His Lost Heartbeat

Chapter 38

The soft rays of the sun filtered through the windows, filling the room with their radiance and announcing the arrival of morning to Anirudh. As soon as his eyes fell on the dawn, he sat up abruptly.

Finally, the night has ended. It was one of the longest nights of his life, as per Anirudh's description. No, he hadn't forgotten about those nights where emptiness seemed to cling to him like a second skin, the nights when he could no longer keep himself busy with work, and the silence of the room was followed by the ache of memories. But those sleepless nights belonged to someone who didn't know how to live, not in a true sense.

Last night was completely different. He couldn't get a blink of sleep. How could he, when he knew that today was the end of his yearning?
His Bondita was coming back into this house as his wife. Today was their marriage, the real one. One where there was no burning furnace or a mob of angry people. The marriage where fate wouldn't play its cruel game.

Fate.

His Kaka always thought that it was fate that brought them together. He seemed to like that train of thought. But Anirudh didn't. He would rather think that Bondita had chosen him with all her heart.

A smile spread across his lips as he thought of the day she confessed that even as Aadhya, she had chosen him. It still felt like yesterday.

The shy smile on her face, the small hint of pink on her cheeks, and the way she avoided eye contact,
These things had been constant since that day. He chuckled, remembering how hard she'd tried to avoid him the very next day.

She'd literally hidden behind the door of his own cabinet, thinking he could never find her, and pretended to clean the non-existent dust from the corner of her saree after getting caught.

Oh! it had been seven days since he'd last seen her. All thanks to his Kaka.

"Bilkul bhi nhi. Iss baar tumhari koi baat nhi sunenge hum. Pichli baar tum dono ki shaadi ki koi rasm hui nhi thi, isliye itne vighn aaye hain. Iss baar ek bhi rasm mein samjhauta nhi karenge hum." That was his final verdict even after Anirudh tried to oppose it with the entirely logical argument of their common co-working space.

"Kaka, Bondita ki practice abhi abhi shuru hui hai. Abhi uske pair jamne shuru hue hain, dus din ke liye court nahi aana..." He couldn't even complete his sentence before his Kaka interrupted.

"Tumhare toh jam gaye hain na. Bahu court jayegi, tum ghar par rukoge," he declared. "Shaadi se pehle ghar se bahar kadam bhi nahi rakhoge."

For the past seven days, he had tried seven hundred different ways to get past this curfew, but all his attempts had failed partially because of a strict jailer, and mostly because of Bondita's inside betrayal.
Why does she have to follow these rules with so much dedication?

For once, he was about to remind her that they weren't getting married for the first time but then he stopped, the memory of their conversation in the office pulling him back before the words could leave his mouth.

He had been noticing something off with her since the day everyone learned she was Bondita. That day had been a heavy one. Her mother had almost collapsed from the weight of her emotions, it had taken everything to convince Thaku Maa, and Chandrachur had opposed it outright.

"Hum kaise maan le ki aap jo keh rahe hain woh sahi hai. Aadhya ko toh kuch yaad nahi hai." His indirect accusation hadn't gone unnoticed by Anirudh, who had watched doubt flicker across every face in the room.

And to Anirudh's surprise, it was Aadhya's father who broke the silence.

"Main maan sakta hoon," he had announced quietly. And before anyone could question him, he had explained everything that happened that night in the hospital.