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***
"Nats...I," He immediately stopped. His aunt wasn't the only one in the room. There was Shri too who looked at him with wide eyes and she had Rian raised in her arms.
That was twice in a day. He had never been this embarassed. He was mortified.
"What are you doing here half naked? Have a care!" His elderly aunt said and he flushed. This was mortifying. He quickly rushed to the bedroom and clicked the lock.
When he got out, he changed into his sherwani. He went to pick up Rian and kissed his chubby cheeks. "Riaaan, did you miss dada?" He said and his son squealed in affirmative.
"Ofcourse you did!" He kissed his cheeks noisily until his baby giggles filled the room.
When he was done, he lowered the baby only to see her stare at him from the doorstep. Her; who dominated all his thoughts, day in and day out. She was white as a ghost and she carried a tray which was covered in foil in her hands.
"Oh! You're finished. I'm so glad you did it, beta." Nats took the tray and handed it to Shri to place it in the Puja altar. And soon she left, that was an understatement. She bolted as if she would be anywhere but near him.
Nats came in the room again and took Rian with a smile on her face. "Give him to me." She said. "I'll take care of this gentleman and you should go and spend time with your wife."
***
By the time, the lift got down, her breaths had calmed down and she could make sense of everything now. She took in a cool breaths and when they were going towards the banquet hall, she stopped when she saw Dhairiya Kapadia outside. He looked at her and she knew that he wanted to speak to her.
"I wanted to talk to you."
"Sure. Go ahead." She muttered with as much politeness she could muster.
She hadn't even thought that he would be here. It wasn't easy seeing him and knowing that he was behind the accident. Not only that, that if she hadn't worn her Dee's kurta and taken the scooty, it could've been her sister.
"Dhruv told me that I should apologise to you."
That annoyed her immensely. She hated when Dhruv solely took decisions. She didn't want an apology from this man. Kushi could never forgive him, even if he was Dhruv's father. That only plunged the dagger in her heart deeper.
Was he tired of the family spat already and wanted to reconnect with his family? She wondered. Maybe that's why he wanted his dad to apologise so that she could forgive.
"That's not necessary." She said as passively as she could muster and walked away. She never wanted to be in his presence again.
After the Puja was done, they had the engagement ceremony and she plastered on a smile as she greeted everyone. After that was done and the dance floor was open, she grapped his elbow and pulled him towards a quiet corner. She tried to control the annoyance in her voice and let it be composed,
"Did you tell your dad to apologise to me?"
"Oh that. Yes I did. Did he?"
"Why would you do that? I don't want his apology!"
She was losing her patience and her voice was distressed. Also, she didn't want to fight in public. She looked around and saw Dhristhi waving to her from the dance floor and she waved back and held up two fingers indicating her to wait for two minutes.
"He should still apologise though. You deserve an apology."
Now her annoyance was a full wave of anger. There it was again, The Saint Husband. She looked at him dejected. Kushi knew how it would look now. Anything she would say would only come off as her being ungrateful and surly.
"What's wrong? Did I do something wrong?" He rubbed her shoulder.
She felt frustrated tears burn the back of her eyelids. She didn't know how to explain it to him that no matter how much his dad apologised, she could never forgive him.
It felt horrible to be not ungrateful for having such a good kind man but no one knew how fast that faded into into the Villainess and the Saint dynamic. He was always good and she was always so bad. And everywhere she went she knew that everyone thought he deserved so much better than her. It made her sick to her stomach.
"No. You didn't do anything wrong. I have to go. Your sister is calling." She shoved past him and walked to Dhristhi putting on a face of a smile.
***
Dhruv tried to chase her and stop her and he curved around the wall only to bump into someone. He held her shoulders to stabilize the woman and she smiled at him thanking him. He smiled back and walked away from her.
He didn't miss how Kushi had furiously blinked back tears. He still didn't know what he had done to bring her to tears. He wanted to ask her what exactly had happened between his father and her.
But he spotted her on the dance floor with his sister and for the first time in a long time he saw that she was enjoying herself so he stood at the bar.
"Hey. Fancy seeing you here, Dhruv."
He took a break from ogling at his wife and looked beside him so see it was Tasha.
"No way! What are you doing here? Are you crashing this wedding?"
Tasha, his friend who was also a psychiatrist and therapist, actually his own therapist knocked back her vodka, "I'm just stalking you since you decided to ghost me."
"I'm just taking a break from therapy. Don't judge. It has been busy with the baby."
"So you went ahead with it then?"
"Yeah." He said absentmindedly as his sister and his wife linked hands and spun in a circle, laughing.
"Whom do you keep glancing at?" She looked at the direction of the dance floor, "Wait a minute. I thought you were divorced."
That brought him back to Earth. He was divorced. That's right.
"We are. Dishu doesn't know and we're just pretending so that it causes no drama."
"I'm sure that is definitely going to cause no drama. Sure." She said her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Don't jinx it."
When he looked at the dancefloor again, he saw that there was a circle of crowd and he couldn't see Kushi so he involuntarily found himself walking towards the crowd.
He pushed through to see that everyone was staring at a couple, the man had a dead grip on a woman's arm and he was tugging her off the dance floor. His eyebrows frowned and no one made a move to stop him and as they passed by him, he heard the man's sharp words,
"Act like a slut, will you?"
