The Unwanted Bride

28 - Aftermath

Typed on 26/10/2024 (6:56PM)
Published on 01/02/2025
Chapter 28: Aftermath

Author's POV:

"You didn't see who it was?" That was the first question a desperate Khushi had asked Pihu who'd informed them about Yug's accident. The odds were not in her favour despite her friend miraculously in the same place as where her husband's accident took place.

"And she said no?" Khushi was sitting in her living room, narrating the conversation she had with Pihu last night to her in-laws.

Khushi shook her head, her father-in-law gutted. "I wish she just noted the number plate down."

Harsh who was pacing around the living room utterly bitterly, "I'm glad she didn't. It was either getting the bastard's number or getting bhai urgent medical care."

His mother nodded, tears spilling down her eyes. It was the hardest few weeks they've experienced as a family. Yug's leg had badly been fractured and a cloth bandage wrapped from his right shoulder to his stomach to assist in healing his wounds. His right leg was worse. He could walk with some support but he limped a lot.

Khushi grips her mother-in-law's hand. "Don't worry," she promises, "I'll find him. And once I do, he'd regret it. Whoever did this to my Yug will regret it."

~

It wasn't extremely hard to find out where his ex-wife lived. Not when you regularly visited the hospital in the last few weeks, desperately trying to predict her routine and address. The first time he saw her at the hospital, he'd followed her home, maintaining a good distance so she wouldn't notice.

On his second visit, he realised her brother-in-law lived with her too, so he had to be careful. The brother-in-law seemed to care for her. Whenever she went grocery shopping or needed to go to the hospital, he'd always pick and drop her off—as if she was a child. She's not a child. She couldn't be. She was more than a child for him. She was a toy who he'd groomed and taught lots of things. A smirk had made it's way to his face remembering old memories.

"You should have stayed home, Harsh," she mumbled as she walked inside the grocery store. So the boy has a name. Today Samar found out it's Harsh. The brother-in-law is called Harsh.

Harsh stood a respectful distance away from her in his white shirt and blue pants with subtle facial hair. He looked so stressed, so sleep deprived. "Kamla is home with bhai, don't worry," he reminds her. "Besides, bhai wouldn't want you going out alone. And neither would I." The last sentence Samar noticed he said more to himself than Khushi.

Khushi was wearing a long sleeved blue dress and had her hair in a bun. Her glasses hung loosely on the bridge of her nose and it's as if she didn't have time to pull it up right. "I'm more worried about him."

They'd ran out of milk and milk was an essential for Yug these days. He doesn't agree to this but his wife does. She took her recovery so seriously that she decided to work from home despite his disagreement. He felt as if he was a child but Khushi didn't care. His accident had taken so much toll in her mental health that she forgot about Samar.

She forgot about the potential of being found. She should be thinking though because he's just thirty steps away from her.

~

"I think you wouldn't even be this protective over our baby than you are about me." Yug mumbles touching her cheek lovingly as Khushi undoes his bandage.

As Khushi gently unwraps the cloth bandage encircling Yug's right shoulder down to his stomach, her hands move with care, her eyes focused on each small wound that tells the story of his accident. Her brow furrows slightly, sadness evident in her gaze as she tends to him, feeling the weight of his injuries.