AANYA

16 August 2025

They're getting me married today.

Yes, I know. I said I never would. I promised you, didn't I? That if it's not you, it will be no one.

I didn't lie.

Because even now... it still isn't anyone.

It's just a body draped in red silk,wrists heavy with bangles, mehendi etched on hands that never asked for it. A face in the mirror that I can barely recognize - the same eyes, but hollowed out, as if someone quietly stole their light. A girl who doesn't cry anymore... not because she healed, but because she learned to carry the ache like second skin.
They say he's a good man. CEO. Educated. Well-settled. Silent.

But silence can belong to strangers too, right? Not the kind we had - the kind that felt like safety, like home.

Funny... no one ever asked if I wanted him. No one asked what I wanted, or if I even had a choice. Maybe girls like me aren't meant to have wants - only to follow orders.

You remember Papa's words, don't you? "Love marriages are filth." "Respect your family, not your feelings."

And they respected their pride so fiercely, they burned you out of my life without leaving even a trace of us.

Only... they forgot to bury me along with you.

I stayed. I breathed. But Sameer, I haven't lived a single day since.

Every letter I wrote after you left was just me speaking to your ghost, hoping the wind might carry my words to wherever you are.

You were never just my love, Sameer. You were my choice. My prayer. My rebellion. My safe place.

And no matter what name they tie to mine today... I'll still be yours.

I won't say goodbye. I never will. Because loving you isn't something I do. It's what I am.

I'll keep loving you, quietly, endlessly, even when the world calls me someone else's. In every lifetime, in every silence, in every stubborn heartbeat that still dares to feel.

Yours. Always. Even if the world says otherwise.

- Aanya

----

What was my fault?
Was it that I dared to love?
That I trusted someone more than the rules drilled into me?
That I dreamed of a life they never approved of?

Was it wrong that I wanted respect without conditions?
That I wished for a home built on affection, not fear?
Was it because I spoke when they wanted silence?
Because I chose myself when they wanted obedience?

They call it stubbornness.
They call it disobedience.
But isn't it them who set fire to my life just to keep their "honour" warm?

And if loving someone was such a sin... why did it feel like the purest thing I've ever done?
If I'm guilty, then why does my heart still whisper that I was right?

A sharp knock on the door jolts me.
Not gentle - not asking - just the kind of knock that orders.

I rise and walk to the mirror.

For a moment, I just... stare.
The girl looking back at me isn't glowing.
She isn't shy.
She isn't dreaming of a future.

Her eyes look like they've already lived it... and it wasn't kind.
This isn't the face of a bride - it's the face of someone walking away from herself.

"You're getting late," Ma says curtly.
"He'll be at the temple by nine."

He.
Aarav Saxena.
A name I've known for days, yet it still feels distant - like a character from a story I was never meant to be part of.
Not a friend.
Not a lover.
Just a man I was given no choice but to vow my life to, bound to a destiny that was never mine to choose.

What was I supposed to feel?

Not excitement.
Not nervousness.
Just... numb.

That frightening kind of calm that comes after too many storms - when you've been broken and pieced together so many times, you forget what it was like to be whole.