Forever and Always

Chapter 2

Max threw a cursory glance at the crowd of people seated on the floor of the marriage hall. Women on the right, men on the left. He knew almost none of them. Max didn't have much family aside from his immediate family. He had a distant cousin from Chiang Rai, but he didn't even know that cousin's name. It wasn't like he expected a lot of people to be here. Most of the guests were friends and business partners of his parents. His only friends,  Zee and Net, sat right upfront of the dais. They wore looks of pity on their faces.

Who could blame them? This entire marriage was a sham. A facade to fulfill some ancient tradition that somehow had to do with him being the firstborn son. Max took a deep breath and tried to ignore the looks on his friends' faces. "This is for Ton." Max reminded himself. "Even if my love life is full of shit, that doesn't mean his has to be too."

Max cast a glance at his younger brother. Boston looked like a love struck fool, smiling widely at Sammy, the girl seated to the right of Max's future husband. Max knew that look on his brother's face. In fact, he once wore a similar look in the past.. but not anymore. Now, the only look on his face was annoyance. He just wished for this monkey parade to be over so he could get out of here.

Boston's POV:

I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was just so beautiful. "Itni kubsoorat tu, rab ne banaya..." I thought as I continued to stare at her. Dressed in gold and purple traditional Thai robes, she wore her long, straight, light brown hair down her back and accentuated it with the golden blue, green and purple colored peacock hairclip I had given her for our 6 month anniversary.

A true beauty to behold, soon she would be mine forever, and I only had my brother to thank. You see, Sammy and I would never be able to be together if my big brother hadn't done what he was currently doing. If Max didn't agree to get married to Sammy's younger brother, Sammy and I could never be together. It's a complicated story. In fact, this entire story began around two years ago, during the Pitar Paksh fast..

October 2022: 

"Rennie.. Ren wake up sweetie, it's time to go to the temple." Max's mother called through the other side of his bedroom door after the maids failed to successfully wake him up. " Ren.. Ren come now darling, we are going to be late.." she called gently when she was interrupted by loud and fierce knocking. " DHIREN! WAKE UP RIGHT NOW AND STOP BEING A LAZY, EMBRASSING COW! WE HAVE TO BE AT THE TEMPLE BEFORE 5AM!"

"Aof.." Max's mother calmed her husband. "He will get up on his own soon, hmm, no need to worry, he is a big boy."He can't keep drinking himself into a stupor his entire life, Divya!" Aof told his wife, angrily glancing at the closed bedroom door of his eldest son's room as he did. "Aof, give him some time, you know what he's been through. It's not easy to live properly after a major heartbreak.." Divya reasoned. " It's been 5 years, Divi! He needs to get over this and stop his reckless lifestyle! That girl leaving him is no excuse to live the way he does, drinking and partying until the early hours of the morning, lying drunk on couches and kitchen floors. Ignoring all his responsibilities and duties!" Aof took a deep breath to calm himself before he continued. "Listen, Divi, we have given him enough time to recover from this. It's too much now. If he doesn't start getting up and actively doing something with his life, I'm sending him to the ashram in Atthuya for monkhood." Aof threatened, walking away from Max's door, his wife chasing after him.

On the other side of the door, Max cracked a cynical smile at his father's words. "Yeah, you wish you could ship me off!" He thought. Max raised a hand to his forehead. His head was pounding from the events of last night. He had been out drinking with his friends, and when he finally stumbled home at 3 in the morning, he went straight to bed. He had only gotten an hour of sleep when the commotion outside his door woke him up.