Jahanvi - Dev's commoner queen [Completed✓]

38 ~ The confrontation

I don't know what happened. I don't know what went wrong. I don't know how that accident took place. I don't know whether it was an accident or he was murdered. Jahanvi wasn't letting me touch herself. And it was hitting me like a punch in my gut. I tried to comfort her because I understand what she must be going through. But she didn't let me. She didn't.

It's been three days since her father passed away. One of my insiders had called me that day and informed me about her father's death. That's when I ran to her and her family. She needed me. I could see it. Very clearly. But she was pushing me away. I did. I pulled myself away because she wasn't in the condition to be manhandled. She needed to be pampered. To be taken care of. To be comforted. And thus I told Krishiv to handle her. I know what kind of bond they share. And she allowed him to comfort her.

“Blunt force trauma to the head. Multiple contusions around the skull and chest. The victim appears to have struggled before sustaining a fatal blow. There are no signs of natural causes.”

That's what his postmortem report said. It was definitely a murder. But who? Who has the audacity to kill her father? Who will do this? And why? Personal enmity? The police are investigating. I've pressurized them too.

It hurts. It hurts seeing them. Jahanvi. Priyanjali. Their mother. Both sisters are standing right in front of me, but way too far. On the cremation ground. Priyanjali is crying. Jahanvi is quiet. As quiet as silence before a rising storm. Her face is straight but her eyes are numb. Her body is trying to show some strength, but her trembling legs and hands fail too. The priest is reciting some mantras. Her father is lying on the pyre. The two of them look so fragile, their figures dwarfed by the towering blaze that consumes the remains of their father, the man who had raised them, who had loved them all his life.

Jahanvi’s hands tremble as she reaches for the earthen pot, filled with the sacred water she would pour around the pyre in a final act of farewell. She bent down, slowly, almost mechanical, as if her body was moving through the motions but her mind was far away, lost in the whirlwind of pain and loss.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Dammit. She is hollowed out by sorrow. And all I can do is watch. This is killing me inside.

Her lips move as she murmurs the final prayers and recites whatever mantras the priest is reciting. Priyanjali, too, was reciting the mantras. It was killing me even more because I wasn’t allowed to help them carry this burden, to take even a fraction of their grief upon my shoulders. I wasn’t allowed to hold Jahanvi as she trembled in her sorrow, to tell her that she didn’t have to be strong right now, that she didn’t have to do this on her own. Because she forbade me to. She didn't want me anywhere near her or her family. I was helpless. But she was more helpless than me.

Jahanvi was handed over the wood ignited with fire to light up the pyre. I've been through this moment. When my father passed away. I know how much it hurts, to light up that pyre. How my hands trembled. How my soul was trying to leave my body and never burn my own father's body because he didn't deserve that. He deserved to be alive. I deserved his presence in my life. I deserved his love in my life. But I had to do that.