Shaadi Mubarak!

Chapter 9

Rati sits on the bed, looking at the laptop screen blankly. Surprisingly, it is only today that her boss has no work for her. The fact that it’s a weekend doesn’t even matter. He always has her on the call. But no. 

Not today. Today the blurry gaze that has been the consequence of welled up eyes just stare at the object until new tears drops form in her eyes and rolls down her cheeks. She harshly wipes at them. 

She can’t believe herself. 

Why is she so weak? So emotionally vulnerable?

There are so many people who are suffering in reality. What is she crying for? 

For the fact that Shaurya’s friends weren’t as good as Shaurya? Or is it because of the girl who was eyeing him throughout the meeting, the other friend, that Jatin had even tried to introduce the two to each other. Or is it because of what that guy had said about her, that she is using Shaurya. At that moment she had been more hurt on Shaurya’s behalf. He worried so much about her and at the end he had to listen to those words. 

And maybe, out of all the reasons, it is because of that. Shaurya worries so much about her, cares so much for her, and yet, yet he couldn’t admit to their relationship out loud. 

Wasn’t she his soon to be wife? Or was he… 

Her gaze instantly falls on the ring adorning her thumb at the thought that she grazes gently. 

No, it’s not that. It could never be that. This ring tells her this much. 

Whatever it is, at this point she just feels stupid. And afraid. 

She has already cried in front of him twice. Twice. And they have only met a handful of times. 

She wouldn’t even blame him if he wouldn’t want a cry baby for a wife. 

A fresh wave of tears threatens to fall down at the thought that she instantly suppresses with a loud exhale. God, she really needs to grow up.

Rati is woken out of the self-pitying haze by a knock on the door.

Though the lump in her throat doesn’t let her speak for a few seconds. 

“M-Ma, can we talk later?” 

Rati says and it is Shaurya who hears it from the other side of the door, the voice thick with emotion. 

Shaurya doesn’t knock again instead just stands in front of the door with both his palms on it. Giving himself a minute to gather all the courage in the world.

“It’s me.” He mumbles in his mouth, so low that even he has to strain his ears to hear himself, but by some miracle the girl inside does. The next thing he knows, the door is suddenly opening resulting him in losing his balance slightly. Though the slight imbalance has him tripping on his feet, his body colliding with the person opposite him, and the said person losing the balance too. 

He is quick to change their positions so that it is him who takes the fall first. 

Surprisingly the impact never comes, at least not to the back of his head. 

“Ah,” the girl hisses lightly before slowly taking her hand out from below his head, the same hand that shielded him just a second ago. 

“Sh-Shaurya, are you ok?” she asks worriedly, still on top of him, too busy worrying for him and not herself or the position that they are in. Shaurya, on the other hand has his gaze fixed at the girl’s face, his mind continuously reminding him that she chose to get hurt in his stead. The same girl whose eyes glitter with a melancholic sheen that no doubt is because of him.