Avnish

How do you know?” she parted her lips, her voice barely above a whisper.

She wiped the glossiness from her eyes.

“When I checked your vitals, you went home soon after. I was in the clinical rest room in the corner, beside the washroom, when your friends came back to collect their bags. They had no idea I was there, and I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard one of them say, ‘Soha is taking the guilt of Dhairya’s death on herself. It wasn’t her mistake. She was only a kid back then.’

              I know it was wrong to eavesdrop, but after seeing how suddenly you became uneasy and your blood pressure shot up, I already suspected there was something wrong. And who was I to ask you about it? So, when I heard your friends talking, I stopped in my tracks and listened.

That’s how I found out about your bitter past love… about what happened between you and Dhairya. I don't have so much idea in detail but overall I got it"

I explained everything to her calmly, exactly as I had heard it.

She seemed fine until now.

“It’s okay that you found out. At least… the weight I’ve been carrying in my heart feels a little lighter now.” She gave me a faint smile.

“Then why didn’t you ever ask me?” she added quietly.

“Because you were a teenager,” I said. “And I know how fragile and impressionable that age can be. I never thought what happened was your fault. It was a teenage love story—something that was never promised to have a happy ending. Yes, I agree that his death was a devastating and bitter part of it. But as you grow older, as you witness more patients, more illnesses, more tragedies in hospitals, you’ll slowly understand something—time and tide wait for no one, and neither does death.

“Sometimes, the smallest injury can become fatal, while someone diagnosed with the most advanced cancer can survive for years beyond what anyone expected. Life doesn’t always follow the logic we try to give it.

“Beyond our choices and the emotions we carry, there are things we simply cannot control. Some things are written beyond our reach. Maybe it was simply his time to say goodbye. And perhaps that incident, as painful as it was, was meant to teach you something—not to punish you, but to make you stronger, to make you wiser, and to teach you to take responsibility for your own choices without carrying the weight of someone else’s fate on your shoulders.”

She looked at me with curious, almost searching eyes. Her fingers slowly curled around my forearm, holding it gently.

“I agree with you,” she whispered. “Maybe I should have thought about it that way before. But… I gave him mixed signals. I had no fucking idea that it would end so badly.” The confession came out heavy with regret.

“Did you know what the future held?” I asked.

“No.”

“Exactly.” I held her gaze. “None of us does. We make choices based on what feels right in the present because that is all we are given—the present. If you had known what was waiting at the end, perhaps you would have never spoken to him in the first place. Maybe you would have kept your distance. But you didn’t know. And if you genuinely liked him, if being close to him felt right at the time, then what was wrong with that?”

“We naturally gravitate toward the people we like. We let them into our lives, we grow attached, we hope things will work out. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. And sometimes, no matter how carefully we choose, life takes the story somewhere we never imagined. Remember whenever everything goes against us then it's not us who is deciding, its fate and when it matters if fate no one is accusable.”

“So don’t punish the girl you were for not knowing what the woman you are today knows.”

“You made choices with the understanding you had then—not with the knowledge you have now. And when life doesn’t unfold the way we imagined, maybe we have to stop asking ‘Why did this happen to me?’ and simply accept that some chapters were never meant to stay.”

“And when you’ve done everything you could with the heart and understanding you had at that moment… you have to let the rest belong to God"

“I never knew you could talk so sweetly.” She wore the most openly admiring smile I had seen on her.

“I thought you told me about Aditi the moment I asked you, so why would I hide anything from you?” she added.

“Well, even if you hadn’t told me, it wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“Did you have a girlfriend in college?” she asked.

A playful smile tugged at my lips.

“I did. During my third year of MBBS, practically everyone around me was getting into relationships, and I suppose I felt that same curiosity. There was a girl, and we liked each other, so eventually we started dating. A few months later, though, we broke up. It was a mutual decision.”

“Very typical boyfriend-girlfriend story,” she said, her expression suddenly bored.

“Why did you break up?” she asked again.

“You’re digging a little too deep,” I said with a smirk.

“Tell me.”

“She was far too controlling. I mean, even if I spoke to my mother, she wanted to know exactly what we had talked about. If I texted someone, she would immediately want to check my phone. Every night, if we hadn’t met, she expected a complete account of everything I had done that day.

“I was constantly frustrated. She was more like Hitler than a girlfriend.” I laughed under my breath. “We argued about it countless times, but when nothing changed, we both decided that ending the relationship was better for us.”

“Your story sounds eww.” She rolled her eyes.

“Whatever.”

“Did you guys kiss?”

It was probably better to answer honestly.

“Twice. Only twice.”

“Eww.” She made a disgusted face. “I need to get plastic surgery done on your lips. They’re used.” The jealousy in her playful voice was impossible to miss.

I took advantage of the moment and immediately pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“Close your tape.”

She froze for a second, clearly caught off guard. Slowly, her fingers rose to the spot where I had kissed her.

“Tell me something,” she said, still looking genuinely puzzled. “You were the one who said no to me before marriage. So how did you transform so much that you're casually kissing me on the head now?”

I laughed softly.

“Because things changed after marriage. My answer was still no right up until the wedding, mostly because of our age difference. But my mother insisted I mean She had a very good opinion of you, and she was completely convinced that we would work together. And I trust my mother’s judgment.”

I paused, smiling.

“My father also gave me some instructions before the wedding. He told me I shouldn’t behave with you like I was still your professor once we were home. He said I needed to stop looking at our age difference and start accepting what had made for me.”

I laughed.

“And you know, until you actually came into this house, my father practically trained me on how to speak to you and how to treat you. He kept reminding me that after marriage, I had to forget the age gap and treat you as my wife. In his words, he made me release making  wife in second priority not our culture”

“Our dad is better than you,” she declared proudly.

I raised an eyebrow.

“I had to accept you as my wife, and he had already decided to be good to you. So I suppose I had no choice but to change the way I looked at you.”

The corner of my mouth lifted.

“Okay, then. How do you feel about me now?” she asked, shifting a little closer.

“Different.”

“Different how?”

This girl was no less than a teacher when it came to questioning me.

I wasn't about to explain everything.

Let her figure it out herself.

“You know, before marriage, I used to think of you as a cartoon,” I said with a grin.

Her reaction was immediate.

She grabbed my collar with such sudden force that one of my shirt buttons popped free.

We both stared at it as it fell slowly onto the floor.

She released my collar slowly.

I glanced toward the passengers sitting nearby. They were staring at us with confused expressions.

My face burned with embarrassment.

“What is wrong with you when it comes to my stuff?” I asked, looking down at my crumpled, now-buttonless shirt.

“Why did you call me a cartoon?” she hissed.

“That was before. I don't think that way about you anymore.”

“Then why did you wear such a low-quality shirt?”

“Low quality?” I stared at her in disbelief. “It cost ₹2,800.” I deliberately stretched out the amount.

“I had no idea your hands were this rough.” I added.

She scoffed. “Do you want me to break the other button too? Then you can roam around Ohio looking like a beggar until we reach the hotel.”

“I’m changing as soon as w

e land at the Ohio airport,” I announced.

“Why? We’ll reach the hotel in an hour.”

“I want to maintain my class.”

She simply rolled her eyes.