Married To My Nemesis

CHAPTER 13 - DESTINY MADE YOU MY FRIEND

It felt like I knew him, from a different timeline

"Amartya, I want you to meet a special guest," said Amma. My heart hadn't been beating evenly ever since she told me about the "life partner" she had already chosen for me, but that was my mother and she knew me the best. Yet my intuition warned me against the steps I was trudging towards a man who had his back turned to us. He was dressed in an eerily similar white kurta and dhoti, an attire I had seen before, sometime when I was younger.

"Meet Mr. Reddy."

He turned to us as soon as he heard my mother's voice and my heart collapsed into my stomach. The man smirked at the look on my face. As he joined his hands in a namaste greeting my mother. I stood frozen at my spot as they exchanged words and small talk until he turned his gaze at me while still talking to my mother.

"Sri, you have made such a handsome man out of this boy." He said patting my shoulder making me want to throw up at his touch. Amma gave him a small smile before turning to me, my horror-filled eyes begging her to let me hide under a rock. The evident palpitations caused sweat drops to protrude from the back of my head as the fraught feeling crawled all over my skin as if sucking onto my cells for life.

"Have you broached him about our plans for the wedding?"

The man had the fucking audacity to talk about me to my mother as if I was a kid. What wedding? And even if my mother had decided me to get married, he had no busin-

"Amartya, Gopal, and I have decided for you and his daughter to tie the knot by the end of this year.

How does that sound like my love?"

"How does that sound like my love?"

"How does that sound like my love?"

"How does that sound like my love?"

"How does that sound like my love?"

"How does that sound like my love?"

I untucked a few buttons of my shirt as I struggled to breathe right. I felt asphyxiated under a starlit sky as I watched the two of them then talk to one another like nothing happened. My knees gave up as I fell onto them, reaching out for my mother's hand, as she discussed business and the upcoming wedding with him. The man eyed me as he snickered before he returned his gaze at my mother. I extended my arms for my mother to take notice of, calling for her.

"Amma- amma-" My voice shook with every breath breathed out and every word I uttered, and all my blurry vision could infer from the sight in front of me was that of my mother turning away from me. His eyes traveled down at me as I begged to breathe right, as I slumped into the floor. Thick horns sprouted from the rear of his head as he grew two more heads from either side. His canines grew into longer and sharper ones as they made their way out from his lips. I sunk into the floor, writhing with the pain I felt inside my chest as the man took bold steps towards me.

"Amma-amma-"

I called for her with a frail voice, until no words could be heard from me. I mouthed them, but all that escaped my dry lips was air. He stepped on my fingers, causing them to crack, and yet nobody could hear my screams and cries for help.

"Where have I seen a sight like this before?" he said crouching down at me or letting go of my fingers that he had crushed with his feet.

"'Oh look at me, talking about my favourite memory like I don't think about it with every single breath I take."