Arranged Marriage ✓

Chapter - Fifty.

Darshan.

I gently stroked Nishi’s right cheek. Her fair skin shown brightly when the sun rays fell on her face. She shifted and moved and then finally woke up. I beamed at her when her eyes fell on me. “Morning, Darshan”, she said, slowly. “Good morning,” I said and left her from my arms. She looked at me out of confusion but then jerked her head as if she shook off something of her mind.

I went in the kitchen and wondered about the things I told Hardil, last night. Stirring sugar in the boiled milk I asked myself, why did I push her away like that? I sighed and told myself– nah, whispered – ‘You are a lovestruck man now, Darshan Raval. Completely. But cherry on top is, the one you’re in love with, is unaware’. And then Nishita walked in, wiping her damp hair.

“Hey,” she greeted. “You had a bath?”, I asked. “Mmph,” she said, sipping her coffee. So early? “Why?” she asked. ‘Just askin’, I could hop in, too’, I thought. “Hello?”, Nishita snapped her fingers. “Oh, um, no, I mean, it— you usually take a long time to bath, you know but you are way too quicker than usual, you know?”, I explained, ‘phew!’.

She nodded, taking another sip and then she came to her main point, “You remember the things I told you, last night?”. I looked bluntly at her. “You know, about Anita”, she said. Oh. “Yeah um, the arrestation and police case thing, no?”, I said. She nodded. I nodded too and sipped my coffee that turned almost cold.

“Still wanna do it?”, I asked. She looked at me, totally surprised, “What do you mean?”. “I mean, we’ll do your parents’ last rites today and accidents happen, you know. People make mistakes. I agree it was Anita’s mistake and we’ll make sure that she doesn’t repeat her actions, so we won’t have to file no case against her.” I said. Her eyes had teared up.

“Did you talk to her?”, she asked. “Huh?”, I said, how did she— how did she know? “Did you talk to Anita? You know from your words, it doesn’t look like it’s you who is saying these, Darshan,” she said and stormed out of the kitchen. I saw her body bounce as she ran away, out of my sight, crying. I hurt her. I don’t deserve her.

I ran after her but she shut down the door on my face. Ouch. “Nishita! Nishita, open the door!”, I snapped my fists on the door. Nishita’s back bumped with the door and she whimpered in pain. Oh fuck! “Nishita, will you open the door, or not?!”, I yelled. “Stop yelling like you own me! You don’t. Get the hell out of here!”, she yelled back. The fuck?

“Nishita Mehta, in case you have forgotten, allow me to do the honour to remind you that I married you! This is my house where you live in! Do you understand? And I do not own you, but you are my wife! Mine!”, I raged out. Nishita pushed the door open and said, “Divorce me, then”. And at that moment, it felt like someone had pushed me off a cliff. “Wha?”, I asked. “Give me divorce. Let’s separate ways. I don’t wanna live with you anymore. My parents are dead, Anita is gonna go rot in the jail, our marriage which was, basically, a deal breaks here, monsieur”, she simply stated.

Her eyes were red and my mouth was hanging wide open. I had never expected this. “Divorce is a long time process, let’s part our ways for now and apply for divorce sometime later.” I gulped. She nodded. “I still want to know what Anita told you,” she said, “Care to say?”. “Last night after you dozzed off, she called me. She already knew about you wanting to file a case against her. I told her nothing but she said why she shouldn’t be arrested, that's all”, I said. Nishita nodded. “I want justice. That’s all. A culprit should get punished” she said.

I nodded and simply went to the bathroom.

*

Later on, the whole day was very emotional. Nishita and Nishtha cried their eyeballs out while performing their parents’ last rites and that was very normal. I and Nishita came back home doing all the rituals at about 20: 35 at night and she went to our— her and mine shared bedroom and I went to the studio, parting our ways.

[Author’s note: Hello! All the courtroom drama starts from the next chapter! 👀 But wait, what happened but Nishi and Darsh? Oh my God, I think they’ll never tell each other, how much they love one another! 👀]