You and I

Chapter 2

His head was throbbing painfully and even the faint whisper of his footsteps on the carpeted floor made him hiss in pain.

But Dharam managed to stumble back to his bedroom, his head and heart on fire, his body aching everywhere after having spent the night crouched down on the bathroom floor and crying himself to sleep.

His eyes were swollen, and his head hurt whenever he moved. But all these physical aches were nothing compared to how his heart was burning.

He'd spent six years with his wife - six years of loving her, caring for her, looking after her. Six years of living in a bubble?

It wasn't the fact that she had lied to him about never having been in love, or never having been in a relationship before - he wouldn't have had any issue even if she had told him that she had had a boyfriend before. It was the fact that she had a psychotic mind - where she hadn't even batter her eyes before trying to get her whole family killed. 

How had he never seen this side to her?

He slumped down on his bed, and his eyes fell on the large portrait on the wall behind the bed - of himself and Gayathri from their wedding. Actually, it was the precise moment when her applied vermilion to her hair partitioning, the holy fire burning in front of them.

He had always loved that picture. It was a candid one, with both of them gazing deep into one another's eyes, a shy smile on both their lips, the veil drawn back on her head so that he could apply vermilion on her hair partition.

A beautiful smile was playing on her pretty face as she'd held his gaze.

It was the precise moment when Dharam had vowed to keep that smile on her face for the rest of his life - the rest of their lives together!

All this was just six years ago! And now... And now she was away from him, probably forever! 

She did look so naive and innocent in that picture though, a part of him still couldn't believe whatever had elapsed the previous day. But he knew it was true.

His wife Gayathri had gotten two people murdered ten years ago. She had also committed fraud in her grandfather's company, not to mention the fact that she'd hired contract killers to abolish her own family! 

Nikhil had shown him proof for it all! Rohan Kapoor's private investigator had dug out a whole pile of information, half of which didn't even make sense to Dharam!

But he had seen a file named Reyansh amongst the mountain of files that had been lying on Nikhil's desk the previous afternoon when he had explained it all to him. 

Rohan had said that this Reyansh was her first love - apparently her only love.

Dharam hadn't had the guts to see that file - he hadn't wanted to torment himself with any more information about Gayathri's past!

As he looked up, his eyes fell on the sweet smile playing on his wife's face in the picture above the headboard.

His head throbbed and his heart burned more than ever.

He closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his face as he recalled the first time he'd met her.

***Flashback starts***

"It's all going to be okay" Dharam murmured as he gazed at his reflection.

"Talk to her properly. She's just a girl, not a wild animal to eat you alive. You can do this" he nodded to himself, flattening his curly hair.

But the curls just sprang back to their original state, making him look like he's not combed his hair!

He glared at his reflection in the rear-view mirror of the car and poured to himself. Why couldn't his hair sit properly for once?