When Absence Became Madness - The Wedding Day - Part 9

 The wedding arrived dressed as celebration.

For her, it came like an execution.

From morning, the neighborhood buzzed with music, relatives, flower deliveries, rented chairs, loud laughter, and the smell of sweets frying in oil. Streets were decorated as if joy itself had chosen that lane.

She stayed behind a half-closed window, hearing every sound like an insult.

Her mother knocked twice.

“Come eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t slept.”

“Leave me alone.”

By afternoon she dressed carefully.

Not because she had been invited.

Because grief, too, has pride.

She wore the colour Arjun once wore on the day he had spoken to her. She tied her hair twice, untied it, tied it again. Her hands shook so badly she could barely fasten her bangles.

At dusk she walked toward the wedding hall, hiding behind crowds.

Lights blazed across the entrance. Music thundered. Children ran between legs. Men laughed too loudly. Women admired saris and jewellery.

And inside, beneath flowers and gold cloth, sat Arjun.

A groom.

Calm.

Handsome.

Unreachable.

Beside him sat Meera in bridal red, eyes lowered, hands decorated with henna.

The sight pierced deeper than any scream could.

She stood behind a pillar where no one noticed her.

Priests chanted.

Relatives smiled.

Cameras flashed.

She watched Arjun tie the sacred knot around another woman’s neck.

Something inside her went completely silent.

No tears came.

No anger.

Only emptiness so vast it frightened her.

A cousin near the pillar said, “Who is that girl?”

Another shrugged. “Maybe from bride’s side.”

No one knew the funeral being conducted belonged to her.

Then Arjun smiled at Meera.

A small, genuine smile.

The same smile she had once believed was a sign for her.

She turned and walked out before she collapsed.

Outside, fireworks cracked across the sky.

People clapped.

She wandered through dark lanes until midnight, still wearing bangles that now felt absurd. Dogs barked as she passed. Rainwater from an old puddle soaked her sandals.

At home, her mother found her sitting on the floor in darkness.

“Where were you?”

No answer.

“What happened?”

No answer.

“Why are you trembling?”

Still none.

She simply removed each bangle one by one and placed them beside her like broken promises.

That night she did not cry.

She did not sleep.

She only stared at the ceiling until dawn.

When morning came, she whispered the truth at last:

“He belongs to someone else.”

But acceptance spoken once does not become real.

Because even as she said it—

Her heart was already planning how to see him again.