The One For Me (Watty Awards 2012)

Chapter 4: The meeting

Chapter 4: The meeting

Nupur's POV

The rest of the day passed very quickly, but I was aware of every minute of it. My mom had selected an authentic Indian dress for me to wear and I stared down at it expressionlessly.

It was a beautiful actually. It was pink but not the kind of pink that makes me want to puke. It was laid out in delicate gold sequins all over the chest area and flowed till my knees. My legs were covered in the slacks that are called 'choodi daar'.

I sighed. At least due to all this drama, I got a pretty new dress to wear.

I was just about to put it on when I heard the front door open downstairs and my younger brother arrive. He was younger than me by four years, which made him nineteen. He was in college but also did a part-time job with a company as an intern. We were very close to each other and always had each other's back. I bet he would flip when he heard about my crisis.

I ran down the stairs. My brother, Anugrah, smiled at me tiredly, as he set his bag down on the sofa. But when he saw my face, his smile dropped. "Sissy? What's wrong?"

With a broken voice, I explained to him everything that happened to me during the day. With every word I spoke, I watched his face grow graver and graver.

He looked at my parents who had entered the room, and were watching us warily. "What is this?" he said, his voice quiet with suppressed anger.

"It's true." My mom said, looking determinedly at my brother. "She is old enough to be married. And it would be much better if WE choose the boy. So we have."

He scoffed, "She is old enough to be married, so let her choose who she wants. Last I heard she wanted to marry Rajan."

He looked at me for confirmation, to which I nodded vigorously.

But this made both my parents red with antagonism. "That is enough!" my father blew up. He usually did not get angry like this. With my mom, anger was a daily phenomenon, but my dad rarely got like this. But when he did, he actually was scary. "Both of you go to your rooms and get ready. You have wasted enough time."

They both turned, and left the room. Sometimes I think they are joined together, with how much they thought alike.

"Er, why do we have to get ready?" my brother whispered to me, raising an eyebrow comically. He never failed to make me feel better. I smiled at him, then rolled my eyes to the ceiling. "We are going to meet the family tonight."

Now my brother raised both his eyebrows in wonder. "Already?"

I just shrugged and then started walking with him upstairs, as he picked up his bag. But he stopped me at the stairs, and looked at me seriously, his eyes roaming my face, "How are you holding up?"

I looked at the floor. "I'm hanging in there."

He sighed, put his bag down again and wrapped his arms around me. I was starting to get emotional, but then he spoke, "Don't worry; we'll just go see the doofus you're supposed to marry. If you don't like him, I'll kidnap him for you and sell him to couple of gay friends of mine. You know, for their entertainment."

That made me giggle again.

=============================================================

Amesh's POV

This was crazy. My mom had her heart broken and it hurt so much, it was impossible to comprehend. I hugged my mother closer to me, as she sobbed onto my chest. I tried hard to stop shaking with infuriation.