After The Rain

Chapter Five - Under the Storm

isn't life such a funny thing?

at any given moment, we could
get everything we've wanted,
or have it all taken away.

at any second in time, we could
make the best decision of our lives
or the worst.

don't you think life is the most
fragile and frightening thing?

doesn't it make you want to
hold on with both hands and
never let go?

-Rachel H (Never Let Go)

~

Khushi had left Arnav at the temple.

She did not know what else to do. He had been silenced by the revelation that her former fiancé had been none other than his sister's husband—silenced for so long that Khushi was afraid he was ill and would crumble to the ground at any second. She had half raised her hands to steady him when she heard the faintest of whispers from him, demanding whether she knew what she was talking about. His tone was inscrutable, but Khushi could tell from the slow changes in his demeanour—his hands clenching by his sides, the sudden, almost imperceptible tension in his jaw and the glint in his eyes that was growing with every passing second—that he was close to exploding.

Yet, strangely enough, Khushi had kept her cool. She didn't cower and tried to change her words like she would have done in any other circumstances under his piercing gaze which promised her hell if she did not reverse her statement.

Instead, she reached in her bag and took out her phone, wrapped safely into a bunch of handkerchiefs to protect it from the water. A bitter taste grew in her mouth as she opened the gallery and pressed on the engagement picture she had Jiji send her this morning. Even in the still image, she could see her own teary eyes and the distress visible on her face as she stood next to a grinning Shyam. Her sister had taken the picture on the insistence of Buaji, but Khushi had refused to be sent the reminder of her trial of that day. It was only when she needed it as evidence that she allowed herself to look at it but even then, it pained her to see it.

Pushing back the unpleasant thoughts of the past, Khushi returned to the unpleasant circumstance of the present and held the phone in front of Arnav. As his eyes travelled to the screen, he fell into silence again with the blaze in his eyes coming to a still, neither growing nor diminishing.

Not waiting for his trance to end—for she was not sure she could speak if he came undone—Khushi began the tale of how she discovered the link between her ex-fiancé and Anjali-ji. She spoke of the nickname she once heard Shyam use on the phone, repeated to her within the walls of Shantivan and of Shyam's own eccentric behaviour. She narrated the events of yesterday when she was finally introduced to Shyam as the husband of Anjali-ji.

"I broke the engagement on the spot," she added after the brief pause she took to gather her composure as she remembered the sheer anger she felt upon seeing Shyam on that terrace. "But I don't think that was enough. He still does not see what is wrong in what he did. He blames his marriage, says he is unhappy with your sister..."

At that ASR finally looked up. Khushi fumbled to a stop at the look of fury in his eyes but was stabilised by the thin sheen that she could tell he was trying to hide. She attempted a more softened tone as she continued, "I know none of this is Anjali-ji's fault. She loves him, truly and deeply. She has her whole life devoted to him. No one could be unhappy with her, no one with a heart and a conscience at least." She stopped to mask the bitterness in her tone, and then went on, "that's why I, my whole family in fact, we thought it was best to tell her the truth."

"Did you—" Arnav suddenly hissed. His eyes, furious as they were, betrayed the tiniest hints of fear.

"I couldn't," she choked out. "I didn't know how to. She seemed too, too much in love..." And as she spoke, Khushi felt her stomach churn unpleasantly. She was entrusting him what she couldn't do, thereby, sentencing him to what she couldn't bear to face. Guilt burned her chest and tore at her heart, and she looked away, no longer able to see him.