Bollywood fairytales have this beautiful ending. The hero has a realization in the middle of his wedding ceremony and suddenly decides that he's going to follow his heart and run after the girl he actually wanted to marry, not his bua's niece's cousin's friend for family izzat and all. But what happens to the girl that leaves behind? No one ever cares about her.
My situation was that of the left behind girl. Pooja and Yash did their thing and fell in love. The world glorified them and even pitied them for being bound by their marriages. How funny is that, Yash cheated on me and then he became a hero for finding his true love. And Pooja...her diary was reason enough to make her seem like the victim of everything. It still baffles me how Pooja cheated on a guy like Aditya Hooda.
Oh, Aditya Hooda. I guess that's the one good thing that came out of this mess Yash and Pooja created. As much as I knew it's wrong, a part of me always wanted to be the center of his attention. I mean, could you even blame me? When I thought my life was perfect, I found out my freakin' husband was having an affair and then died. Fate bought me closer to Aditya, when that goddamned Rajveer put us on trial for murder, Aditya stood by me in ways I longed for Yash to. I fell in love with Yash consciously, I knew his shortcomings and yet I chose to marry him but with Aditya, it was all so different. I wanted to be under his protection forever. He was the kind of guy I didn't need to live in Mussorie with, because I would be fine anywhere in his company. He was the kind of guy that I wanted to end my days with and wake up to. And it killed me! Aditya Hooda had such a damning effect on my life and I had no control over myself around him.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope he reciprocated these thoughts. But I knew the probability was highly unlikely. Aditya was the polar opposite of me. Ever since we gotten Yash and Pooja's murder case closed, it was a breath of fresh air in his life. He got back to flying soon enough and his off-days were spent at the club "living his best life as he called it. I spent my days at home with ammi and abbu, as they relocated to Mumbai. Noor had married Arjun in a beautiful ceremony with the blessings of both families, leaving me sort of by myself in the house. Though she lived literally twenty minutes away and visited almost every day, I missed her bubbly presence in our house. She would jokingly tell me to marry Aditya just to be in the same house as her. Not just her, everyone hoped Aditya and I would marry, even my parents. My parents who were dead opposed to me marrying outside of our religion thought Aditya and I were perfect. It created a hell of a lot of awkward moments bumping into each other at family functions. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of about it sometimes, but given the differences between us, I gave up hope that anything would ever happen between us.
Till it did.
I had to go to Mussorie to finalize paperwork for the sale of my former home and Abu & Ammi had to attend a funeral for their distant relative the same weekend and obviously everyone thought I wasn't properly equipped to conduct a business deal by myself, because...you know...casual sexism. So Aditya ended up coming with me. While the paperwork seemed to end quickly, I was left with nothing but haunting memories of that place of that house. A place that I had loved so much had given me so many bitter memories that I found it difficult to step out of my room. I guess Aditya even understood that. He had always moved on quicker and seemed to have a better grasp on life than I did and I kind of envied him for that. I wanted to be that happy and carefree.
That night at the fireside I couldn't help the tears streaming down my face as I threw more pictures into the fire hoping that they would burn my feelings away too. As I looked up, I saw Aditya approaching me with his expression a little more sombre than normal.
"Please don't say anything. I don't need to hear more about how I've been a lovesick fool for Yash, I really don't Aditya."
He sat quietly down, both of us facing the fireplace.
