Free THE ONE YOU CANNOT HAVE by Preeti Shenoy Page B

hurt. I am shocked.
    I don’t reply and I continue sitting there as Rishabh continues to scroll and read all my messages.
    ‘Look, Rishabh,’ I finally say, ‘I think there has to be some trust in a marriage. If you snoop like this and you are so suspicious, it is going to be very hard for me.’
    ‘Ha! Rich that is—coming from you. You were the one who had an affair behind my back.’
    I can’t believe that the reasonable, sweet Rishabh is even saying all of this. It seems so absurd to me.
    ‘That was before I met you, dammit. I have never ever contacted him after I split up. Why don’t you believe me?’
    ‘Maybe because those mails tell a different story, Shruti. Tell me something—if roles were reversed and if you had discovered mails like the ones you have written from my id, would you trust me?’
    ‘If you told me that it was in the past and it was over, I would. I wouldn’t ask to see your messages. Snooping is horrible, Rishabh. It is a violation of trust.’
    ‘That is easy for you to say. You aren’t the one affected. Tell me what happened between Aman and you. I want to know.’
    ‘It is a long story, Rishabh. And it is over. I don’t want to talk about it.’
    ‘Why not? That shows you have some feelings left. If it is past and over, you should have no issues talking about it.’
    Rishabh has inadvertently hit the nail on the head. He is right. I still haven’t closed the Aman chapter. But I am emotionally too battered by the turn of events to reopen it.
    Please not now, I want to plead.
    But the way Rishabh looks at me, daring me to open up, accusing me with his eyes of something I never did, does me in.
    ‘Very well. I will tell you if you want to know,’ I say.
    ‘Yes. I want to know what happened. The whole story.’
    ‘I was madly in love with him and he with me. We had never forseen a future without each other. I had taken it for granted that it is him I would marry. I even went with him to Gwalior to meet his mother. I lied to my parents about a project I had to do. His mother liked me. His mother was all for us. Then I spoke to my parents. My parents were dead against this match as he is a north Indian. They wanted someone from our community. But Aman convinced us that if his mother met my parents, they would be okay. I too believed that. So he flew his mother down to Bangalore. We sprung a surprise on my parents, hoping that if his mother spoke, they would be more open and see for themselves how nice his mother was, and how keen we are on marriage. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Aman’s mother mentioned how wonderful she felt when I had walked into her home. My parents hit the roof when they knew that I had lied and gone with Aman to his house and that his mother had been a party to it. My father insulted her. She is a widow and has raised Aman all by herself. He made allegations about her moral character. I have never been so ashamed of my father. He questioned her about her property, her caste, her family. Then he went on to elaborate about our wealth and reach and prestige. I cringed hearing all this. He then threatened that if she dared set foot again into our compound, he would have her thrown out. I was shell-shocked to see my father speak this way. I apologised profusely to his mother and they left. My parents berated me and gave me a solid dressing-down. They said Aman was not suitable at all. When I asked why, my dad said that it was obvious that he wanted to marry me for money. God! I still cannot believe he said that. They wanted me to have nothing to do with Aman anymore. Of course, I refused. I told them I would walk out and they couldn’t stop me. But a week later, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I couldn’t walk out. They needed me. By now, Aman’s mother too was against the match. She said that if that was the culture I came from, she had second thoughts about me. She couldn’t believe that my parents were so narrow-minded. Also, I was