Devakshi One-shots/Drabbles/Short stories

The Aftermath

This one-shot is set the morning after Dev and Sonakshi's separation at the farmhouse. Dev's POV.

This was requested by two of my readers. I hope both of you like it!

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Dev was awake, but the sun's rays were far too bright. His head was pounding like someone had taken a hammer to it.

He tried to remember where he was. He wasn't in his bedroom. Instead, he was in his farmhouse living room. He had passed out on the couch with a bottle in hand, which had spilled and stained the couch, the carpet as well as his clothes.

He pried open his eyes and looked around at the massacre around him. There were pieces of torn paper, shards of broken glass and mud from the broken potted plants all over the place. He made an effort to stand up, immediately dizzy. He held on to the nearby chair for support and breathed, to regain his balance. Few moments later, he felt strong enough to move. He moved closer to the bar. He seemed to have gone through a whole array of drinks last night, judging by the number of bottles off the shelf.

"Sonakshi?" He called out. Where was she? How could he have gotten this drunk while she was around? She really did not like him indulging in alcohol. There was no answer. "Sonakshi?" He called out louder this time. She didn't answer. He was greeted by a pin-drop silence. Was she not here? Of course not. If she had been here, she wouldn't have let him lose control like this. He better call her. He started searching for his phone, she was going to be very mad if she found about this alcohol-binge. But it's okay, he would have to find a way to pacify her.

Where was his phone? He looked all around, under the table, on the couch, under the cushions. No. Not here. Could it be by the bar? As he moved to check, his eyes fell on the object on the floor, amid the glistening glass from the broken lamp.

Sonakshi's mangalsutra.

The vision of those beads lying discarded, like trash outside of a garbage can, brought back the events of the previous night crashing back to his memory. Their fight, Sonakshi leaving the house, his mother with the prenup papers, giving him an ultimatum to make a choice, Sonakshi waving the same prenup papers at him, signing the papers, he telling her she wasn't a good wife, making fun of her infertility and she telling him that love would never come to his life. He recalled that moment with high-def clarity, when everything ended. She had removed her mangalsutra, thrown it away and left.

She left.

She LEFT.

SONAKSHI HAD LEFT HIM.

The realization was as if he had jumped into an ice pool, where a thousand sharp knives were being stuck into him at the same time. He wanted to pull them out, but they were too many, and he couldn't. If he pulled one out, two others were taking its place. He tried to stop the pain, but the knives also seemed like they were being turned inside him, tearing apart all of his organs, every single one of them. His heart was in a vise, being pressed harder and harder as the knives went deeper. There was nothing he could do, except to suffer through the pain, the pain which had no antidote, no medicine, no balm.

She left him. The three words were running on a loop in his head, over and over. Over and over. She left him. He tried to turn it off. Maybe that will lessen the pain? But he couldn't turn it off. In fact, it started running faster. The three words. SHE LEFT HIM. Dev picked up the mangalsutra, running it into his fingers, broke down into tears of anguish. How could anything in the world hurt this much? How can a man tolerate this much grief, and then get up the next morning and go through life again? He tried to think of options to quench this unbearable pain.

He couldn't come up anything to lessen the agony, so he resorted to the next best thing. 

Fury. 

How could she? HOW COULD SHE? She could just up and leave? Leave him? Quit their relationship? She talked such talk about love and this was it? This was the grand notion of Love? Her happy forever? And she sucked him into this quicksand? This so-called rosy world of love? No. He was right last night. She never loved him. She only wanted his money. That is why she trapped him. And he was such an idiot, fell for her, hook, line and sinker.

The little voice of reason in his head spoke up in a whisper, 'But she has never asked you for money, not even for daily expenditure. She always used her own, the one she earned herself. Then how did she trap you for money?' Dev raged at the little voice and squashed it immediately. That voice will never rise up again in his head, certainly not in her defense. She had the audacity to insult his mother over money? He will see how she pays off that loan. She doesn't have it in her. No, not at all.

His mother. The woman he had always held above all. The one he worshipped. His God. But there is nothing in this world called God. That had been proved to him in irrevocable terms in the events that had transpired and his mother was certainly not it. She had put the final wrench in his marriage. She never really accepted Sonakshi and she had gotten the prenup papers using deceit. He still couldn't believe that his mother, his own mother was capable of doing this to him. He was always so careful about what he signed at work, he was known for reading every document multiple times before his signature went on it. He trusted his employees but one can never be too careful. But his mother? When she had asked him to sign, he hadn't even looked at the papers! It was HIS MOTHER! He never imagined in his wildest dreams that she would do this, get him to sign something without his knowledge. Especially papers he had specifically said 'No' to. He had made it clear to her that he did not want a pre-nuptial agreement. She had agreed to his face and then gone behind his back to do this? That wretched lawyer was going to regret this dearly for the rest of his life. He would make certain of that. Let's see if he is ever able to practice law anywhere.

Maybe Sonakshi was right. His wishes, his desires really did not matter. He had been given no right to make any decision on his own. The one and only decision he made on his own, choosing Sonakshi as his life-partner, was struck down by his mother.

And Sonakshi. She knew all this and couldn't stand by him? She couldn't trust him? She had made the lofty promise that she wouldn't leave him, even if he left her. Obviously, an empty promise. She left at the first knock of trouble.

The feelings of loneliness wrapped him like a thick shroud. How could the women he loved the most do this to him? He had loved them both so much, but they couldn't love him back? He would do everything in his power to make them happy, but they couldn't do the same for him? They were his family, but wasn't he theirs?

They betrayed him. Both of them. His mother and his wife. Dev picked up a glass decorative piece sitting on the bar and threw it, adding to the shards of glass everywhere, including his miserable life.

Fuck this. He was done with all this. He was done with them. All of them. He was done being the dutiful son, the loving husband, the caring brother. He was done living for all of their happiness.

A new era will dawn from now on. The one where he will think only of himself, his wishes, his desires. He will do exactly what he wants. Only his opinions will matter. He will do what makes him happy, what gives him pleasure. He will live his life as he deems fit.

This will be the era of Dev Dixit. No one else. There won't be any place for anyone else. Not ever.