JHEEL

My parents accept my call when I return it to them from a different number.
Mother picks up, her silence heavy, and then her loud cries break out because she never wanted to abandon me.

My father tells her that he will bring me back, that he will take me away from Manyata’s house someday, when the news of my suicide attempt dies down.

But can they justify it? They both already wanted to stop handling the affair news, which seems to never die down, and on top of that, they have to face the fact that their daughter tried to commit suicide and didn’t even die.
They choose to save face; they aren’t waiting for any news to die.
They are deciding to throw me away now that they have the chance.

My friend, Daksha, is an older woman; she and I have an age gap of seven years. I met her in a club we were part of, and eventually we grew closer.
She lives here with her husband Vikram. Both of them are in Delhi but originally from Rajasthan. They pulled away for unknown reasons, and he isn’t aware of anything following Rajasthan. Neither of them is, except Daksha’s family still lives there, though she isn’t in contact with them.

They didn’t know about my situation when they invited me here. And I couldn’t hide it from them, given the kindness they offered me. One evening, I told Daksha. Thankfully, her first impulse wasn’t to kick me out.

Then, she suggested I should get settled, which might heal me from everything; maybe she forgot the context here—nobody wanted to marry me.

A few days later, her brother appeared at her door, dropping off his children for Daksha to look after. Surprised by a new presence, he found curiosity in my existence and then, suddenly, in me.

Daksha suggested it in laughter, and he didn’t take it as a hilarious joke. Rather, he believed, why not? And he reached out to my parents, who had abandoned me. My mother cries on the call, her apologies pouring out.

Everything falls into place, from afar.
I am getting married; apparently, the Tanwars were part of royalty before the man I am supposed to marry walked out from Rajasthan alongside his sister.

Still, I have my family back. A marriage in line.
And everything is ready to be concrete in normal life again.
Aligning.

I open my suitcase on the bed. His handkerchief lies on top of my clothes.

~~~~

All I ever wanted is happening.

But… it still doesn’t feel right.
I keep thinking about that day when I ran behind him. If I had held the courage inside me and asked him if I could stay with him for a few days…

Would I have called Daksha the next day? Reached out to her from that day to this day?

There’s a knock at my door while the makeup artist is getting me ready.
My mother sits on the bed, her eyes fixed on me.

This wedding is supposed to be a small affair; they only booked a banquet at a hotel.

The door opens, and in the mirror, my eyes find a familiar face, if I'm not seeing it wrong.

“Camera man.”

“Umm… camera man?” The makeup artist clearly doesn’t buy his rugged look for civil work, and I understand her confusion.

“Yes, her bridal shots before the wedding. Can I have you outside? The garden has a good background.” He speaks to no one but me, through the mirror.

I stand, faltering in my steps, and our bodies jerk together, but I clutch the dressing chair before I fall.
“Not yet?” I glance at my mother and the makeup artist.

“Okay, let me just do the final work. The eyelashes!” she says, sitting me down and forcefully fixing fake lashes.

I don’t care what she’s doing, I just want to see why he’s here.

The moment she’s done, I stand, lift my lehenga, and walk toward the door, following him all the way down to the ground floor and out into the garden beside the hotel.

He stops in the middle of the lawn and turns around.
Why did I follow him? What do I have to do with him?
Everything I ever wanted is inside.

“I kidnapped you once unwillingly… and this time I’m here to abduct you willingly. If there’s any part of you that does not want this marriage, this life,” he says, pointing toward the hotel, “come with me. Please.”

“Don’t date me. Just be around me. See me. Feel what I feel. And only then, if you like me, be mine. But I beg you, give me the chance to make you mine.”
He steps closer.
“I know this chance might cost you everything. But Jheel… where were these people, these parents of yours, when you actually needed them? What’s the point of owning anything when everything you were trying to avoid has already happened?”

His voice hardens.
“To make your life better again, do they guarantee they’ll stand by you when it gets worse? And this marriage? That pathetic man is taking advantage of your situation.”

He doesn’t wait to hear me. He speaks the truth I’m trying so hard not to acknowledge.

I shake my head. “What if the person I run to ends up being the one I need to run from? What if that person becomes you? Where will I go then?”

He steps even closer, stands right in front of me, and takes my hand.

“Jheel,” he says softly, “every time you need to be saved—I’m there. And I’ll keep being there, even if it’s me who hurts you. I promise.”

“Jheel?”
A familiar husky voice echoes. My head snaps toward the staircase of the lawn—my fiancé is standing there.

His hand slides down the railing, and I turn back to the man holding promises.
I look at our joined hands. I pull mine free and then wrap the other around my own neck.
Jivan understands the signal instantly. A gun appears at my head… and then slowly shifts toward him.

My heartbeat leaps, and the man takes a step back.
“Sorry,” Jivan says coldly. “But she’s coming with me. And don’t try to find her. The condition I would leave her in… she wouldn’t want to be found.”

The so-called man—my fiancé—steps backwards instead of forward. Jivan moves in the opposite direction, gripping my hand, making me run with him toward the third gate of the hotel.

I follow, our hands intertwined. We exit through the smaller door.
Prithviraj stands by the hood of the car. “Didn’t think you’d bring her on her own feet.”

“Moral of the story? Some kidnappings can be done right, too,” Jivan taunts, and Prithviraj climbs into the car.

“The car is mine, Jivan. You don’t want to be left here after pulling a bride,” he says, a revert back from Jivan’s taunt. I am not sure what I am committing is going to lead somewhere or it is just escalating to be much worse. But I can’t imagine myself in the place that I escaped from.

I looked at Jivan and Prithviraj, the empty road before me. The realisation building in my hest.  What have I done?
Did I willingly abandon the life I prayed for?
What am I doing?

I air blocked in my throat, everything starts to shake, my body felt out of control. I closed my eyes, Jheel. The life you prayed for wasn’t what you wanted.

You never even knew what you wanted, you were never given the benefits to make your choice.

Everything collides in my head. I look beside me—Jivan waits patiently for the storm inside me to settle. When tears finally slide down my face, he leans toward me.

“I thought I have been wanting this since forever,” I whisper. “I ran away from it. And it doesn’t feel wrong,”

“Not everything you want is everything you need, Jheel,” he says. “You never knew what you needed because you never got it. And when you finally did, you liked it. So it’s perfect.”

I stare into his blue eyes. I understand him more than I want to admit. I just abandoned my family. And it doesn’t feel like loosing. Is it fine to be just a girl sometimes and not the daughter that we were raised to play half our lives.

Should I hate myself for choosing something else, or hate my parents to steal my right to just be a girl, just be Jheel nevermore a Jheel Devendra Chauhan.

“I love you,” he says.

My eyes widen.
That is the first time anyone has ever said those words to me. My memory, last time the words spoken were same in a car. And I dreadfully sat across from the person who never returned it. To whom, I had begged that I really need a marriage in royalty, its for my family.

Today, I am against it all, and I am free.

His hand tightens around mine. I stare at his face in disbelief.
“Say it again… please?”

He smiles.
“I love you.

And I will try my everything to return this words to him when the time comes.

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The journey so sadddddd!! But needed and desperate.