True Love's Vow (Short Story)

Chapter 3

Jay and Christina now stood in front of Jays mothers house. It was no surprise that Sanvi despised her sons choice in spouse. Jay swore that it was only because his mom was very traditional and wanted to him to marry another Indian, but Christina knew there had to be something more to it.

On their wedding day, and many "dinners" leading up to, Sanvi had invited Ayanna. Ayanna was, according to his mother, "Jay's first love." It had annoyed Christina to no end that Jay was placed to sit in between her and Ayanna. And to make matters worse, the damn harlot was flirting shamelessly with Jay in front of her.

Jay raised his hand to knock on the door and Christina sighed extremely loudly, obviously on purpose. He smiled down at her and took her hand with his free one. "Hey, she can't do anything to spoil the night for us. I promise." Christina smiled grimly without looking at him, choosing to nod at the door instead. Jay sighed at a reasonable volume and finally knocked the door.

Christina flinched at the noise. Her heart ripping apart slowly with every heavy thud. She figured she would be used to the mental and verbal abuse she put up with to be with Jay, but for some reason she always found herself trying to gain her approval. She glanced down at her flat stomach and hoped that this would be her chance.

Christina's head snapped up when she heard the door lock shift in the gear. She stiffened at the sight of the mongrel at the door and growled under her breath whereas Jay stood there speechless.

Typical! She thought.

Ayanna just smiled back at her in the bitchiest way possible; almost as if to say 'yeah, that's right? I'm the one with the blessing. I'll just take him now." It took Christina about two seconds to remember all of the fights and arguments she had gotten into with this lady and the she-devil herself. It took her another second to realize that it had to stop at some point and she finally had the upper hand. Not to make it seem like her husband was a prize or anything, but if he was she won that contest 5 years ago.

It took those three seconds for Christina to muster up the most sincere insincere smile she could, matching Ayanna's owns to T. Ayanna faltered and took three steps back, or more like stumbled. This gave Christina the opportunity to grab Jay by his elbow and pull him into the house, making sure there was a foot of space between him and her.

Jay's mother, Sanvi, was there in the threshold waiting, most likely with Ayanna on his arm and not Christina. The smile that was plastered on her face was quickly replaced with a smile when she met Christina's now wary grin. She had gotten used to Ayanna, but Christina could never disrespect an elder; her mother taught her better than that. The arguments that occurred between Christina and Sanvi were more one-sided, the one-side obviously being Sanvi ignoring Christina's presence altogether and telling Jay that he could do much better with a "brown and smart beauty such as Ayanna."

Christina remembered her conversation with herself earlier and decided harder to be the bigger person when it came to Sanvi. She smiled politely at her and fixed Jay, shaking him a bit roughly without being too noticeable. Jay seemed to come to his senses at that moment because he shook his head and smiled at his mom, a grin that couldn't have been fake. He moved away from Christina and spread his arms out wide before embracing his mother in a hug that made her eyes nearly pop out of their sockets but smile warmly all the same.

"Mummy! How have you been?" Christina suppressed an eye roll knowing that Jay was the ultimate momma's boy. Sanvi moved back to collect her son's face in her hands. "Better now that you're here, Jayanthi." Christina again knew better than to try and make her presence known, but that didn't stop Ayanna. "Jay!" She screeched. "How long has it been, honestly?"