Chapter 5 #2
A stranger's face.
The entries blurred as tears filled Raghav's eyes. He wiped them away angrily, forcing himself to keep reading.
Year 3, Month 1.
But I still love him. God help me, I still love him.
It's irrational. Foolish. Self-destructive.
How can you love someone who doesn't know you exist?
But I do. I love the boy I glimpsed on our wedding day beneath the armor—the one who looked scared for just a moment. I love the man Savitri Maa describes—brilliant, driven, haunted by expectations.
I love the husband I've never had but keep hoping for.
I'm a fool.
But I'm a fool in love.
The words destroyed him.
Each entry was a knife, precise and deep, cutting through every excuse he'd made, every justification he'd clung to.
She'd loved him.
Through everything—the neglect, the humiliation, the loneliness—she'd loved him.
And he'd given her nothing in return.
He picked up another journal. This one was different—not a diary but observations. Notes.
Things I've Learned About the Singhania Family:
Strategic assessments of family politics. Who aligned with whom. Which uncles were ambitious. Which cousins were loyal. Where the fractures lay.
She'd been watching. Analyzing. Understanding the power dynamics he'd been born into but she'd had to decode.
Ranveer chacha ji is dangerous, one entry read. He smiles too much. Agrees too easily. But I've seen how he watches Papa ji. How he positions himself in meetings. He's waiting for something. An opportunity.
The Kapoor situation is escalating. I heard the servants talking. Three more businesses have switched allegiance. Ranveer chacha ji says we need aggressive action. Papa ji urges caution.
Raghav's absence is creating a vacuum. People are choosing sides.
She'd seen it. All of it. The threats he'd been too distracted to notice.
Because she'd been here. Present. Paying attention.
Being the wife he'd needed without him ever knowing.
Raghav moved to her bookshelf, running his fingers along the spines. Poetry—Ghalib, Rumi, Tagore. Philosophy—Kant, Camus, Eastern texts. Fiction—classics mixed with contemporary.
She was well-read. Educated. Intellectual.
And he'd assumed she was simple. Traditional. Uninteresting.
The violin drew him again. He lifted it, saw initials carved into the wood. T.M. Her maiden initials.
This had been hers before the marriage. She'd brought it with her. Had played it in secret, in this isolated room, where no one could hear.
Where he would never hear.
His phone buzzed. The hospital.
His heart stopped. "Yes?"
"Mr. Singhania, Mrs. Singhania is awake and asking for you."
Relief flooded through him. "I'm coming. Tell her I'm coming."
He looked around the room one last time—at the books and journals and violin, at the evidence of a rich inner life he'd never bothered to discover.
Then he grabbed a bag and started packing. Her favorite books. A soft shawl from her chair. The framed photo of her with the shelter women. The small notebook where she'd listed things she knew about him.
Things he should have known about her.
As he was leaving, he saw one more journal on her bedside table. The most recent one.
He picked it up, flipped to the last entry.
Day 1107.
I'm going to a gala tonight. With Raghav. As his wife.
I should be happy. This is what I've wanted—to be acknowledged, seen, included.
But I feel nothing.
Three years has taught me that hope is more painful than despair. That expecting love from someone incapable of giving it is a special kind of torture.
So I've stopped expecting.
I'll wear the emeralds. Play my role. Smile for the cameras.
And inside, I'll be as empty as I've been for three years.
Maybe emptiness is easier than hoping.
Maybe invisible is safer than seen.
Maybe I should stop fighting for a marriage that exists only on paper.
Maybe.
That was the last entry.
Written hours before the explosion.
Hours before she'd been ripped apart by a bomb meant for him.
Raghav closed the journal, pressed it against his chest, and felt something inside him break completely.
Not crack. Not fracture.
Break.
Shatter into pieces that could never be put back together the same way.
*
When he returned to the hospital, she was sitting up in bed—a significant improvement. Her face was still bruised, but the swelling had gone down. She could breathe without the oxygen mask now, though it remained nearby.
She looked fragile. Breakable. Beautiful.
"You came back," she said, her voice still weak but clearer than before.
"I told you I would."
"You've told me lots of things." There was no bitterness in her tone. Just fact.
