Adhura Alviida

red wedding (continued)

Hi! Thank you so much for your love on the VM, I can't reply individually for some reason, but if you haven't ...do check it out! Would mean a ton to me <3

This chapter is very heavy emotionally. I tried my best to convey internal conflicts but Aditya's by far was the toughest to write. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions on it!

Happy reading!

trigger warnings: rape, self-harm

"That night, your Zoya died not one but a thousand deaths..." She glared at Aditya who was staring at her in confusion.

She did not have the courage to face them anymore. She did not have the willpower to stay strong anymore, her determination had been long forsaken. But she also did not want to allow herself to break down in front of them.

As her tears threatened to spill, her voice became shaky.

"After you mercilessly threw me out of your place, I didn't know where to go. I couldn't go back to Abbu. I couldn't let him know that I had failed him once more. I couldn't have done that to him. I was driving...driving to ZoSh's office, however...on the way there, my brakes had failed. I got into a horrible accident."

Aditya clenched his fist, as he remembered Rajveer's words. Guilt started to overcome him. Had he been wrong to judge Zoya so harshly?

Little did he know, this was only the beginning.

"I couldn't-couldn't walk...I had managed to make it out of the car as it burned, but in doing so I twisted body parts I didn't even know existed. I was in unspeakable pain that night. I just wanted you so badly, Aditya. I needed you to know that I didn't sleep with Rajveer. I wanted to reassure you that I was only yours. But I didn't know what fate had planned for me, it played a cruel joke on me."

As Zoya's voice became shaky, Aditya's chest wallowed with guilt. He felt a suffocating feeling in his body as she described her physical pain, He had gravely misjudged her character. There was something she was hiding.

"Wh-what happened, Zoya?" He asked.

She turned around as her tears broke free from their cages and glared at him with fury in her eyes. An expression so foreign to her.

"Do you have the guts to listen, Aditya?" She questioned rhetorically.

"Well, then listen....after that accident, I was stranded in some eerie, unkempt area. I didn't even know where I was. I slowly made up to my feet, but my injuries were too deep and painful to continue walking. I barely was able to call you, Aditya. I called you and you never picked up!" She screamed as she grabbed his collar, shaking him back and forth as her head bent down and her screams became sobs.

She stood back up to her standing position and wiped her own tears.

Aditya, himself, began tearing up as he remembered how he threw his phone in anger that night when he saw her name light up on the screen. As he remembered his iniquity, he felt dejected and useless. If only he had let his anger subside, maybe he would've saved her. None of this would've happened. He was here hurling accusations at Zoya when in fact he could have prevented all of this himself.

"The worst part hasn't even been told yet...when I tried to walk back to somewhere safe, I heard the laughter of some men. I got scared as I heard the vile things they were talking about." She scrunched her eyes shut as she began recalling her own horror story.

"I tried to run. I tried so hard to run. I begged Allah to help me. But my body was unable to listen to me. I couldn't walk any further and they came across me...it didn't take them two minutes to take advantage of my condition, each one of them—"