong!”
He takes her palm and sets it atop his chest. She feels his heartbeat, its uneven cadence. “How can loving you ever be wrong?”
As she watches, her heartbeat matching his, he dips his free hand in the sindoor and smears it on her parting. Babusaheb’s smile is everything she’s ever dreamt of, it’s warm and real and it lights up his entire face.
“You’re my wife, Jhali. I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize it. Here, drink something. I know you haven’t eaten or had any water all day.”
The glass he sets against her lips is smooth and she takes a long sip without realizing it. Her heart keeps insisting this is a dream, a fantasy. He can’t love her. He can’t be hers.
But Babusaheb’s image doesn’t fade. He stands opposite her, watching her with that burning intensity she has grown so accustomed to. “Tomorrow,” he whispers, “will be a hard day. For all of us. Our family will be shocked, they might even say some terrible things. I don’t want to see you hurt by any of it. They may lash out at you, but you must not forget that the only one to blame is me... and fate, perhaps.”
Our family... She brushes the tears from her face, glancing at the moon watching over them. Her hand trembles as she raises the glass of water toward his mouth. She knows he has been fasting too. “It’s not tomorrow yet.”
He observes her in silence as he drinks his fill. His gaze is warm and startling. She wonders if she will ever become used to it. She doesn’t think she will.
Setting the cup down, her husband squeezes her fingers with his. “No, it’s not. We have time yet, Jhali.”
Time... time to gaze at him, marvel at his every word, ponder what it means... For a girl who’s been sure she’d never have a second like this with him, the night that remains is far more than priceless. It‘s more than she’s ever hoped for.
comment:
p_commentcount