Guilty Pleasures

29

"She has moments of weakness where she starts to believe for a moment that she needs someone to save her but then she smiles when she remembers she is the heroine of her story and that she must rise from the ashes she was left in once more..."

She had watched him retreat after claiming his victory, his stance not betraying an ounce of regret or guilt for the mess that he had effortlessly created, and she had foolishly wanted to give her heart to this man; for him to hold. And unknowingly she had; forced to watch as he broke it further.

She wanted to shout at herself; for giving too much away, because whilst she knew he was boundless, he maintained a boundary in relationships; and he had affirmed her true place.

A sob had escaped her lips; not for the oncoming storm that was bound erupt within the Deshmukh house but rather for the storm that had left.

She stood, with her composure wavering; she rushed over to her father to try and attempt to salvage the situation.

"Baba please listen to me. He didn't give me that shop for free or from anytime we have spent together. We had an agreement that I would pay 12 instalments of EMI, I had taken the papers to the lawyer in order to get his original contract revised with the new terms."

Her voice was coming out fragmented as she moved slightly to grab for the papers that had been thrown to the floor.

"Please Baba trust me."

"Trust you!" Sulochana launched fourth like a snake in corner, ready to infiltrate her poison.

"We should trust you!! Do you have any idea of what that word actually means. There has been so much drama in front of so many people and here you are sitting with the hope that we will trust you? Why? It's not like you're really apart of this family. Everything that has gone wrong, Raghav Rao was right; it's because of you. You are responsible for Mansi's wedding breaking, and the rest of you were in such a hurry to believe that Amrutha had done wrong during the abortion and now what that same shoe does not fit on this characterless woman."

"Sulochana!" Her mother launched forth only to be stopped by the booming voice of her father. Her mother's words and feet had simultaneously halted.

"Did what that man say hold any truth?" He demanded. "Have you been showing me fake accounts for the past two years?"

"When Mandaar died and you had a heart attack, no one was there to take up the burden of the shop. Jagdish Anna was constantly bothering me for the rent payments to the point he was talking about taking back the shop completely. I didn't have the money and so I took out a loan to start to pay things off, and then everything else seemed to fall to my shoulders, the EMI, the house rent, the cost of food and drink, all the other bills of electric and water all began to rise that everything got too hard to handle, I had started working other jobs on the side whilst also running that shop to make sure we stayed afloat. Everything was supposed to be okay now."  She emoted, her voice being raw with her emotions.

"We are slowly slowly coming into profit. The photogram, the online magazines, the new, fresher looking designs are all contributing to pulling us out of debt."

Her father shot up.

"Just answer what I ask. I don't want to hear anything else."

Her lips welled shut, yet she couldn't help the ache in her heart, nor the way her mind was screaming.

She had a right to plead her case; she wanted to shout, but the iciness of her fathers voice cut through the shards of her mind.

"Have you been showing me fake accounts!" He boomed.