The Second Bloom • 18+ [Completed ✓]

6. Betrayal (Malini's POV)

My eyes opened when I felt someone snatching the pillow from beneath my head and I tried to catch it again, but it was gone.

I turned around to see who did this, and then I realised, it wasn't the pillow, it was his arm.

God.

All the memories from last night came rushing in immediately.

I slept in his arms, while he was holding me. Oh God.

I hadn't even realized last night when he had pulled me towards him, and took me in his arms. I was VULNERABLE. I needed a shoulder to cry upon. I needed someone to talk to me. He DID. He did talk with me. We .... had such a good conversation last night.

“Uth gayi aap?” He asked me, while wearing his kurta.

I nodded my head, “Um— Suprabhat.”

He gave me a smile, “Humne socha aapko kuch der aur sone de, fir toh poore din kaam me lag jayengi aap. Lekin aap toh ...uth gayi.”

Do I regret having that conversation with him last night?

Hell, NO.

“Woh... Hume laga...humare sirr ke niche se... Kisi ne—”

He chuckled, “Acha... Agli baar dhyan rakhenge, ki hum bhi aapke saath bistar par hi rahe, jab tak aap uth nahi jaati.”

I smiled awkwardly.

“Hum naha le pehle?”

I nodded my head, “Ji, z-zaroor.”

I got off from the bed and walked towards the cupboard only to take out a towel along with his undergarments and give it to him.

He took it with a smile and walked outside the door.

Well, I need to be outside this room before he finishes his morning business and comes inside the room freshly bathed in just his vest, and towel wrapped around his torso.

I walked outside the room only to grab a broom and clean the house. No one was awake, nothing new. But in less than ten minutes, my father-in-law will be awake and mother-in-law will walk to me, interrogating me about my relationship with my husband and how's my married life going on.

This time I'll have a better lie to say. Maybe the truth, but only after making it a little spicy, you know... I'm in no mood to listen to her suggestions... how she pulled her husband close and all that.

Why was she in such a rush?

It had barely been two weeks since I had married Varun.

Bitter truth, but my second marriage.

Everything still felt unsettled, like I was living in someone else’s life, trying to fit into a space I wasn’t sure was mine. I wasn’t even used to being with Varun, and already, Maa-ji was talking about babies.

Sometimes I think, does she even have the pain of losing her elder son.

But then, a part of me understood.

In a village like ours, a woman’s worth was measured by how soon she filled her husband’s home with the cries of a child. It was an expectation, a duty—one I had once thought I would fulfill with Amrit ji.

But life had other plans, hadn’t it?

And now, here I was, being told to move on, to forget the weight of the past, and dive into a future that still felt foreign to me.

Was it just tradition pushing her?

Or was it something else?

Perhaps Maa-ji would be thinking that a child would help bridge the awkwardness between Varun and me.