Chapter 44 What if I am him? #2
He laughs then, harsh and broken, the sound scraping against my nerves. “What?” he spits, yanking uselessly against my grip. “Stopping me from slapping this bitch now?”
The word explodes in the room.
It doesn’t echo—it detonates.
Everything inside me goes cold and burning at the same time. My grip tightens without permission, rage flooding my veins so fast it makes me dizzy. For a split second, I can’t hear anything but my own heartbeat, loud and violent in my ears.
And all I can think is: he will never say that word about her again. Not while I’m breathing.
“Why?” he sneers, leaning closer even though his wrist is still trapped, pain clearly rippling through him.
His breath is hot, laced with malice. “Your father didn’t teach you right?
” His mouth twists cruelly. “Must be so disappointed, looking down at his son—so weak. So neatly wrapped around a woman’s finger. ”
Something inside me slips.
The room doesn’t spin dramatically. It tilts, just enough to throw me off balance, just enough to make the present feel thin and unreliable. The walls blur at the edges as memories surge up without permission.
My mother’s voice—hoarse, desperate—shouting. The sharp crack of glass shattering against stone.
The way I learned, very young, to stay quiet. To count breaths. To pretend the noise was thunder and not rage tearing through our home.
I remember hiding my hands under my pillow so they wouldn’t shake.
I remember staring at the ceiling and wishing I could disappear.
I remember Yagini, two years old, crying while I did everything in my power to shut her up.
I remember the shame most of all—how it settled into my bones, heavy and permanent, long before I understood it didn’t belong to me.
Ayush rips his hand free with a violent jerk and laughs, the sound ugly, unrestrained. “You think people don’t know?” he spits, taking a step back only to loom forward again. “How your father was a woman-beater? How he slept around like loyalty was a joke?”
His words scrape against something raw inside me.
“And you—” he scoffs, eyes glittering with satisfaction, “you can’t even keep one woman quiet.”
The impact comes from the side.
Devraj’s fist slams into Ayush’s face with a force that finally knocks the smirk clean off him. Rage flashes across Devraj’s features—unfiltered, protective, lethal.
But I don’t move. I can’t.
Ayush’s words echo in my head, not because they’re true, but because they touch a wound I’ve spent my entire life guarding. One I promised myself I would never pass on. One I swore would end with me.
And suddenly, the only thing louder than my anger is the fear that maybe—just maybe—I am closer to becoming him than I ever wanted to admit.
Sitara’s hand grips my arm.
It should stop me. It should anchor me, the way her touch usually does. But this time, I don’t turn. I don’t let myself look at her face, because I know—I know—that if I do, I will break right here. In front of everyone. In front of her.
All I can hear is his words.
It keeps echoing, bouncing around my skull like it has nowhere else to go. Louder than the music outside, louder than the murmurs in the corridor, louder than my own breathing. My body goes cold and hot at the same time, a sick, crawling sensation running up my spine, settling deep in my chest.
What if he’s right?
The question isn’t loud. It’s worse than that. It’s quiet. Insidious. It slips in like it has always been waiting for the right moment.
What if I am like him?
The thought hits so hard it knocks the air out of my lungs.
My breath stutters, my chest tightening painfully as images I don’t want come rushing in—Sitara flinching under my voice, her eyes dimming, her smile fading because of me.
Sitara crying in silence, convincing herself she deserves it.
Sitara shrinking, the way my mother used to.
My stomach twists violently.
I promised myself I would never be that man. I promised myself as a boy hiding behind locked doors, as a teenager clenching his fists helplessly, as a man who swore he would rather burn than become his father.
Never.
But what if love isn’t enough? What if anger slips through the cracks one day?
What if I lose control for a second—and that second costs her everything?
My chest caves in under the weight of it.
It feels like something inside me is collapsing, folding inward, leaving nothing solid to stand on.
My fingers twitch uselessly at my sides.
I take a step back.
Then another.
Each one feels wrong. Each one feels like I’m tearing myself in half. But my feet keep moving anyway, driven by a single, brutal certainty.
I turn away.
I walk.
I walk away from the voices, from the heat of the confrontation, from the chaos still buzzing behind me. Most of all, I walk away from her—because staying feels dangerous now. Staying feels selfish.
If being near her means even the slightest chance of turning into the man I hate—Then leaving is the only choice I have.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it breaks me open from the inside.
Even if every step feels like I’m carving her name into my ribs. I will not hurt her. I won’t.