Proposal and engagement #2
"...and then leave you there all over again?"
He shook his head desperately.
"I couldn't."
"I knew if I saw you..."
"I would never be able to walk away a second time."
"So I stayed away..."
"And every day without you felt like a punishment I had sentenced myself to."
He lowered his head once more, his voice barely audible.
"I thought I was giving you a future."
"But all I really did..."
"...was spend two years learning that loving someone sometimes means making impossible choices."
Another tear slipped down his face.
He closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Devyani."
"I'm sorry the path I chose broke your heart."
"And I'm sorry it broke mine too."
The room fell silent again, save for the quiet sound of his breathing and the steady rhythm of the tears that continued to fall between them.
Tears kept flowing down Rivan's face.
For the first time in years, he wasn't trying to hide them. And for the first time, Devyani didn't try to stop her own.
They simply cried together. Not because they were broken anymore, but because years of pain, regret, longing, and love were finally finding a way out.
Slowly, Devyani bent down until she was at his level.
The expensive marble floor didn't matter.
The flowers scattered around them didn't matter.
Nothing in that magnificent room mattered anymore.
She gently sat beside him on the floor. Her trembling hands rose to his face.
She cupped his cheeks with both palms, wiping away his tears with her thumbs as if each one hurt her just as much.
"Look at me," she whispered.
He couldn't.
His eyes stayed lowered, filled with shame. She softly lifted his face until their eyes met. There was no anger in hers. No resentment. Only endless affection. A faint smile appeared through her own tears.
"I know you." The words were quiet.
Yet they carried more certainty than anything else she had ever spoken. "I know your heart. I know the man you are. I know why you did everything you did." She shook her head gently. "You don't have to keep apologizing. You don't have to punish yourself anymore."
Another tear rolled down his cheek.
She caught it before it could fall. "I won't pretend it didn't hurt. It did. There were nights I cried until morning. There were days I hated you. There were moments I questioned everything." Her voice softened. "But never, not even once, did I believe you stopped loving me."
Rivan's lips trembled. She smiled through her tears. "Because I know you. I know that whenever you love..."
"You love with every part of yourself," she whispered, her voice thick with an ache that mirrored his own.
"And sometimes... you love so deeply that you end up hurting yourself, tearing your own spirit apart just to shield the person you hold most dear."
A tiny, fragile laugh escaped her, caught somewhere between a sob and a smile as she reached out to gently brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
Her touch was a prayer, lingering against his skin as she searched his eyes.
"You've always carried everyone's pain, haven't you? You've always clung to the hollow belief that suffering in silence was your solemn duty. You thought if you hid your tears where no one could see, if you bled in the dark, it would somehow keep the rest of us safe."
She shook her head slowly, her expression softening into a look of fierce, unconditional devotion.
"But you don't have to do that anymore. You were never meant to carry the world's weight on those tired shoulders alone."
She leaned in until their foreheads rested against each other, their breathing syncopating into a shared rhythm.
"We are husband and wife. Your pain is mine, just as surely as my pain is yours. So please, stop trying to survive in isolation."
A ragged sob tore through Rivan's chest, a sound of long-repressed agony finally breaking the surface.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his voice a broken, barely audible rasp.
"I don't deserve you."
She smiled then, a luminous, knowing thing. "Maybe," she conceded softly, her eyes dancing with tears.
When he looked at her, startled, she laughed again a sound like a balm to his shattered nerves.
She tapped his chest, right over the heart that had been beating for everyone but himself. "But that's not your decision to make. It's mine. I chose you then, I choose you today, and tomorrow, in every lifetime we might share, I will choose you all over again."
With that, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around him with a ferocity that defied gentleness.
She held him with every ounce of her strength, as if she could physically gather his scattered, broken pieces back together through the sheer force of her embrace.
For a single heartbeat, Rivan froze, stunned by the weight of being truly seen and held.
Then, the dam broke. He melted into her, burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, his hands clutching the back of her dress as if she were the only anchor in a turbulent sea.
His breathing was still uneven, ragged with the remnants of his torment, but the crushing solitude that had defined his life was finally evaporating.
Devyani began to stroke his hair, her movements steady and rhythmic, a quiet incantation meant to calm a storm that had raged for far too long.
