REPLACEMENT WIFE (Short Story) [THE MARTYR WIVES BOOK 1]

22. Taufa

SARISHA

“I love you,” He spoke so lightly on my lips, while I looked at nothingness before me. I didn't try to hold my breath. My heart had stopped pumping itself.

Those three are the words that were never spoken to me before. Something, that I might have heard about in books. Something I have seen in movies. But speaking to me by someone I know?

I always made fuzz over why hearing these three words was such a big deal, but hearing them by someone I know. I was standing in the same place they had once felt to be. Vidyut's stubble cheek rubbed against mine, while he waited for me to respond.

What can I say? My first thought after hearing his confession was how big a tsunami he had managed to create inside me. He was about to stand off from me, but I held his hand,
"Don't pull back?" I requested him.

I just know I don't want him to think that I was a hollow vessel for him. When I wasn't, he made me feel full after my sister's death.
My blame on him is for how my dreams are crumbled. And it will remain attached. But my hatred and love are two separate things that can be kept separately?

I held his wrist tightly, "Vidyut?" I started my words, but he shushed me.

He pulled back from my back, taking his wrist away from me. I heard the sound of the belt. Suddenly a hand slid on the back of my leg, and he pulled me up in his arms the next second.

His face was in vision, a shattered expression on his face. He held me so tightly in his arms despite the fact that I was not very lightweight, I was not pencil thin, he took me towards the bed dropped me down on the headboard and took the sheet pushing it on my naked body. He adjusted them over the top but never met my eye.

If his fear was the transparency eyes had to offer? He must know that his face had the same clarity. "Do you think we need to see the doctor? I am sorry, it was your first time but I didn't be gentle with you?" he asked me, and I shook my head and leaned ahead.

"Vidyut, I hate you," I spoke softly, and he littered his overwhelming emotions everywhere before, he met my gaze. "But.." Before his expression broke to its maximum I spoke.
"I somewhere...like you too?" I shook my head immediately. His widened eyes rested on me, "I mean. I love you." I confirmed him.

"I hate you, but I love you. They say there is a thin line between love and hate. I am on that thin line, I can't live with you, but I can't live without you. I can't see your face, but I can not not see your face. I don't want you to ruin my mornings but I want to wake up with you every day, I am mad at you for taking my dreams away from me. But I also want to make you my new dream," I confessed and he looked at me with an utterly shunt expression.

"Is dream the only thing you hate me for Sarisha?" He asked me the first question, "If someday you achieve what you were hoping for? Would this I hate you I love you turn into just I love you?" He asked me, and I blinked.
"Will I become the person you can't live without wholly? Become the person you can't live without seeing? You would want to wake up in the arms of? Every day? And would I become your new dream?" He questioned me, the same things I ushered a moment ago.

Would he?

Maybe.

I gave a slow nod, and he leaned forward, his head colliding with mine, "Cigarette!" he spoke before he kissed me too hard and I had to reciprocate with the way he devoured me.
And pulled back, and he met my eyes.

A question that followed his previous words.

Maybe he will allow me to follow my dreams. Complete my education, earn and live on my savings and send my parents to temples and give them my salary?