"The Glassy Eyes"
"Alive, breathing. No two similar words could differ more from the other."
- IArmageddonI
Akash grunted slightly as Payal wrapped her arms around his chest, resting her head on the toned muscles of his back. Ever since the Shyam fiasco, Akash hadn't spoken a word to Payal, completely ignoring her.
Payal craved and at that moment was craving to have her Akash with her, their nightly intimacies being the sole binding threads of their crumbling relationship.
As Akash attempted to shake her off, Payal tightened her grip around his shoulders, and sobbed softly on his back. "Akash, please. I need you. Ak..." she hiccuped. He opened his eyes and sighed.
The pain of having his wife keep secrets from him... something that potentially destroyed his family, and broke him.
For Akash, his family came first. Anjali was the one who practically raised him, because his own mother never had any time to spare from her frivolous parties and makeup. He turned around and held Payal's shoulders and she leaned in to hug him.
"Do you know the monstrosity of your silence? For what... why did you keep quiet? My Di..." Akash closed his eyes briefly, trying to forget Anjali's numbness soon after the fiasco, the broken expression that haunted her face for days on end after that.
"Akash, you tell me on what basis would you all have trusted us? Also... how could I just destroy the peace of this house. I was compelled to keep quiet, Akash! Di was pregnant, for God's sake! How could we let her know all this in such a state."
"You could have told me damn it!" he snarled, with a frightening resemblance to his older cousin. Grabbing Payal's shoulders, he yanked her towards him and looked into her large, teary eyes "I don't feel any love for you Payal. Whenever I see your face I doubt if I you are the woman I once loved!" Payal clutched on to his kurta, scared for she had never seen this side of her husband.
"Akash!" She begged, her heart hammering against her chest as he held her still.
"You know right that you could have told me anything!" he continued. "I would have understood, would have believed you! In fact if you even told me that you weren't a virgin... it would have never mattered to me because I love you."
Payal's eyes widened in shock, followed by disgust as she wrenched herself out of his grip and stared into his angry eyes. "Akash, you were my first," she said.
Akash sat up and rolled back the white, cotton sleeves of his kurta. "You didn't bleed that night and I never felt any barrier."
Realization flooded through Payal as she stepped back and looked at his face. "Oh, so this was the reason!"
He stiffened and looked at Payal. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed him. "No wonder after our honeymoon you just stopped being a part of my life... as my husband. It's because you thought," Payal stopped to gulp, tears filling her eyes at the narrow mindedness of her husband.
"You thought that since I don't have a hymen, I am not a virgin? Are you not educated Akash? Do you not know that a hymen can tear due to simple, physical activities that are not sex!" Akash looked aside guiltily while Payal buried her face in her palms, sobbing. Stepping away from his proximity, Payal put a pillow on the couch and looked at Akash's bewildered eyes.
"Anyways you've stopped touching your own wife as a lover, and to think that I have been judged every time we made lo... we had sex disgusts and breaks me." Payal bit her lip to stifle a cry as a part of her still loved the man before her.
Akash closed his eyes and cussed under his breath. Taking a few steps he reached Payal to find himself pushed away "Don't even touch me!" She barked while Akash grabbed her arms.
"I will! I love you too damn it!" he shouted. "I know I don't say it enough, I know I am too quiet to do anything but if you are mine then you are mine, period!" He relaxed his grip as Payal still looked at him with mistrust.
"I don't know what to say Akash, I don't know." Her eyes fluttered shut as Akash placed a chaste kiss on her lips.
"Okay, I am sorry for everything. I am. Just let's... let's clean up this mess Payal, even I can't take it... being so away and distant from you." Payal, too exhausted by the current events, leaped at the first attempt at reconciliation.
With every cloth shed, she felt a barrier dissolve between them.
"Gentle..." she whispered, arching slightly as her husband apologized and made love to her.
Yet, for the first time, Payal was confused more than pleasured. He was too fast, too distracted. Cupping his cheek gently, later, Payal rested on his shoulder while Akash blankly stared at the ceiling. Payal became worried as Akash remained unsettled, furrowing his brows together every now and then.
"What happened Akash?" She asked, feeling vulnerability take over.
"Nothing's right Payal. Di's broken, the family is shattered. And over that your sister..."
"Akash?" Payal sat up, looking at him in disbelief. "Khushi too has no fault over here."
Akash gave her a mock nod and shook his head "Khushi isn't a child Payal. Don't tell me she never understood that Shyam liked her and barely realised that he was married to Di. You didn't, I get it. But Khushi's been to our house a billion times and she never got to see the huge picture of Shyam and Di?"
Payal frowned in distaste and held Akash's hand "She's just eighteen Akash. The same can be said for Di as well. She's thirty two, mature and yet she never realised that her husband was never at home! Shyam never had a fixed working address nor did he ever give her his travel details... as a wife how could she never understand that!"
Akash grumbled and put his kurta on "Payal, don't blame Di when your sister's at a larger fault. Also, what was your family thinking of keeping a young male in their house when there are two young daughters! Logical fallacy clearly runs on your end, not mine."
Payal got up aggressively and folded her arms. "Akash, don't turn this into a blame game. Everyone has had their faults here."
"Exactly my point Payal!" Akash emphasized, adjusting his spectacles. "But you don't want to accept yours."
"Mine? Fine, I accept my mistakes... then please ask your mother to accept hers. Because if she was a bit more accommodating, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell the truth. Maa ji is always looking for a reason to kick me out," Payal choked and turned aside, wiping a tear away.
