Arranged Marriage to Kill Him

Chapter 6 : Another Love Affair Part Two

"When are you going to kill him?" Ohas asked, furiously pacing back and forth on the road. "You need to get rid of him soon."

Naina jumped down from the embankment, crying out, "He's dirt poor, Ohas. I was tricked! I had to pay for the meal that we had at the restaurant! Besides, he's not the old man that I was supposed to marry."

"What?" He stopped short, his cat eyes boring into her. Naina always found those eyes chilling, it made a shudder run down her spine like a cold wind on a silent night when he stared at her like that.  "What do you mean?"

"He's someone different. He's young like us, I mean two or three years older perhaps, but not more than five. I thought he would be old and wrinkly, but he's young and handsome."

The space between them was closed in an instant as his hands gripped her shoulders so tightly that they ached. "What are you saying?" 

"Firstly---" she wriggled her shoulders, trying to free herself. "---Chill."

He let go of her shoulders, turning away from her and watching the speeding cars pass them by, a stark contrast to the slow moving clouds above.

Massaging her sore shoulders, Naina began again, "I don't get why you're so angry these days. I mean I am too, considering that I married a poor fellow, but we'll find a way. I don't know if it's worth killing him now."

"So it was worth sleeping with him?" Ohas bellowed, running his hand over his face in frustration. "You didn't have to sleep with him."

"You don't have to tell me what I can do," she barked, matching his voice and raising her chin up to meet his fierce eyes. Those cat eyes were always intense, a cold storm trapped within. Her heart softened at that, she knew what he had been through. What they had been through together.

"You cannot sleep with him."

She snorted at his warning, her heart hardening again. "Why? Are you in love with me or something?'

"I don't love anyone," he snapped and she noticed how close the storm was to unleash. He would always get defensive at the word "love." She never saw him love anybody or be loved back. He was so close, yet so distant. All the time. So close to her, yet so distant.

"Ooh tough guy," she teased and slapped his back, to ease the tension. His muscles relaxed, those cat eyes became less chilling as he shrugged her hand off his shoulder. She liked them like this, they were bros. "Now, I'm going back to my husband. He's taking me on a honeymoon. I wonder where poor people go for a honeymoon. My parents went to Matheran for two days and my mother will never stop talking---"

"Honeymoon?"

"Why, yes, my parents are married and surprisingly forward in this regard---"

"You're going on a honeymoon," Ohas repeated in a low voice, his stiff back turned to her. His back resembled a huge rock, she was half-afraid that she would hurt herself if she touched him. His voice was stony too, stony cold.

"I mean I'm married---"

"No."

"What, no?"

"You cannot go."

"Are you in love---"

"No."

"Then cool. I'm going," Naina chirped, flying away before he could catch her and lock her up in a cage.

* * *

Naina had a secret. She loved to travel. As a child growing up in the worst excuse of a house where her parents visited Matheran once and the farthest trip she had taken was till Chowpatty, she had a stash of travel pictures hidden under her cot. Those pictures were from newspaper cutouts that promised trips at suspiciously low costs. At night, she would count the money that she had earned from taking tuitions and build dreams about visiting Paris or Maldives. Only for her father to take away all her dreams, the paltry sum for next day's dal chawal and tondli chi sabji.