Raja gasped. “What?”
“You’ve practically ignored my obvious feelings towards you for weeks now,” I continued, urged on by my own chaotic emotions. “So it’s clear how you really feel.”
He stepped forward. “What are you even accusing me of?”
“I’m saying you don’t care about me, or our child.”
He stopped as if struck. His mouth opened to speak, then closed it slowly. I watched the anger build in his expression until he said in a cold voice, “How dare you?”
I growled. “How dare I? You’re the one who almost got yourself killed, or worse, without even thinking about ourbaby.”
Raja’s jaw tightened.
I couldn’t stop myself. The words dripped from my mouth like loose venom. “And what for? Just for the warm feeling of knowing that your village didn’t raise someone who runs off and elopes? That you didn’t bear a bastard child?”
With a choked sob, Raja punched me in the chest, then ran out of the hut.
I stood there, motionless, as the pain spread. But it wasn’t just the physical pain. I know that I had hurt him deeply, but furious adrenaline made me apathetic to it. Everything I said was the truth. There was no denying the fact that hedidput himself and our unborn child in danger.
I sat in bed and stewed in my own emotions. I didn’t know where Raja had run off to, but I knew he would be safe inside the village - unless he did something stupid again. That was the point I kept coming back to - could I really be with him if he was so immature?
Maybe this whole experience was a big mistake. This entire time, I could have been at home with my brother and friends, and doing something productive like babysitting my nephew. Instead, I’d flown all the way out here to meet someone I met online on a damned dating site.
But the stakes were higher now. Raja was pregnant, and I was the baby’s father.
I let out a deep sigh. It was clear that Raja wasn’t returning to the hut anytime soon.
Despite the confusion and chaos storming in my mind, I knew deep down that I did care about Raja, and I wanted him and our baby to be safe no matter what. I couldn’t let him run off on his own and get into trouble again.
I searched for him outside in the village’s main clearing, but he was nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, my sense of smell wasn’t sharp enough to track him.
“Where are you…?” I muttered to myself.
“Looking for someone?”
I nearly jumped at the sound of Sotu’s voice. I didn’t even notice him standing behind me.
“Oh. Yes, I’m looking for Raja,” I said.
Sotu nodded. “I know. I saw him running around blindly and told him to go wait inside my home. But you know, Silver Beast, he was very upset at the time. Did something happen?”
I frowned. How could I explain the entire situation to him?
“Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s a long story.”
“I have time,” Sotu said.
He took me to a fallen log in the center of the clearing. He sat slowly, then gestured for me to sit beside him.
“When I was at the wedding ceremony,” Sotu began, “I got the feeling there was something different about the two of you, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know if it was safe to tell him the whole story, but I was compelled to tell him the majority of the truth.
“Basically, we had an argument over our values,” I explained. “Raja was about to throw his life away - and the life of our child - because he wanted to protect his family and village.”
Sotu looked surprised. “That is quite serious. Why would he ever do that?”
“Those men, the poachers from earlier, they had evidence that would, er… discredit his family,” I said. I didn’t want to hide the truth from Sotu, but telling him the entire story would blow our fake marriage’s cover, and I didn’t need Raja to be even more pissed off at me.
