SERENDIPITOUS|✓

Chapter 4

"So, why did your family agree to this marriage?" Abhi asked Radha with his elbows resting on his knees and hands joined, an expression of intimidation covering his face.

Radha, however, just still. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She was left gaping like a fish.

Mr Rathore had sent Radha and Abhi to their living room just so they could talk and get to know each other in person. They were supposed to ask each other about their likes and dislikes, their friends and hobbies and instead,

"Leave it, just tell me how much money my father gave you to marry me?" Abhi asked next, now crossing his one leg over the other and leaning back in the chair and Radha couldn't answer him once again.

Partly, because there was no lie in the question.

Eighty lakhs, that should be the answer right?

It wasn't her mistake, though. It was all her parents. They just told her what to do and she had to do it because there were few things, favours, which were only hers to know and remember for her whole life.

Radha closed her eyes and discreetly fisted the cushion in her one hand and used the other to wipe the slight sweat collecting on her temple.

He was scaring her, not physically, but all his questions, the jibes, his voice, his eyes, everything was threatening.

"Are you dumb? Can't you speak? Can you listen or are yo-"

"Here you are, your mother is calling you, Abhi." A voice came from behind them and Radha immediately turned around to see Krishn standing there with a frown on his face.

"Thank God!" Her would-be husband exclaimed and walked - ran - out of the room and Radha finally stopped clutching the cushion and wiped up her foggy eyes.

She didn't get up though, she just
couldn't.

Krishn saw her sitting there, and breathing raggedly.

No, Abhi's mother hadn't been calling him, she wasn't even in the house but something had told Krishn to interfere between the one-sided conversation that was happening and now he was only glad that he did.

He, coincidentally, had a glass of water in his hands (which he totally didn't fetch from the kitchen for someone). He walked towards Radha and kept the glass of water on the table in front of her and left the room, just like that.

Not a single word was spoken.

As soon as Krishn left, Radha clasped the glass with her fidgeting hands and drank all the water in one go. Her ragged breaths instantly calmed down and her trembling stopped for good.

She smiled to herself and internally thanked Krishn for saving her.

*

"Well, Radha, according to my son you did not participate in any kind of conversation with him. He felt humiliated by your apathy towards the conversation. If you want to stay in this house, you better start respecting my son. Understood?" Mrs Rathore spat without giving Radha any chance to tell her side of the story. Not that she would believe Radha.

"Now just go and help the workers in the kitchen." She said and retreated from her room, strutting into the hallway and Radha walked out of the room to do what she was told.

She wasn't weak, she wasn't dumb, she knew, she knew whatever was happening, was wrong. Mrs Rathore was wrong, her son was wrong, but she couldn't do anything. She had a desert of a future to live with not a single hint of survival near her, a desert which her parents had designed for her. A desert with splotches of burns, a canvas of heat and nothing but a pendant as her water.