She leaned close to his ear, her voice a steady anchor in the gale.
"Listen to me carefully. The past happened it is etched into us, and we cannot erase it or rewrite those chapters. But we can decide what it means. We can decide if it becomes the tragic end of our story, or the very reason we choose to love each other better from this moment forward."
She tightened her hold, grounding him. "So, no more apologizing for existing. No more punishing yourself for sins that were never yours to carry."
"No more thinking you have to earn my love. You already have it. You always did, and you always will."
Rivan shut his eyes so tightly that white light flared behind his lids.
Another tear escaped, tracing a path down his cheek, but this one felt entirely different from the ones that came before.
It wasn't born of the bitter salt of regret or the heavy stone of self-loathing it was the pure, liquid relief of a soul finally coming home.
It was the profound peace that comes only when the person you feared would condemn you finally pulls you into their arms not to demand the past be forgotten, but to swear, with every fiber of their being, that the future will be faced together.
Rivan slowly lifted his head.
His eyes were still red, his lashes damp with tears.
He looked at Devyani for a long moment before reaching up and gently wiping away the tears that continued to slip down her cheeks.
His thumb lingered against her skin.
"Please..." he whispered.
His voice was so fragile it barely carried through the silent hall.
"Don't cry."
Another tear escaped her anyway.
His expression crumpled.
"No... please, kitten."
Every tear that fell from her eyes seemed to tear through him.
"You have no idea what it does to me."
His breathing grew uneven again.
"When you cry..."
He placed a trembling hand over his chest.
"...it feels like something inside me is being ripped apart."
His eyes searched hers desperately.
His voice broke.
"I can't watch tears fall from your eyes because of me."
He shook his head helplessly.
He cupped her face in both hands, as though trying to shield her from every sorrow she had ever known.
"So promise me something."
She looked at him through blurred vision.
"Promise me..."
"That from today onward..."
His forehead rested against hers.
"I want to become the reason behind your smiles now."
"Not your tears."
Devyani's lips trembled into a smile.
A tiny laugh escaped between her tears.
She gently held his wrists.
"But you're making it impossible."
He frowned.
"Why?"
She sniffled dramatically and wiped her cheeks.
"Because you keep saying things that make me cry even more??"
A helpless laugh escaped Rivan.
She pouted playfully.
"So... enough."
She took a deep breath and pointed a finger at him.
"Okay..."
She took a deep breath.
"Enough."
He blinked.
She pointed a finger at him.
"Stop this rona-dhona."
Rivan stared at her in confusion.
She sighed theatrically.
"Seriously, Mr.Thakur."
"It's our engagement today."
She gestured toward her tear-streaked face.
"I spent two hours doing my skincare."
He looked at her.
She continued with complete seriousness.
"I followed every single step."
"And now look at me."
She pointed accusingly at him.
"You made me cry so much that my entire skincare routine has officially gone to waste."
For a heartbeat...
Rivan simply stared.
Then, despite everything that had happened, a laugh escaped him.
A real one.
Warm.
Unrestrained.
The kind of laugh that reached his eyes.
He shook his head, smiling.
She folded her arms and lifted her chin.
"It's a very serious issue."
"My glow was expensive."
He laughed harder.
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"You are unbelievable."
"I know."
She grinned proudly.
"That's why you're marrying me."
He stepped closer.
"I was going to marry you anyway."
"Good answer."
He smiled, shaking his head affectionately.
Rivan looked at her for a long moment.
Her mascara was slightly smudged.
Her cheeks were flushed from crying.
A few strands of hair had escaped around her face.
Yet to him...
She had never looked more beautiful.
He reached up and gently brushed away the last trace of tears beneath her eyes.
"No more crying," he said softly.
Devyani smiled.
"No more crying," she agreed.
Then she looked around at the sea of flowers, the fairy lights, and the candles that still glowed all around them.
A mischievous sparkle returned to her eyes.
"But if you make me cry again today..."
She narrowed her eyes playfully.
"...I'm stealing your side of the bed after marriage."
Rivan chuckled, slipping an arm around her waist.
"Deal."
He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
"But fair warning..."
She looked up curiously.