He couldn't stop himself. He shoved the man's arm away and pushed him back shielding the woman behind him.
"Who are you? Oh! I know you. You were the one she was meeting secretly. Wasn't she?"
"Walk away and no one has to get hurt." He said in a icy voice.
"Dhruv, don't." Kushi held his elbow.
"Listen to that bitch and back off!" The man said and lunged for the woman behind him and Dhruv couldn't help but slap him. His stumbled back in shock with his palm over her cheek.
"Dhruv!" Before he could punch him, Kushi held him back.
"How - how dare you! I'm the brother of the groom! How dare you!" He sputtered and walked away embarassed.
"Bhai what did you do?!"
His vision only cleared when he heard his sister's voice who looked at him with tears in her eyes and then he registered who that man was.
***
When Kushi came back to the room, her head was banging against her skull and she was exhausted. It has taken her, Nats, Dhariya Kapadia and Dhristhi posturing for hours to pacify the groom's side.
Even though the groom had no issues, his mother had brought the whole roof down cursing and blaming Dhruv for hitting her son. She had threatened to even lodge an assault complaint.
She stumbled around the room removing her heels which pinched her toes. She gave a groan of relief and removed her earrings next.
"Is the wedding still on?"
She jumped in her skin and turned. "Hmm." She nodded as a yes. Walking to the kitchenette where he stood behind the counter, she kept unscrewing her earring.
She placed the heavy jhumka on the counter and sat on the stood He had changed and he had chopsticks in his hand and a bowl of noodles in front of him. She started removing the other one. She sighed and removed the other earring. Her head felt a lot better now, she massaged her temples with her thumb with he reyes closed.
"Headache?"
She nodded wordlessly. She heard the scrape of his stool and rustle and found his fingers easing the pins away from her hair. He then worked on unhooking the heavy choker and put it on the counter. She tilted her neck and massaged the knots behind her neck.
Her hands fell to the counter when she felt his fingers in her scar. His long finger pressed against her scalp and he eyes closed involuntarily from relief.
He always knew how to give the best head massages. He pressed his fingers on her temple with slight pressure and she sighed and leaned back as her head thwacked against his torso.
She bowed her head he without any further instructions circled his thumbs on the knots in the base of her neck. Kushi couldn't help but moan in relief. God! It felt good.
Even her chest felt lighter as she could finally breathe again and she came back to Earth as she pried her eyes open.
She shoved away from him and abruptly stood from the stool. God! How had she forgotten. After his heavenly head massages, he would always tease her about another effective method and it lead to kissing and kissing led to something else.
"W-what?" He looked at her in surprise.
"I told you Dhruv! To not do that again!" She shouted at him. Kushi realised that the events of the day had caught up to her. The unexpected kiss, she had expected it though. She had. From miles away. His voice dipped in spice and honey telling her to let him help had been indication enough but she couldn't stop herself. Not until he kissed her cheek.
Then with his dad apologising and then seeing him flirt with a woman at the bar and then getting into a fist fight for entirely another woman.
"I didn't do anything." He scoffed annoyed at her.
"Oh let's not, Dhruv! You knew exactly where it leads to." She laughed bitterly not believing him.
"Oh for God's sake! Get over yourself!" He snapped.
"As if I would try those cheap tricks! After you made it so clear in the evening. Even if carried a huge sign board with -Dhruv, I'm not at all interested in you physically." - that would've been less obvious."
She only started at him in shock and his face reflected the same. It was out of the blue for him to get so angry and get so low. Get over yourself. That's what he had said as if she was extremely proud that he could never resist her.
He seemed to recover himself and his expression filled with regret, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. But I didn't have other intentions like you suspect." He walked away from her.
Today was the first time she had seen him get outright violent. Now that she noticed, he seemed short fused recently and he was more serious now rather than his jovial carefree self. She knew she was mostly to blame.
He was angry at her. He should've been. No other man would be this patient. She remembered about her sister's first husband - Nikhil. He was unrelentingly possesive and abusive to the core.
Even though she had to give leeway to Viren Jiju but the man had put her best friend through the wringer because he thought she had cheated on him with her ex. Veer Jiju, her sister's current husband was better than most men she had to agree but he had left her sister to deal with the twins for years.
Siddharth jiju was cold and uncompromising to Sakshi for years until they were forced to live together during the lockdown.
But Dhruv? Dhruv emerged a better man even through drastic situations. He was good natured, kind and intelligent. His anger was pleasant and even though they had fought she smiled because he had defended himself.
They rarely argued through these years. Dhruv always gave in even if she fought. He always apologised even when he wasn't at fault or she was acting obstinate.
And the speculations of others of how Dhruv deserved better rang through. Dhruv did deserve better. So much better than her. There were times she kept wondering if he had even loved him. She didn't know how to answer herself. Surely with love came kindness, came humility, came concurrence, yet it didn't come to her. And then she realised why one day.
That day was the day she asked him for a divorce.
She laughed now when she registered what he had said: Dhruv, I'm not at all interested in you physically. She laughed again bitterly. Nothing was farther from the truth. But he would never know that. That was how she would extend kindness. That was her gratitude and maybe even love.
***
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