I take a step forward before I can stop myself. Not threatening. Just enough that she feels the shift.
“Do not,” I say quietly, “use that word again.”
She swallows.
“Sensitivity,” I continue, “is not a flaw. And it is not an invitation for cruelty disguised as concern.”
Her eyes shine now, genuinely. “I never meant to hurt her,” she whispers. “I was only thinking of you. Of what’s best for you.”
There it is.
The justification she’s been waiting to offer.
I let out a slow breath through my nose, steadying myself. “You don’t get to decide what is best for me.”
“I know you, Maharaj,” she insists, voice breaking. “I’ve seen you grow up. I’ve seen how hard your life has been. I saw how much you sacrificed—”
“And that gives you the right,” I interrupt, “to poison the woman I chose?”
The word poison feels harsh. Final.
She flinches like I’ve struck her. “You never chose her, Maharaj.” She grits her teeth, “She was forced on you, you are very kind and you couldn’t see her thrown aw-”
“Maya!” I boom. The sound fills the room, ricochets off the walls, leaves my throat raw. I rarely raise my voice. I don’t need to. Authority usually settles in quiet places, in controlled words.
“You do not get to rewrite my life,” I say, every word measured now, controlled with effort. My chest rises and falls, slow but heavy. “And you certainly do not get to speak about my wife as if she were an inconvenience I was burdened with.”
Her lips tremble. “Maharaj, you were trapped,” she insists desperately. “Everyone saw it. You stepped in because you’re good. Because you couldn’t watch her be humiliated. That doesn’t mean—”
“It means exactly that,” I cut in.
I take a step closer, not threatening, just undeniable. Close enough that she has no choice but to listen.
“I chose her long before that day,” I say quietly.
The words hang in the air, solid and immovable.
She stares at me, disbelief written plainly across her face. “That’s not possible.”
“It is,” I reply. “And it’s the truth you’ve been refusing to see.”
I turn away from her for a moment, dragging a hand down my face, grounding myself. I don’t owe her an explanation—but I won’t let her walk away still believing the lie she built her cruelty on. I will never let anyone talk that way, in that tone about my wife.
“I loved Sitara when she laughed too loud at her own jokes,” I continue, my voice lower now, steadier. “When she pretended not to notice the way people underestimated her. When she took up less space than she deserved because the world taught her that was safer.”
I glance back at her.
“I loved her when loving her meant keeping quiet. When it meant standing beside her as a friend because that was all I was allowed to be. When it meant watching her prepare for a marriage that wasn’t to me and swallowing every instinct in my body that wanted to stop it.”
Her eyes fill again, but this time there’s something else there—understanding, dawning and painful.
“That day,” I go on, “I didn’t step forward out of kindness. I stepped forward because I could not watch her believe she was disposable. Because I couldn’t let the world confirm the worst fears she had already been fighting her entire life.”
My jaw tightens. “So don’t you dare tell me she was forced on me.”
Her shoulders sag. The fight drains out of her all at once. “I thought…” she begins, then stops. “I thought if she stepped aside, you would be free.”
I meet her gaze fully now.
