Chapter 1 #3
"How is your family, Akriti?" asked Aunt Kamini, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "We never see them anymore."
"They're well, Aunt. Thank you for asking."
"Such a shame they live so far away. You must miss them terribly. All alone here, with no real..." She paused delicately. "... companionship."
The table fell silent. Everyone knew what she meant.
"I have wonderful company," Akriti replied evenly. "Savitri Maa has been very kind."
Savitri reached over and squeezed her hand briefly. It was the only support she'd get.
"Still," Kamini continued, "it must be difficult. Being married but not really... you know. Having a marriage."
"Kamini, that's enough," Vikram said sharply.
But the damage was done. Akriti felt the weight of everyone's stares, their pity and judgment mixing into something toxic.
"May I be excused?" she asked quietly. "I'm not feeling well."
Savitri nodded, concerned. "Of course, beta. Go rest."
Akriti walked, not ran, from the dining room. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.
*
Her bedroom was on the second floor, in the east wing. It was beautiful—more beautiful than anything she'd grown up with. A large four-poster bed with silk sheets, an attached bathroom with marble counters, a balcony overlooking the gardens.
It was also a cage.
She locked the door behind her and finally, finally, let herself breathe.
The room smelled like her—jasmine and sandalwood from the incense she burned, the faint vanilla of her body lotion. Her books lined one wall, organized by the author. Her journals filled a drawer in her desk—leather-bound volumes where she poured out everything she couldn't say aloud.
A violin rested in the corner, her one indulgence. She'd learned as a child, and playing it now brought her peace.
She pulled out tonight's journal—a deep green one, half-filled with her neat handwriting—and settled into the window seat. The garden below was dark now, lit only by strategically placed lights that made the fountains shimmer.
Day 1,095, she wrote. Three years exactly.
Her hand trembled slightly as she continued.
Three years of being married. Three years of being alone. The math is cruel—1,095 days of waking up to an empty bed. 1,095 mornings of praying for someone who doesn't pray for me. 1,095 nights of wondering if I made a mistake by staying.
But where would I go? Back to my parents, who were so relieved to marry me into the prestigious Singhania family? Back to a society that would label me a failure, a woman who couldn't keep her husband?
Priya asked today if I still pray for him. The answer is yes. God help me, I do. Every morning. Every night. I pray for his safety, his success, his happiness.
I don't pray for his love anymore. I learned to stop asking for impossibilities.
Maya got her certification today. She cried. I wanted to cry too, but for different reasons. She's free now—free to build a new life, to start over, to be more than her past.
What am I free to do? Serve breakfast. Endure dinner. Exist in the spaces between other people's lives.
Sometimes I wonder if he remembers my name. If he thinks of me at all, or if I'm just a signature on a marriage certificate filed away somewhere in his memory.
I wonder what it would feel like to be loved by him. To have him look at me the way Papa ji looks at Savitri Maa sometimes—like she's the center of his world. To have him touch me with tenderness instead of obligation.
I wonder if I'll spend the rest of my life wondering.
She set down her pen, closing her eyes against the burning sensation behind them.
The violin called to her. She lifted it from its case, settling it against her shoulder, and began to play. A raga for evening—melancholic and yearning, the notes spilling into the darkness like tears she refused to shed.
The music filled her room, her only companion in the vast loneliness.
Outside, the mansion glittered with light and life and laughter. Inside, Akriti Singhania—wife, daughter-in-law, ghost—played her violin and pretended she wasn't disappearing.
And somewhere across an ocean, in a different time zone, a different life, Raghav Singhania worked late into the night, building an empire, never once thinking of the woman whose name he'd barely spoken in three years.
The forgotten wife.
The invisible woman.
The girl who waited in the shadows, hoping for a miracle that would never come.
Akriti played until her fingers ached, until exhaustion pulled her toward sleep. She put away the violin with reverent care, changed into her simple cotton nightgown, and climbed into the too-large bed.
Before turning off the light, she glanced at the photo on her nightstand—the only wedding picture she'd kept. She stood beside Raghav in full bridal regalia, garlands around their necks, her head slightly bowed.
He wasn't looking at her in the photo. He was looking away, toward something beyond the frame.
He was always looking away.
"Goodnight, Raghav," she whispered to the empty room, the same way she had for 1,095 nights.
The silence didn't answer.
It never did.