He set the bag on the chair. "I brought some of your things. Books. Your shawl. I thought—I thought you might want familiar items."
She looked at the bag, then at him, confusion flickering across her face. "You went to my room?"
"Yes."
"Oh." She seemed uncertain how to feel about that. Her private space, violated. Or maybe—finally—acknowledged.
Silence stretched between them.
"I should let you rest—" Raghav started.
"You read them, didn't you?" Akriti interrupted quietly. "My journals."
He froze. "I—"
"The way you're looking at me. Like you're seeing something different. You read them."
There was no point lying. "Yes."
Her eyes closed briefly, pain crossing her features. "Those are private."
"I know. I'm sorry."
The apology hung in the air. She opened her eyes, staring at him.
"What did you just say?"
"I said I'm sorry." The words felt foreign, but right. "I had no right to read them. No right to invade your privacy. I'm sorry."
Akriti's breath caught. In three years of marriage, he'd never apologized to her. Not once. Not for leaving. Not for forgetting. Not for the thousand small cruelties.
Never.
Until now.
"Why did you read them?" she asked finally.
"Because I don't know you." The admission cost him. "I've been married to you for three years, and I don't know anything about you. What you like. What you dream about. Who you are."
"You never asked."
"I know." He moved closer to the bed, his movements careful, unthreatening. "I know, and I have no excuse. No justification. I was—" He struggled for the right word. "I was a coward. And you paid the price for my cowardice."
She turned her face away, toward the window. "The doctors say I'll need months of recovery. Physical therapy for my leg. Monitoring for my head injury. I'll be—" Her voice wavered. "I'll be dependent. Weak. Useless."
"You're not useless."
"You don't know that. You don't know me, remember?" There was bitterness, finally breaking through.
"You're right. I don't know you. But I want to." He waited until she looked at him again. "I want to know about the charity. About the women you've helped. About your violin. About everything I was too blind and stupid to ask about before."
"Why?" The question was sharp. "Guilt? Pity? Because you feel responsible for the explosion?"
"All of that," he admitted. "And more."
"What more?"
He gestured to the bag. "I read about the shelter. About what you've built there. The education programs. The job training. The funding model you developed."
"You weren't supposed to see those files—"
"You taught yourself financial management," he continued. "Taught yourself to read balance sheets and investment reports so you could sustain the charity. You've helped over a hundred women get back on their feet. You did all of that alone, with your own money, your own time, your own expertise."
Akriti's jaw tightened. "So?"
"So you're brilliant." The words came out raw, honest. "You're brilliant and compassionate and capable, and I never saw it. I never bothered to look."
"And now you're looking because I almost died." She laughed, the sound bitter and broken. "How romantic."
"Akriti—"
"No." She cut him off, and despite her weakness, there was steel in her voice.
"You don't get to do this. You don't get to suddenly care because guilt is eating you alive.
You don't get to read my journals and think you know me now.
Those were three years of pain and loneliness and loving someone who couldn't be bothered to love me back. You don't get to claim them."
The words hit like physical blows.
"You're right," he said quietly. "I don't. I don't get to claim any of it.
But Akriti—" He waited until she met his eyes.
"I'm asking for a chance. Not to erase the past. Not to pretend those three years didn't happen.
But to start over. To actually get to know you.
To be the husband I should have been from the beginning. "
"Why would I give you that chance?" Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "What's changed? You're still you. I'm still me. The marriage is still a business arrangement forced on both of us."
"What's changed is I see you now." He gestured to her battered body, to the hospital room, to the three weeks they'd spent in this sterile space.
"I see what my negligence cost. I see what I nearly lost before I ever had it.
And I see that you're worth more—so much more—than I ever gave you credit for. "
A tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily.
"The doctor says I need months of recovery," she repeated, her voice shaking. "Where was I supposed to go? My parents' house? They'll be ashamed. The mansion? Where everyone will watch me struggle?"
"The master bedroom," Raghav said.
She blinked. "What?"
"You'll recover in the master bedroom. My room. I'll take care of you."
"That's—you can't—" She was stammering now, shocked.
"I can and I will." His voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. "You're my wife. You'll recover in our bedroom, and I'll make sure you have everything you need."
"Your family will—"
"Can say whatever they want. I don't care."
"Alina—"