Pieces of a Cracked Mirror [An OS series]

Care

This is two weeks after 'Femme Fatale' . I have tweaked the show track in this way that Raghav and Pallavi's association got revealed in the worst possible way by Sulochana. And Vijay Deshmukh threw her out.

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Pallavi still felt the dormant pain lying in her heart shoot up her trembling bones agonizingly as the prior events leading to her current predicament flashed in front of her eyes.

The Deshmukhs.. her apparent family stood like an unforgiving military formation in front of her as heaps of insults and unsavoury comments were hurled at her. She took on the barbs bravely stifling her winces with each of their hurting words which tore into her chest like a barrage of arrows. They were accusing her of sleeping with the owner of their shop. To say she was dismayed would be saying less. Just because some of them (read, Sulochana Deshmukh and her daughters) had seen her laughing with Raghav, they had conjured up a baseless accusation of her having an affair. She had looked around towards her supposed parents for support but all she saw was a heart-breaking repulsion in her Vijay Deshmukh's eyes and a blank look on Sharda's face.

She had hidden her whimper of pain successfully behind the strong defence she threw at them. They had no solid evidences to go with their allegations. They raged more, brought about her real status unforgivingly revealing their true colours soon enough.

"You are Mandaar's widow Pallavi! I expected you to behave like one. I thought you knew how to stay within limits but you turned out to be an utter disgrace! I knew Sharda was giving you too much leeway."

Vijay Deshmukh had thundered making the words dry up in her mouth in shock. This.. this was the man she considered her father? This was the same family for whom she bent backwards to provide for? They didn't wait a second to... To her relief she saw Sharda shut up her husband with a shout. Maybe, her Aai... her mother was the genuine one amongst these vultures. But that relief was hilariously short lived. Sharda did defend her but the words she spoke unravelled the singular greatest mystery of her life. Such a tragic secret which broke her completely.

Sharda raged at her husband that because of his, this behaviour they had lost their son. She revealed how Mandaar had turn half crazy in his obsession for Pallavi, how he used to stalk her and he.. he was the one who had killed Devyaani. Sharda knew all this, all these years and yet didn't see it fit to tell this to her. She spent days mourning the loss of such a monster? Pallavi finally found herself discovering what it truly meant when they said the ground beneath one's feet is taken away. Everyone stood rooted to the spot, shocked and bewildered.

Pallavi found herself begging her father for a chance to prove her innocence. She begged and pleaded yet to no avail. Vijay Deshmukh caught her slim wrist in a vice like grip and dragged her like a rag doll ignoring Sharda, Milind and Nikhil's loud protests and threw her out of the door like a used refill of a pen and slammed it shut on her face screaming at her to never darken his door after this. She curled into herself on lying on the foyer of her so called house feeling every fibre of her frame ache. She couldn't move for a long time. After what had seemed like centuries she had wiped her tears resolutely and had gathered her failing strength to stand.

After that she had found herself wandering the streets of Hyderabad aimlessly and directionless like a vagabond. The still stuck tear tracks on her pale face had frozen like ice shards pricking onto her delicate skin. The moon was illuminating a path for her in front as she kept dragging her protesting feet to a destination unknown.

The Deshmukhs' acerbic words still eating away into her heart like acid. She almost got hit by a car.

She heard him shouting her name from behind. She didn't stop. She didn't want to stop. She heard him calling out to her. There was a different quality to his tone. It sounded hoarse like a clogged pipe filled with a rotting moss. She could taste blood. Maybe it was from the cut on her lower lip which split when she fell face first on the ground. She huffed in controlled mirth thinking how reality breaks your jaw as well as it breaks your heart. He was onto her the next moment.