Five Weeks

Chapter 1

'Did you think of something?'

Anahita typed with an urgency and left a message for Mukund before joining her family in the intensive work of finalizing invites for the wedding. She was past the phase where she would beg her father to meet Mukund or at least try to know him, to threaten them about her rights and to cry her eyes out for having mercy on her.

Nothing worked, obviously.

She picked up the square shaped deep-blue invite which had a small crest of peacock and their initials labelled on top of a satin ribbon. Her fingers felt the swell of Y and A together, making her eyes glazed. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down and threw the card aside.

"What happened? You didn't like it?" Usha, her mother, asked gingerly and she poked a finger at herself, surprised. "Who? Me? Are you asking me? Do I suddenly have a say?"

Usha looked at her, hurt. "Anu!"

"Mom, please." Anahita shook her head, "I don't care. Choose whatever you like. It all makes no difference."

She grabbed her phone and rushed back to her room, upstairs. Latching the door, she broke into fresh tears. She never thought her parents would turn her enemies. When did they grow so hard? Why were they so on Yuvraaj's side?

But, that wasn't anything new. It was the same case with everyone. That man had a hold on people. Every fucking person she knew; right from the people sprawled in her house to the neighborhood, relatives & just name it. He was the star in their eyes and she... Well, she was there, as asteroid.

Huh!

They all held a very high opinion of London returned buffoon. Thought that he was the perfect man; perfect son, perfect brother and perfect husband, of course, but reality was far, far away from their assumptions. Yuvraaj Chaitanya Prakash was an A-Level asshole with shameless mouth and bat-shit crazy humor.

Anahita was throttled in his presence. He tortured her, bossed her around, insulted her and knowingly, in front of everyone, he tried to be charming and innocent. She had never liked him. She hated how he turned every situation in his favor, portraying her as a bad person.

She didn't know what she had done to get into this situation. But, she knew she could do nothing about it. Yuvraaj had her family wrapped around his pinky. Her uncles loved him and her aunts were jealous to not get him as their son-in-law. They never said it, but she could feel it the way everyone told her how lucky she was to have Yuvraaj!

"Lucky, my foot!" She muttered, twitching her lips in annoyance. She wiped her tears and checked her phone. There was no text from Mukund. Noises from the hall rapped her door and she pressed her face in the pillow. "Why? Why is everyone celebrating my slavery?" She wept and swung her legs in frustration, "I don't wanna marry him. I don't wanna marry him. God, please! Save me. Just kill him overnight!" She said in a childlike tone, and her phone beeped with a message.

She flung for it, excited to see if Mukund contacted her but her excitement drained out when she read the text, 'Stop cursing me. I just cut my tongue.'

"Huh!" She scoffed and typed a quick reply, then deleted it and threw her phone aside. She didn't have energy to waste him. After a minute, her phone beeped with another message. She checked gingerly, knowing he would send something nasty. And, he didn't disappoint her. 'I heard you're choosing the invites! Don't choose a tacky one. Send me a pic ASAP.'

See! Right there, he called her tacky and if she went downstairs and complained, they would say, "Come on, Anu. You know Yuvi is a jolly person. He's just teasing you." So, she decided to handle it herself.