Part 02: Bear Witness To The Descent
"My castle's crumbling down
And I watch all my bridges burn to the ground"
(Castles crumbling, Taylor Swift)
_
She looks into the mirror and she sees the deceit in the kohl lining her eyes. She sees lies in the tears shining bright. She sees carmine red stained with the color of lapis and specks of gradually increasing castleton green, gleaming in her soul. She stands at the edge of the cliff and she sees the abyss that has been shrouded so long, for what it is - an endless chasm of avarice, destruction and blemished, illicit infatuation. She stands in front of the mirror, looks into her soul and finds her castle crumbling.
The window is shut and the door is locked. The yellow quilt she hasn't been able to bring herself to put for wash is lying on the couch. She unpins the pallu of her saree, a light grey one and lets it fall. With each pleat of the saree that falls, she physically feels her facade of an ideal person fall away. Standing bare in front of the silver mirror, she feels the stains of her sins and phantoms she has pretended never existed and lets herself just acknowledge it all. She lets herself feel everything she had built within herself fall apart. She stands there, lets every thought she has pushed away, every lingering call of truth she has brushed away haunt her. She lets the voices she keeps at bay slap her with everything she has been in denial about from the day she found out wallowing in self pity keeps the monsters with haunting whispers at bay.
_
"It's born from just one single glance
But it dies, and it dies, and it dies
A million little times"
(Illicit affairs, Taylor Swift)
_
The flare of lust she felt when her eyes met his had her bewitched in a way she had never been before in life. It strung notes of fire in a yearning lyre and she felt she had found her soulmate. What she failed to realise then were the scars on the lyre that the flames left and the basic knowledge that a moment of passion could not be the invisible thread tying souls in intricate webs. What she failed to realise then was the implicit trust that a visceral bond like soulmates needed did not sail, in her, the fortifications of unhealed scars of the past.
The decision to marry his brother was made at a time she felt herself to be a righteous woman, lost in the price of her sacrifice. Now that the veils have fallen, all she sees is her own moral destitution and just how twisted that entire vow and her reasons are. To marry a man to be close to another, to look at him through the haze of emotions better left to hotel rooms and immoral nights, which never should have bloomed in her with her moral upbringing, yet whose covetous grips she had let linger and conquer - her eyes lower now with shame she hadn't felt then.
He had never once looked her way, she realises now, with eyes that mirrored what hers held. Everytime he looked at her, all she could find was guilt and nothing else.
She had been high then, delusion blinding her eyes. She saw what she wanted to see and she let go of what she didn't. She returned, alone and empty to her bed and only felt guilt when she saw that yellow quilt. The guilt buried itself every morning and arose every night. She warped into something she herself did not recognise.
She is bare now, realising the extents to which she has fallen. She has seen a lot of loss in her life but the loss of her own morality hurts so much different because it disvalues everything her parents and Poppy had taught her. The thought that they would be looking over at her and feeling nothing but disgust at her is a heart wrenching one and also the one she feels wretched about not getting sooner.
It leaves her feeling, physically, dirty and stained. She stands there, holds herself still to feel that disgust for a few unbearable moments.
She turns from the mirror then and makes her way to the washroom. She runs the shower and stands beneath it, letting the tepid water drench her till she turns it towards hot. She picks up the scrubber then and she scrubs and scrubs, her eyes overflowing, her kohl smudged against her skin. She scrubs and drenches till she falls apart completely on the bathroom floor. The water drenching her is cold now.
She lies on the ground, a woman of sin, with the smidges of kalopsia purged. She lies on the ground, where her worth lies.
"You promised me I'll be the only woman in your heart. You have no rights to back down on that promise! Not when I kept my part of it!"
Desperation drips from every word. She feels possessed with it, with madness she has allowed to grow within her. He is the scarlet breath of her heart, his breaths cannot reside in anyone but her. His vow, the guarantee of not being left behind cannot lie shattered!
"I think it's time Ruhi, that we acknowledge that the vow was, at its essence, completely, morally wrong and an extremely immature thing to do. It was meant to shatter against the sanctity of the marital vows we have each given our respective spouses"
He says it calmly, so very composed when nothing in her is close to it. A tempest roars within her, frantic. She can feel the unraveling. Her breaths stutter in her chest.
"What the hell do you mean ? You promised! I married Rohit only because you promised. You meant it when you said it. What changed - your marriage which is a deal set to expire in some months?"
His eyes, gleaming sable which had first pulled her in, now glints dangerously with anger
"What changed is I realised what you expect us to uphold like a sacred vow is in reality, a filthy sin! Don't you see the boundaries of decency and relationships we are crossing? You are married to my younger brother Ruhi! I am your jeth. Every past infatuation should have faltered the moment we were bound to different people!"
It's like she's in a haze. All she registers is what she responds to.
"But they didn't falter alright! Feelings are not switches Armaan. They cannot be turned off or on at the drop of a hat! I love you and this promise was the only reason I agreed to marry a man I didn't love, just so I could be close to you"
She expects understanding, the fruition of her desperation. What she gets is the cold, hard reality as she sees disgust, guilt and pity in his eyes.
"Are you even hearing yourself Ruhi?"
he says, his tone firm but calm. It's enough to break through the haze and illusions. He is speaking to her like she is unhinged and fragile whom he needs to handle with care.
"I think it's been high time that things were clarified! I am extremely sorry Ruhi that I led you on like that. It's my fault even though it never was my intention. That promise was made because I thought you were my true love and I was just pledging to that love. It was never an invitation to a clandestine relationship! Any chance of you and me being together ceased to exist the second you became Ruhi Rohit Poddar!"
Everything around her feels alarmingly silent. The wind is whistling by her ear as his words ring in them. She has never felt more indecent and ashamed before. He is decent enough to not call her the word that resonates in her head for herself. He is brave enough to account for his mistake while also shouldering responsibility for her indecent assumptions. He is on the higher moral ground despite being the one having made the promise she now recognises as morally twisted. She feels exposed, bare as she is finally acquainted with a self not seen through rose tinted lens.
The cloud of madness that had her possessed since a few weeks, dissipates like it was never there.
To be continued......
Fan Fictions
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