The Unwanted Bride

10 - Truth

Typed: 08/12/2023
Chapter 10: Truth

Author's POV:

He closed the door quietly, so quietly that he stood there, staring at it, clutching the doorknob to make sure he'd actually closed it. Upon confirmation, Yug gave his wooden door a slight nod, as if acknowledging its importance. He turned around and exhaled hard and loud.

He turned around, his cream-coloured sherwani well-fitted, gripping his body, keeping his pressed lungs intact for support. He coughed, clearing his throat as if to give a world-class speech. "Are you tired? I am."

Khushi nods in agreement. She wasn't sitting the way newlywed brides sit in Indian daily soaps. She sat comfortably with her legs folded as if sitting on the floor. Her hands though, which he could see since they weren't covered by the light red coloured veil, they were aggressively moving. She'd fist her hand in a tight ball, then open it, then click her knuckles, then repeat.

He moves carefully, weight so light. "I think we'd spend this night getting rid of your jewellery because they look awfully heavy and then fall asleep." He caught how her hands instantly released from the tight grip. He'd just helped her feel relaxed.

"Personally," he says comically, "I'm sleeping in this sherwani. I'm too lazy to change. I won't judge if you don't too. Although—" he glances at her rigid posture. Yug fell on the bed on his side, right in front of her, elbow by her leg lifting his face. He was super comfortable now. "—it seems it'll be hard for you to sleep in this."

Typed on 10/12/2023

Khushi smiles. She suppressed her giggle. "Yes," she settles for a simple reply rather than a lengthy one, ultimately resulting in the room breaking into hysterical laughter. "This veil is hard to take off, it's got all these bobby pins."

Yug had either watched too many daily soaps to prepare for his wedding night or he had much more common sense than Akshay, his best-friend would accept because he quickly nodded. His hands instantly held her veil, "let me help you." He took off one bobby pin after another, all secure her veil in place. "Why were you wearing the veil though?" It wasn't usual at weddings, at least not the ones he attended.

Khushi didn't take a pause, the reply came off naturally. "My mother wanted me to. It's part of her culture." Whilst, Khushi's biological, her deceased mother had belonged to another religion—the same one as her father—her stepmother came from a different caste. Khushi did not see anything wrong in approving of her stepmother's wishes because, in a way, it meant—it felt—like she had a mother.

Yug dipped his head in acknowledgement. He knew Vani wasn't Khushi's biological mother. He'd found this piece of information the day his mother had met Khushi. He doesn't know the details or circumstances in which Vani and his father-in-law got married, but he knew it was soon after his wife's real mother had died.

Brushing the topic off, he gently and carefully lifted Khushi's veil. His eyes landed on her long eyelashes, staring at her hands, her forehead showing stress as if she was thinking about her mother too. As he finally grasped to look at her face, his face fell. It took him a good second to process everything.

This isn't Khushi.

"Who are you?" His voice had a sharp edginess to it today. Khushi has spent most of her life analysing people and their behaviour professionally. And a small proportion of it—which felt like an eternity—she'd witnessed angry eyes on her twenty-four-seven. Her husband's eyes didn't hold the same level of anger though.

Yug's angry eyes were like his shield and sword, with large and heavy clouds ready to hail in one go. The kind of hail that people hadn't witnessed in decades. There wasn't anything scary or intimidating about his eyes to her because deep down she knew Yug was nothing more than a compassionate and merciful person who seemingly changed his nature according to the atmosphere. This is why she wasn't petrified that he'd do anything to her.