☆▽☆
"What are you doing here?" he asks me, his eyes raking over my drenched body and widening. Instantly, he opens the door further, allowing me to slip inside and grab a towel from somewhere, handing it to me.
My sobs may have taken a backseat f...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I’m getting married to the guy my parents arranged for me in an hour and I cannot be more excited about it. All my life, I was trained to be a homemaker and despite my aversion to that specific mentality even today, I’ve adjusted quite well with it because the person I’m going to marry is nothing like the kind my dad has been to mum her whole life.
Neil Rajan, my future husband and the man of my dreams is as perfect as the kind of fairytale I only dreamt of growing up. We may only have met four to five times in the last six months that our parents introduced us but that has been enough for me to realise he’s more than anything I ever deserve.
He brings me flowers and bakes cakes for me that taste unbelievably out of the world. He’s brought me the kind of dresses I never even thought I’d look good in, let alone actually wear them and go to parties with him.
My family is rich. My dad owns a building sector that he has absolutely no interest in expanding and has handed it over to my cousin who’s the brain behind it these days while my dad lavishes in the profit it brings.
Neil’s family, on the other hand, is a conglomerate. The difference between mine and his family is very simple. The likes of my dad kiss ass to the likes of his and come home boasting about knowing a “famous personality.” But, Neil’s dad might not even remember he’d met a person like my dad.
I don’t want to think about those times and so I don’t. I lift my lashes and look at myself in the mirror, still unable to believe I’m getting married. Married.
A giddy feeling rushes through me just as the door to the bride’s room opens and my best friend walks in, the hugest grin on her face. The moment she meets my eyes in the mirror, she squeals so loud I start laughing. “Shaadi ho rahi hai teri!!!” she whisper-yells, mindful of about a thousand guests sitting outside, waiting for the marriage rituals to begin. “Can you believe this?”
(You’re getting married!!!)
“It does feel surreal,” I agree. “College ka pehla din yaad hai? When we’d literally just met and you’d told me, ‘Teri shaadi mein toh jam ke nachungi, meri billo raani.’” I laugh as I speak, that day still crystal clear in my brain.
(Do you remember our first day of college?) (I’ll be dancing my ass off at your wedding, my billo raani (it’s a sweet, playful nickname))
Janki chuckles, coming to stand in front of me, obstructing my view of myself in the mirror. “Those days flew away so fast. Can you believe it’s been seven years since we first met?” Her eyes drag down the length of my wedding lehenga. It is deep red with old-fashioned embroidery that doesn’t sit well with what I would’ve liked but my future mother-in-law told me in very clear words that daughters in their family only follow the older traditions and so I had reluctantly agreed.
There was no point trying to raise any arguments because my parents would pay me no heed and I still didn’t have the right to speak up to my in-laws. This is as much mine and Neil’s wedding as it is our family’s and I don’t want to upset either by throwing ridiculous tantrums about things that don’t matter.
