unspoken truth

"You need to tell them," Riya barked for what felt like the thousandth time. Her voice was sharp, trembling with frustration. She had been begging me, almost dragging me, to confess—to spill the truth that sits like poison in my chest.

But I can’t. I won’t. Not when my sister is glowing, laughing, breathing the kind of happiness I don’t remember anymore. If I speak, her joy will shatter. And I refuse to be the reason she hates herself.

Riya arrived early, as always, her energy filling every corner of my room. She has been my shield, my constant. Yet her nagging ,it cuts. It scratches open wounds I try so hard to stitch shut.

"You have a life, Avnika. You have your own problems. You can’t keep carrying everyone else’s weight," she snapped, her eyes searching my face.

She’s right. She’s always right. But truth has no place here. Not the kind I carry. Not the kind that burns too deep to be spoken aloud.

I rose from the vanity and drifted towards the cupboard. The drawer creaked as I pulled it open, the silence in the room suddenly suffocating. My hand reached for the small white bottle. I didn’t need to look up; I could already feel Riya’s gaze stabbing into me.

Her eyes ...sympathy, pity, grief—whatever it was, it suffocated me even more. I hated it. I hated myself.

One pill. Two pills. I slipped them into my palm, pressing them so tightly they left marks. I placed the bottle back with the kind of precision of someone hiding evidence.

Just as I shut the drawer, the door banged open. Papa stepped inside, laughter spilling from him, dressed in his royal blue sherwani that shimmered under the light. His smile was too wide, too full. Too undeserving of my truth.

"You girls can’t miss what’s going on downstairs and it's your sister sangeet so come down fast!" he exclaimed, chuckling.

"What’s going on?" Riya asked quickly, too brightly, as if her words could erase the storm still hanging between us.

"You need to come see it," Papa said, his grin stretching wider. His excitement filled the room until it drowned everything else.

I gave myself one last look in the mirror. The reflection didn’t belong to me....it was just another costume. A dark blue two-piece set: a crop blouse dripping in gold embroidery, sharara flaring at my legs, a sheer train floating behind me like a lie I couldn’t escape. My hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, my makeup soft and natural, golden earrings framing the face I barely recognized. Maa’s gold bangle glinted on my wrist. My armor. My disguise.

"What happened?" I asked Papa, who is laughing harder. "Vartik told everyone about the time when Radhika failed her class and had to bring a fake parent to sign her report card, but the teacher found out and called me. She was grounded for one month after that," Papa growled as he remembered the time. He was very angry at that time, but now he is laughing. Time really changes...

Maa is with preeti aunty , enjoying and playing dholak , they singing and laughing .

Papa is with vinay uncle and their bussiness partner talking about world .

Radhika and vartik are still busy nagging yet flirting , they don't even care about the world right now . I felt a punch in my throat , as I saw them . With time i realised as I looked at vartik and radhika , he was never my die hard crush , it was like I needed someone to be my crush , because when I see him with radhika now , all I feel is jealousy not because he was my crush but because they have each other , someone who loves them . While I am standing here wondering what will happen next .

The room is alive, while I felt nothing.

My eyes flickered to the other side of the house where music pulsed from the poolside. That’s where he was. Rudra Singh Rathore.

And I had no interest in him. But today, I had to face him. Whether I wanted to or not. Because what I had decided tonight—what I was about to do—would change everything.

For everyone.

No one here knew it yet, but by the end of today, their laughter might never sound the same again.

Riya tugged at my arm, pulling me into the dance circle. We twirled and clapped to the beat of the dholak, bodies moving, voices singing. I let my lips curve into a smile that wasn’t mine. I swayed to a rhythm I couldn’t hear. And when the music ended, I excused myself—offering to fetch drinks, an easy lie.

That’s when it happened.

I slammed into someone with a sharp thud. My breath hitched as I stumbled, the floor rushing up—until strong hands caught me mid-fall.

I looked up.

Brown eyes. Not warm, not soft. Eyes sharp as glass, lined with arrogance, yet so devastatingly beautiful they seemed carved by God himself. Curls fell carelessly across his forehead, brushing his thick brows. My gaze dragged lower, over the perfect slope of his nose, then lower—

A throat cleared. Harsh. Pulling me out of my trance.

Rudra.

White kurta, sleeves rolled up, veins cutting sharp lines down his forearms. A black Titan watch glinting against his skin. He was a storm dressed as a man, dangerous and magnetic in ways I hated myself for noticing.

"He belongs to someone else," an aunty’s voice chimed with a teasing giggle.

I almost laughed at the irony. If only she knew the disaster brewing beneath our feet.

Rudra’s face was unreadable, his eyes flickering with a storm of something I couldn’t name. Without a word, he turned to leave.

But before he could take another step, I whispered, "I want to talk to you."

He froze.

His head tilted slightly, a muscle ticking in his jaw, but he didn’t turn around. For a long moment, neither of us moved. The laughter around us blurred into static. The air was too heavy. My chest too tight.

Because this wasn’t just a conversation.

This was the beginning of the end.

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