Secrets And Lies [Completed]

47. heads will roll

Song of the chapter is
Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

-47-
-Saina Bahl-
-Present-

_________

Delmore Local Area
6 December, 2030
12:46 pm

As I scratched the itch on my ring finger, where my wedding ring sat gladly, my mind wavered to a place that I found myself visiting most often.

My home.

Not the one in Gurgaon, that was more Gautam's than mine, not even the one which my father had once abandoned me and my mother in.

For the two years after I had left Delmore, I had rented a place in Pune, near my then workplace, to reside in. It was a small cramped up apartment  with just one bedroom. The hallway ended as soon as it began.

And yet, still, despite itself, that place still had left a strong indentation on my heart and my mind.

In those two years, I had learned to live alone for the first time. That space was mine and mine alone. No one had any power over it, except me.

That was what I had craved for, for years.

Ever since I was a young kid, I had been hungry for love. All I ever wanted in life was to love and be loved. But I guess this wish of mine was too big for God to fulfill.

I had everything growing up, except it.

And that's why I looked for it in the wrong places, in the wrong people.

I was thirteen when I had first seen Avinash and to say that I hadn't fallen for his boyish grin would be untrue. But then Alishka had come along and that dream of mine had not taken seconds to shatter.

When I finally thought that we could be together, Yash had taken him away from me again.

And then I had met Gautam seven years later, just like some fairytale movie. He was everything a woman could wish for. With a commanding presence that effortlessly captured attention, Gautam exuded an air of confidence and magnetism that drew people towards him like moths to a flame.

Sometimes to a point of no return.

But then, despite all of that, I had never been in love with him. I had never felt loved by him.

Even with his hands around my waist in parties, whispering sweet nothings to each other in secret, or walking hand in hand down the street, I had never once felt loved.

I had mistaken that sense of comfort that came with being with him as love and quite foolishly had tied the knot, thinking all the same things my mother had in her marriage.