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Prologue
One handwritten.
One typed.
Two letters.
One written by a dead person.
One written by someone he would happily kill with his bare hands.
Two letters.
One that shows how desperate love can make us.
One that shows how base love can make us.
Two letters.
Atharv, clad in a designer sherwani selected by Mansha, thought about the two letters. He stared at the pundit who was chanting holy verses.
‘Please get the bride,’ called the pundit. Atharv got up. ‘No, no,’ the pundit said. ‘The groom should not get up from the mandap. The girl’s family will get the bride.’
Atharv exchanged a look with his mother, who nodded her head almost imperceptibly. ‘The groom has already got up,’ said Atharv, smiling. ‘And I am her family.’
Atharv marched off towards the room he knew she was waiting for him in. He was aware that his mother and Mansha were following him.
The two letters. His mind went back to them. How much he would have not known had he not read the two letters. Would she have ever told him? No, she would not have. Nor would she have told him of the deceit or the suffering. And she would have never said a bad word about her.
Love is weird, it is complicated even when it is simple.
Stop thinking, he reprimanded himself. The past was just that, the past. The future lay ahead, to be lived and loved.
He smiled a wide happy smile and knocked on the door. The door opened and he craned in to have a look at the woman he dearly loved, decked up as a bride.
Atharv did not know it yet, but in another ten minutes he was about to find out about another letter.
A letter on email.
A letter written by him.
A letter that showed how destiny walks ten steps ahead of us.
A letter that showed how sometimes, even destiny changes its mind.
The letter that was the beginning of it all.
The letter, oh, the letter.
PART I
1
‘If he’s not doing anything to keep you, why are you fighting to not leave?’ she would ask herself often.
For the moment, however, they were in Thailand, the henna from the wedding a bright orange on her palms.
It was here, during their honeymoon, that things began to go downhill.
And it started, really, with the sex.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said, smiling and reaching out for her hand.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled and went back to gazing at the crystal blue waters, her mind blank. It had been but one day on the island, yet the azure of the sea had made the golds and reds of the ceremony a hazy blur.
Her hand felt odd in his, she noted, like it didn’t belong there.
‘Come here,’ he whispered and pulled her into an embrace.
She hugged him back, trying hard to believe it didn’t feel as wrong as it did. She forced herself not to recoil.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked as he stepped back, the concern and disappointment in his voice unmistakable.