"Payal... where did my mother come into all this? You know what," Akash grabbed his work clothes and laptop "It was my mistake to think I can understand. Because in your eyes only your family is right. You've barely been a wife to me after marriage, and now I feel terrible to see that you've not been a daughter in law either."
Payal gaped at Akash... didn't they just share an emotional connect moments ago. "How can you say that Akash... right now we just,"
Akash raised his hand and sighed "Whatever happens in bed does not affect discussions Payal."
Scalded by his comment, a teary but angry Payal grabbed a duffel bag. "You know what Akash, you're right. I am at fault, I have done mistakes and I have never been a wife or daughter in law. Even if I tried to complete your mother's stupid demands of chopping a hundred onions in seven minutes or cook for over two hundred people. And I wanted to tell you that..." Payal stopped, her hand going briefly over her stomach but she shut her eyes.
"But you don't deserve to know it. I am bad, I am terrible... I accept. Now since I can't satisfy the terms of being Mrs. Akash Raizada or a Raizada bahu, let me leave!" Payal pushed a few clothes into her bag.
Akash growled, hurt "I won't stop you!"
Payal wiped her tears with the back of her hand "The worst part is, I don't even expect you to stop me." A shocked Akash looked on as his wife was really leaving him. Washing his face with cold water, Akash recollected every moment he spent with Payal. What had he ended up saying to her! Was he really oblivious to his mother's taunts? Did the need to rise as the protector of his family strip him from being a husband?
Feeling the sudden emptiness, he ran behind Payal, too surprised with himself at the turn of events.
"Hello hi bye bye khoon bhari tang! Glad to see that you're finally leaving my Akash bitwa so as to he can get some relief. God knows how he survives with you in the same room!" He heard Payal's insult and stopped short.
He silently watch Payal clutching the bag tighter, her face downcast in shame and humiliation.
Without another word, Payal walked out of the house.
Out of his life.
~*~
"Arnav?" came a soft, almost ghostly whisper. He looked down at the woman he was holding in his arms. He was at door of his room, en route to the hospital.
"Khushi, baby... I am sorry. I swear I won't hurt you... just hold on," he begged, pressing his lips fervently to her temple while Khushi squirmed and blinked at his teary face.
"I am hurt..." she whispered to herself, her voice almost childlike.
"My palm..." she croaked, her hand stinging with pain as she subconsciously tried to catch on to his collar.
"Khu..." he stopped abruptly and drew her hand to his face for a closer inspection. Alternating his gaze between the blood stains on the sheet and her hands, a cry of hoarse relief escaped his mouth.
She didn't slit her wrists.
Placing her on the recliner, her husband kneeled before her and held her palms, shaking with sobs, while a dazed Khushi looked on. "Don't you ever do this to me again! DON'T YOU... do you know what I went through when I thought that you," Arnav paused to engulf a weak Khushi into his arms. "I thought I lost you damn it! And I would have died if it happened, again."
"Why?" Her voice still sounded childlike while Arnav broke away, looking at her face, partially illuminated by the moonlight. "Why! Don't you know that without you I..."
Khushi raised her hand in front of him and sighed "Why would I kill myself?"
Speechless, Arnav cleared his throat and looked at her. Khushi scrunched and then leaned against the chair. "I didn't think of it. Maybe I should... after..." she said after a few seconds.
"NO!" Arnav thundered and cupped her cheeks, looking into her distracted eyes. "Never! Dare you say this again, Khushi!" She lay limp in his arms while Arnav gave full vent to all his fury and concern.
"But you're right..." she faintly added, her fingers playing with the dried blood in her palms. "It's all my fault."
"STOP!" he held her palms, cursing himself for not getting the first aid.
"We'll talk about everything else later." He sprinted towards the cupboard, groping blindly for the first aid, while Khushi continued to talk to herself like a haunted doll.
Cussing on not finding the first aid in the darkness, he stepped aside and switched on the lights. "Khushi shut up, we'll talk about everything later. First let me... let me look at you." His voice trembled as the sight of her bloodied fingers drifted before him. He shut his eyes for a moment to drive away the vision. Flicking a tear aside in relief that his wife was safe, Arnav turned towards Khushi to find an image that even his worst nightmares could not paint.
There were long, deep-running scratches all over Khushi's face and arms. The blood clots formed on her innumerable, ghastly wounds made Arnav shrink back in mortal terror. Gathering his wits he tried to walk towards her. "Khushi..." A strangled whisper escaped his lips as he looked at a broken Khushi stare at him, straight into his eyes.
Arnav felt like he had been hit on the head. Numbness spread through his nerves as the first aid box slipped from his hand, falling with a soft thud. Unable to believe the sight before him, he fell down to his knees; just as Khushi had, a few hours ago.
As his palms shook and groped for the floor, seeking for balance, Arnav felt his world tilt and the ground slip away. Soft tufts of long lustrous hair came into his hands, strewn all across the floor.
"I don't know how I cut my own hand...I was just chopping off my hair." Khushi muttered, looking at the scissors crossly.
"Khushi..." Arnav called out, like a dead man. Khushi blinked at him and subconsciously reached to touch her hair, a thing she always did when he looked at her. When her fingertips touched the poky ends of her short, spiky hair, she let a few tears fall as she saw her long mane on the floor.
He dragged himself to hold the ghost of the woman he used to call as Khushi, as she grabbed a chunk of her hair from the floor and said "I am no longer beautiful, right Arnav ji? Your Di... she's safe."
As her gaze locked with Arnav's terrified ones, she smiled and slipped onto the floor, her glassy eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Your sister is safe."
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