All Strings Attached

Chapter Nine

Dhushyanth

After the wedding

I enter Sita's room and close the door after me, making her look up from her phone. Her face remains blank, and the girl remains unmoving as I turn around to lock the door.

"I'm going to sleep on the bed," she declares, before I even have the chance to take a look at the room or the furniture that occupies it.

Something about her tone or what she says ticks me off in the most unexpected way. "You can sleep wherever you like, it's not my concern."

She looks up at me, her precisely sculpted eyebrows raise slightly in confusion, drawing attention to the apprehension in her eyes, while her lips remain strictly pursed.

I don't respond to her unasked question, choosing simply to climb the bed and use the plugged-in charger to charge my nearly-dead phone. I notice the flower petals on the floor, with a few sprinkled randomly on the bed. Someone seems to have taken it upon themselves to clean the bed.

"That's my charger," her annoyed voice comes.

"I know," I tell her, stretching my legs out to where she's sitting. "It's your room, your bed, your charger," I acknowledge, "and I'm your husband. Am I missing anything?"

Sita looks down at my feet, and back up at me, her eyes narrowing at me with clear annoyance. "You have all rights over my feet as well," I tell her, "don't feel like you need to touch them, though. You'll always have my blessings."

"Are you being funny?" She questions drily.

"Are either of us laughing?" I retort.

Her eyes flare with annoyance, but she gets off the bed and stomps to the closet, her white saree ruffling around her.

Antha chiraaku deniko. [(Telugu) Why ever is she so annoyed?]

Rolling my eyes, I go through a few texts about my campaign, refraining from responding to them for the time being since I'm supposed to be spending my first night with my wife.

I notice Sita doesn't make it out of the closet for the next fifteen minutes, and wonder how long it might take to take off a saree and put on something comfortable to sleep in.

It might take some time to fold the saree away, I guess?

I find a TV remote on the other side of the bed, and pick it up to watch some news before I fall asleep.

Restlessness fills me up when all I see on the news are the press-release pictures of my wedding to Sita Cherukuri. I switch off the TV and look around the room, noticing how vaguely it is decorated; a picture frame of Sita and her best friend Meera is on the table under the TV, another picture frame of Sita and Nitya on the other side, and a few figures of the Burj Khalifa, Eiffel Tower, leaning tower of Pisa, but there's no personal touch to the room, it's just a bunch of pieces lying around. Well, she did spend most of her time in Bangalore over the past few years.

Finally, bored of inspecting a room that says nothing of its owner, I decide it's time to see what's taking Sita so long.

It would be such a bad idea for her to run away now, rather than when I had offered all those weeks ago.

I get up, stepping on the rose petals on the floor as I walk up to the closet. "Sita?" I call for her, knocking on the door, but I hear no response.

"Sita?" I knock louder.

"What?" She snaps, sliding the door open, in her half-undone saree.

"Why is it taking you so long?" I ask her, trying my best not to reciprocate her tone.