Birds of a Feather

Chapter 65: Home

Neeti stopped mid-way from zipping up her bag. "Don't say that... look at your mehendi, your husband is going to love you–"

If she heard that line one more time, Khushi would quite literally scream. Luckily, Vihaan had just arrived with a grimmer face than hers, announcing that it was time to go. She gingerly stood up, gathering her veil.

Neeti hurriedly came forward and adjusted the sheer organza dupatta over Khushi's face.

"Trust me," she whispered. "God always has a plan... something tells me this man is the one for you."

For some reason –perhaps, desperation– a very teeny, tiny part of Khushi had believed those parting words.

– Present –

Khushi stumbled out of the taxi, vaguely registering where she had arrived. She didn't even remember uttering directions to the driver, for her mind had been occupied with words she had been gullible enough to believe:

God always has a plan... something tells me this man is the one for you.

That was the first time Khushi had let herself believe. Believe that there was hope for a better future, that destiny had a bigger plan for her. Despite her father's warnings that the Raizadas were not looking for anything more than a dutiful wife, she had let herself imagine that maybe, there was indeed one person other than her mother who would care for her.

She shouldn't have.

Her sham of a marriage was never going to become anything real. She had followed through with it for this long first out of fear of her father's retribution and then, on the hope of reciprocation from her husband. But at the back of her mind, she knew that she was always going to come back to where everything started.

The Gupta Manor shone magnificently under the setting skies. But the stone-cold house meant nothing to her, except that it still held one of the last remaining beating pieces of her heart.

Telling the taxi driver to wait, she crept up to the front door and rang the doorbell. The head butler, although startled to see her at this hour, politely welcomed her inside.

"Mr. Gupta is not home ma'am," he explained.

She couldn't care less. "Pay the driver," she muttered, heading straight to her mother's room. In a hurry to leave Arnav's penthouse, she neither collected her handbag nor her phone.

Perhaps that was a good thing. She didn't want to be found, least of all by the man she was running from.

Garima looked frailer than usual when Khushi entered her room. Although she appeared blissfully unaware, her skin looked more translucent than ever, the wrinkles on her face just too dominant to ignore.

"Hi Maa," Khushi whispered, sitting down on the bed and taking her mother's limp hand in hers.

The minutes ticked on in silence as Khushi watched Garima's peaceful form, refusing to give into the grief raking her into shreds. Perhaps she held the world record for the shortest-lived happiness anyone ever experienced. She didn't even have a day to revel in the misconception that Arnav loved her... his soft lips, which until now only brought colour to her cheeks, began to seem like betrayal.

Because Myra, in her infuriatingly perfect voice, had a point.

You've always thought about others, and I can't believe it took me so long to understand that... It's been, what, a year since you married Khushi? Only a year, and you care so much about her...

Did Arnav love her because Khushi was the only one who stayed with him when he was at his lowest, or did he love her because of who she was as a person? And no matter how similar both those options sounded, deep in her heart, Khushi knew they weren't.