Pratham

"What the hell are you doing?" I snap at Sandhya, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her away from me. "I have told you countless times already. I don't love you and don't want to be with you."

"Please don't say that, Pratham," she pleads, her voice trembling. "I know you still have feelings for me. You can't just walk away from everything we had."

I shake my head, my jaw clenching as a mix of anger and frustration boils up inside me. "Everything we had was over long back, Sandhya. I kept myself shackled to my past for long, but now I have decided to move on. You need to accept it."

Her face twists with anger, and she steps closer to me, clutching my arms as she looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "You can't mean that. You can't just throw me away from your life."

Prying her hands off my arms, I move back from her. Then, sighing, I rub a hand over my face. "Look, I don't know what else to tell you. I have made a choice for my life, for my future. And that future is with my wife, not with you. You need to understand that."

For a moment, Sandhya just stares at me, her expression a mixture of hurt and disbelief. But then, the very next second, her face hardens, and she crosses her arms over her chest. "You think you are going to be happy with your wife? After what you did to me?"

A surge of guilt floods through me at her words, and I look away, my hands balling into fists at my sides.

I know she is talking about the accident, about her right leg that got crushed in such a way that she developed a permanent limp.

"How could you leave me to die there, Pratham? Just how?" She asks.

"They told me you were dead," I tell her, my voice strained. "You say there had been a mix-up but—"

"But what? Do you think I am lying?" She counters. "If you do, you can call up that hospital in London and ask them. They'll tell you I had been in coma for almost ten months. And when I woke up, doctors kept me there for few weeks before allowing me to travel. Once they did, I came running to you only to find out about you being married."

Her lips curve into a bitter smile and she shakes her head. "It was because of you that I got into that accident. It was because of you that I was in a coma. And it's because of you that I'll need to live with this limp my whole life.

"After ruining me in such a way, you now want to move on in your life with someone else? You said to me last time that your happiness lies with your wife. But after what you did to me, you think you deserve to be happy with anyone else except me?"

Her words cut deep, reopening old wounds that never fully healed. I feel the weight of my guilt pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe.

But suddenly, Nitya's smiling face flashes in my mind, and that makes it slightly easier to keep breathing.

I can't let my guilt control my life anymore. I can't let it dictate my future.

"I might not deserve it," I tell Sandhya. "But I need to try. For my Nitya. I want to start fresh with her and build a life with her."

As I say those words, I see a change in Sandhya's eyes. She squares her shoulders and stares unblinkingly at me.

"You are fooling yourself if you think Nitya will ever love you like I do," she says, her voice low and insistent. "No one can love you as much as I do, Pratham."

I feel my patience wearing thin, but I try to keep my voice steady. As it is, she seems already riled up and I don't want to make the situation worse by losing my calm.

"This is not a competition, Sandhya. It's not about who loves me more or better. In fact, it's very simple. Nitya loves me, I love her, and we both want to be with each other. That's all it is. You need to understand it and walk away to let us live in peace."

"Are you sure she wants to be with you?" She asks, completely ignoring what I meant for her to understand. "Because I feel like she'll leave you soon, Pratham. Very soon."

I narrow my eyes at her, trying to understand why she sounded so confident while saying that.

"Why do you feel Nitya will leave me? What makes you say that?"

Sandhya falters for a second. Her eyes dart away from mine and she fidgets. It makes me wonder if there is something she is hiding from me.

"It's my gut feeling," she says after regaining her composure. "You'll see, Pratham. After she leaves you, you'll come running back to me."

"That's enough," I say, my voice getting louder. "I neither care what your gut feeling is, nor do I want to indulge your nonsense anymore. Just get out of my life and stay out."

"Listen to m—"

"GET OUT, SANDHYA. GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE AND DON'T EVER RETURN," I shout, unable to keep my anger in check anymore. Not after her pushing me to my limit since she returned.

I can see hurt flashing across her face, but I can't bring myself to feel sorry for her anymore.

I have tried to be understanding of her pain, tried to let her down gently, but she keeps pushing, refusing to accept the reality.

And that's why, I'm done. I'm done trying to explain anything to her.

Without another word, I storm out of the office, slamming the door behind me. I just need to get away from her suffocating presence.

*****

As I drive home, my thoughts are a tangled mess of regret and culpability. The weight of what I have been keeping from Nitya presses heavily on my chest, and it finally hits me—I made a bit mistake by not telling her about Sandhya's return.

I had thought I would first sort out things with Sandhya, and tell Nitya about her after she leaves the village. But now I have realized I was wrong in making such decision.

My mind replays the last few days, the tension I have felt, the way I have been on edge ever since Sandhya came back.

No more. I won't let this go on anymore.

I have spent too much time dwelling on my past. I have wasted too much energy feeling guilty about things that are out of my hands.

Nitya deserves better than that. She deserves the truth.

Taking a deep breath, I grip the steering wheel tighter as I make the turn toward home.

I know what I need to do now. I'll tell Nitya everything—about Sandhya, about the accident, about the guilt I have been carrying all this time. And most importantly, I'll tell her how I really feel about her.

I love her.

In fact, I feel I have loved her for longer than I have let myself admit.

Nitya brought light into my life in a way I never expected, and I won't let anyone or anything bring darkness to that light.

As I pull into the driveway, my heart races with a mixture of nerves and determination.

I take a moment to gather myself before stepping out of the car.

Then, making my way to the front door, I enter the house and quickly cross the living room to climb up the staircase and get to my room.

Reaching the room, I turn the knob and push the door open, determined to finally make things right—no matter what it takes.

When I step inside the room, I'm surprised to see Dhriti inside instead of Nitya. She is perched on the edge of the couch, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and her face a mask of anger and worry.

The moment she sees me, she stands up and walks toward me. "What did you say to Bhabhi?" She snaps, glaring at me.

I blink, unable to understand why she looked so angry. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, what I said to Nitya?"

Dhriti doesn't answer me. She just shakes her head, exasperation and sadness flickering in her eyes.

Without a word, she reaches out and thrusts a tape recorder into my hand.

"Listen to it," she says flatly, then turns on her heel and marches out of the room before I can ask her any more questions.

I stare at the tape recorder in my hand, and feel a knot forming in my stomach.

What's in this recorder? Where is Nitya? Why did Dhriti look so angry?

With those questions swirling in my mind, I press the play button, hoping it will give me the answers.

The tape crackles to life, and then I hear her voice—Nitya's voice.

"Prathamji," she begins, her soft voice piercing my heart. "You told me you wanted to start anew with me, and I believed you. You said you wanted to build something real with me, and I believed you. But today, my blind belief in you has crushed me."

Her voice breaks, and I can hear her crying, each sob of hers tearing at my heart.

I feel like the ground is slipping away from under me, and I clutch the tape recorder tighter, my eyes stinging with tears.

"I love you, Prathamji," she continues, her voice still so full of pain. "But I have realized I can't keep you tied with me. I'm leaving so you can be happy with the one you love."

The tape clicks off, and I'm left standing in stunned silence.

She is gone. Nitya is gone. She left me.

I slump down on the floor, my mind spinning, my heart shattering into million pieces.