Dear Husband, yours only [on hold]

✥ 15 | Stay

Sanjh sat on the swing on the terrace. After almost four years Sidharth had reached out to her. She never thought he would. She had thought that time would heal her. That she'd eventually move on.

But in that moment when she saw him hurt and broken she felt his pain. She couldn't seem him like that. On that night two days back, when he asked her to stay, she realized that a portion of her heart still belonged to him. It always had. That one word was everything for her in that moment.

"Stay!"

If only he had said it years back on that night. 

If only.

She still remembered that night, the night before his birthday. It was on this very spot that she had confronted him.

* * *

"You okay?"

Sidharth took in a sharp breath as he heard her soft voice. He turned to look at her. She had changed into her nightsuit.  The black pajamas and yellow tshirt one. She had two more identical sets like that. The difference was one had a pale red t-shirt and the other an olive green. He still remembered how those nightsuits had been a icebreaker for them in their early days of marriage. He had joked about her being a traffic signal light in her dreams and she had laughed after trying hard to just smile politely. 

"Just thought of getting some fresh air." He said looking at the roofs of the house at distance, his hands firmly planted on the parapet wall. 

She walked till the parapet wall and stood beside him. "Looks like you and Minal buried the past hatchet."

He stiffened for a bit. "I doubt if the past can ever be buried."

Sanjh glanced at him. Her eyes beginning to glisten with hurt. "Sidharth, tell me what's been wrong in the past few days."

"Isn't right and wrong a very subjective thing?" He remarked instead of answering her question.

"They are, but since when did you start being so philosophical?" She countered.

He exhaled sharply and lowered his gaze to his hands as though trying to think of the right words to say. But he struggled and struggled.

"She loves you, doesn't she?" Sanjh spoke up, her gaze fixated on him.

Sidharth froze. He didn't move an inch. Her words slowly sank in his head.

"I know." She added softly. Then after a brief pause she went on to explain, " That night at Aneesh's party I overheard your conversation with her."

Sidharth blinked processing what his wife was saying. A silence fell between them. After a minute and some seconds rolled by he turned to her. "Why didn't you bring it up right then?"

"I didn't know how to talk about it." She admitted in a small timid voice, lowering her gaze. He knew she could barely talk about feelings. Or maybe she assumed he knew. Somehow it just made her feel vulnerable.

Again a silence fell between them. Silences were usually comfortable between them and very common, but tonight it was like the quiet before a storm.

"Do you want a divorce Sidharth?" She finally said it. It came out rather too bluntly. But she was glad she spoke it out. Keeping it inside it was gnawing at the walls of her heart, hurting her.

He stared at her. Gathering all the courage she could, she looked up at him. "Last night at dinner... I saw the way you looked at her. The way she looked at you. It was pretty evident. At least to me." She hadn't meant it as a taunt, it was supposed to be a fact, but it came out as a taunt.