The Unnecessary Alliance

EPILOGUE ♡

VANIE's POV

1 year and 3 months later.

I stand on the podium and absentmindedly run my hand in the bangles I am wearing while the students are busy writing a story. I am wearing a set of red bangles with gold bangles in the front. Aadi bought them for me as a gift on our first Karwa chauth among other things. So, it was only fair that I wore them on my second Karwa chauth.

My husband is a stage A gifter. The man comes home with random things that cost more than my year's salary and acts like it doesn't even matter.

"Who would I spend money on, if not you?" He said the last time he bought a diamond choker, just because I saw it online once and randomly added it to my wish list. The one I added was fake, but my husband being my husband had the jeweller custom made it for me.

He has spoiled me so much over the last one year that I have completely forgotten how it felt like when I lived on my own salary.

On our one year anniversary he got us matching diamond watches. Mine had an engraving of the date of our wedding, along with the lines of our favourite song. The song he proposed to me on.

"I'd go down with the Titanic, it's true, for you."
29.07.24

After seeing the engravings on my watch I immediately turned his watch upside down, to see what he had gotten.

With every moment I love her more.
29.07.24

At that moment I was confused about what to be happy about — the fact that he bought us matching jewellery after telling me they were just marketing tricks to get people to buy low quality products, or that he got us watches with cute and meaningful messages.

The bell rings and the students jump out of their seats, screaming. The noise of notebooks closing, pencil boxes opening and the clinking sound of pencils fills the air.

I shake my head.

No matter how many times you tell your students to wait till the teacher leaves the class, they never listen. It's like the bell rings something inside them making them jump with joy.

"I am still here." I clap my hands in the air trying to bring their attention to me.

Once they all pause and stare at me, I continue, "Do your homework and revise the rules of tenses. I will check your notebooks tomorrow." And I grab my handbag and walk out of the class.

I walk into the staff room and start packing my things. Since most of the teachers are observing the fast today, the school decided to give us a half day. I don't think we did much teaching today. In the morning we all met 15 minutes before the classes, complimented each other's looks and asked our plans for today.

Everybody had plans with their husbands, but not me.

Well, let me put it another way.

Last year on our first Karwa chauth I managed to convince Aadi to let me fast. I believe in rituals and everything that comes with being a married woman, unlike Aadi. So, I told him that it was our first Karwa chauth and there was no way that I wasn't celebrating it. So, we both ended up fasting and he made me promise that it was just a one time thing.

But it wasn't.

Because, hello, I want my husband to live a long and healthy life. So, I decided to observe the fast without telling him about it. I lied and told him I was dressed up because I could still wear a heavy outfit without fasting and then I told him I was getting late. I threw a tantrum when he wouldn't drive me to school because I hadn't eaten breakfast. So I gave him the ultimatum, "Either drive me to the school or I am driving myself there."