To Be Loved

Her

I looked in the mirror to see my face void of any makeup. I did not eat anything today as I kept on vomiting at the smell of food. They said the first trimester is hard but I don't know it's this hard.

"Atleast smile so that he doesn't know that you are being forced into this."

"But I am."

"And whose fault is that?" My mother said, her voice dripping with anger.

I closed my eyes, tears forming in my eyes.

I still remember the day, the day I eloped. It was a week before my engagement that I called up my fiancé and broke it off with him before I boarded a train with Akshay. My ex.

My father and mother tried to reach out to me but I switched my phone off, we together left to him home town in north and got married there in North India style. He is from Maharashtra. So we performed our rituals there and started living our life as married couple.

We had sex, lots and lots of sex, if you ask me if I remember anything from my previous marriage then it would be nothing but sex, cause now that I look at it, that was all that marriage was about. He had me everytime he was near to the point that it was exhausting to be in his proximity again. But I stayed through. Because I did not want him to leave me and get back here. The point of returning home made me tremble in fear, staying somewhere far away from people I know seemed a better idea. But that was not it. My life took a drastic turn after a few days into marriage.

It started with him drinking, his mother got tired of his drinking habits and I saw him beat her, then it was not just her, he used to beat me for no apparent reason. I was stopped from going out an meeting people and his mother started to blame his drinking habits on me saying that he is taking mental pressure to feed me.

Then one day he left the town saying he got a job in Delhi. That was four months after our marriage and nothing was same after that. I got pregnant with his child and when I was about to tell him about that, he called me and told me how sick he is of me and how irritating all these responsibilities are for him, and that he married me because he thought it will be good but it's not working out and when I told him that I got pregnant he started screaming at me. He said he doesn't want a family and the worst part is, like a pathetic son of bitch he was, he called my brother and let him know about where I stay.

The look my brother gave when he first looked at me is printed in my head and i am sure it stays so until forever. The look of disgust. The first thing he did was to slap me, he practically dragged me out of that home and when we are in car, he called my lame excuse of an ex husband to tell him that he is taking me and told him to never show his face again.

And it happened two months ago. It's been close to three months I am pregnant.
Since we never register our marriage it is nothing in front of the law too. I don't know how I ignored all the existing red flags and proceeded to live with him. He said he want us to get married properly with our parents in the future and wanted to register it then only. I don't know why I let that happen. I don't know why I was so dumb for that. And I literally hate myself for being in this situation.

"Varun is not a bad choice, stop making that face." My chain of thoughts got broken when my sister interrupted them with her loud voice. She is the first born. The perfect daughter. Varalakshmi. Varalakshmi is everything any Indian parent would want. Smart, beautiful, traditional, well educated and someone who listens to everything they say. If my parents asks Varalakshmi to go jump in a pond of dog shit, she would do that gladly, because me and Bhargav would never do that. She is that perfect person they always adored, and since Bhargav is a man, ofcourse you know who is the least or never favoured child in the house.

Varalakshmi is the favoured by my father, spoiled to rotten by him and ofcourse my mother. And Bhargav? He gets what he wants. My relatives always said "Even though the beauty lies in Maha, Vara got all the best qualities one would want in their child." And that was the boasting Vara needed to show me who got everyone.

Who looked at me when I wanted them to? Who loved me when I wanted them to? Who cared for me when I wanted them to? When did anyone was ever even proud of my accomplishments? When did anyone look at me as me instead of a competition to Varalakshmi?

"Maha! Are you even listening?" I lifted my head and looked at her.

"Good god! Stop being a cry baby and put on that stone sticker. You look like a clown in this red one." She said and removed the red sticker I kept with irritation and gave me the stone one.

"Are you girl ready?" My mother entered inside with my nephew Aryan in her hands. She looked at me up and down and nodded.

"It's time for the ceremony."