The Workaholic Wife ✅

"Mother Knows best"

After the immense amount of rituals were complete, I had time to eat. They gave a banana and some milk; it was yet another sacred ritual. I thought they had given us food and was dramatically overexcited on my part. Ever since Aniket confessed, he's been abnormally quiet. It's starting to worry me.

"What's wrong?" I ask him, placing my hand on his thigh for his comfort.

"Nothing," he says monotonously and gives me smile that never reaches his eyes.

I leave the subject and I am suddenly ushered into a room by my giggling cousins.

"Why the heck are you giggling so much?"

"Because," starts Preesha, one of my least favorite cousins of all time. "It's your wedding night."

I totally forgot that.

They stripped me of my clothing and my muscled, toned body came into view. I frowned at my reflection. My mother says I am fat, even though she sees my intense workouts in the morning.

They started to adorn me in new clothes, and touched up the makeup from this morning. When I asked for food, they said I won't be getting any. I frowned in confusion. "You had food before you came here; why are you so hungry?" My cousins asked. "I practically live on coffee and smoothies," Preesha says.

"I don't know. 'Cause I am a normal human being who eats every few hours? Otherwise, I'll never survive on my forty eight hour shifts with with no sleep and no food."

"Uh, no wonder you're so muscled up."

"What's wrong with me having muscles?"

"It's just that, you look too fit and too much like a man."

"I am strong and independent. I could lift more than a average man. Why is that so wrong?"

"Because, you're trying to become a man."

"I am not trying to be anything. I want to be healthy and fit and not drink smoothies to stay fit and look like a freakishly bony Supermodel. That's definitely not attractive."

"Whatever."

"Yeah, whatever. Say that when you're forty and you feel like you're freaking eighty."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does. You're being lazy and taking the easy way out. Drinking coffee and smoothies will keep you undernourished and you will age quicker. You look young to a man now, but in a few years, he will leave you because you'll be fatigued and unwell."

"Thanks for the lecture but I know how to take of myself."

I sigh, and shake my head. Girls these days. You can't change them. I pull out a makeup box and rip the label off it. With the eyebrow pencil, I prescribe her a medicine that will raise her hemoglobin. I hand it to her, "take it once a day in the morning, everyday. Doctors orders. Your welcome." I smirk and turn around, smiling at my reflection.

The rest of my hyper frenzied cousins touch up my makeup, and brushed my long hair until it was soft like a pillow. I fell asleep for a while, like I always do while people are doing my makeup (because it takes forever) and was awoken by my mother in law.

"You sleep a lot?" So she noticed.

I smile, "I try to sleep whenever I can."

She laughs and pinches my cheeks in a motherly fashion. "You sleep like a rabbit, all curled up."

I yawn loudly. "Tell that to your son. He thinks I sleep like a hibernating bear."

"He's seen you sleep?"