His Regret, Her Salvation

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                            EKAKSH

The night was calming.

The air on the balcony felt cool against my face, like a soft hand.

I leaned against the railing.

A strange calm had settled inside me not the loud kind that rushes in, but the quiet one that arrives like a tide and stays.

I closed my eyes and let it sit in my chest, warm and still.

And then, like a whisper, she came to my mind.

My Sitara.

The temple.

The first time I saw her in that bridal red saree.

I had seen her in red before... in my mind. Back in college, when I started falling for her, I used to imagine her as a bride and then scold myself for being foolish.

In those daydreams, she was always glowing, surrounded by light. But this morning, when I saw her for real, the world stopped moving for a second.

I just wanted to stare at her without even blinking.

She looked divine... the red saree caught the sunlight and turned to fire.

The sindoor on her forehead looked sacred, like it belonged there before she was even born.

Her bangles chimed softly when she moved, the temple bells echoed around her, and everything...the chants, the smoke, the flowers... blurred behind her face.

She looked like a goddess, too pure to touch.

My throat had gone dry, and all the words I ever wanted to say to her died right there.

I loved her for so long.

No...even love is a small word. But I was too much of a coward to call it love back then. Or I was just scared to confess, maybe because I knew...her reply would shatter my heart.

So, I let myself live in my delusional world. Where she was mine.

I used to picture her as a bride and then laugh at myself. I used to tell myself to stop dreaming. Because Sitara loved Kabir.

And she looked happy with him. They had plans, a future, a life I was never part of. So I told myself to forget. To move on. I learned to carry her memory quietly, like a pebble in my pocket... small, heavy, and always there.

But destiny...it seems, likes to play games.

Five years passed.

And then suddenly, the woman I once loved from a distance...the woman I  once tried to erase from my heart...is standing beside me, as my wife.

I chuckled shaking my head.

Fucking fate.

It's cruel. And unpredictable.

She has lost Kabir. I still remember her face at her wedding function, the day I saw her after years...she was glowing even in that dim light..I saw the glow on her face.

But today...that emptiness in her eyes, the way she stared at the sacred fire like she was remembering another one.

She looked lost. And I knew, even as I sat beside her in that mandap, that she was not seeing me. She was seeing him. Kabir.