CHAPTER XXXIX
I drove back home without Jasmine. The road felt colder than usual, the silence inside the car pressing against my chest. By the time I pulled into the driveway, the familiar sound of my car's horn echoed through the night, drawing everyone outside like bees to a hive.
The moment I stepped out, my sister Saumya rushed forward, her eyes scanning the inside of the car in a frantic hurry. She opened the door, searched the back seat, and then leaned over to check the passenger side. But her hands froze, her breath catching—Jasmine was nowhere to be found.
She turned to me, her face pale and tense.
"Where is Jasmine, Vedehi?" she demanded, her voice trembling with equal parts fear and anger.
I hesitated for just a moment before answering, my words heavy but sharp.
"Jasmine… left everyone. She ran away to another country… with her girlfriend, Kanika."
The sentence fell between us like a stone in water—shocking, irreversible.
For a second, Saumya just stared at me, her mouth slightly open as if she couldn't process what she'd just heard. Then her shock erupted into rage. She grabbed my arm, her grip tight and shaking.
"Do you even know what you're saying?!" she shouted, her voice breaking. "If my husband hears about this… if he even suspects… he will throw me out of this house!"
Her eyes were glassy, a storm of fear swirling in them. She wasn't just worried for Jasmine—she was terrified for herself, for her place in this fragile family balance. And in that moment, I realized… whatever Jasmine had done, the fallout wasn't just hers to bear. It was going to ripple through all of us.
I didn't answer my sister. Her voice trembled with shock and rage, but I kept silent. What could I possibly say? The truth was suffocating me already—I didn't need her accusations to remind me. Deep down, I knew… this was all my fault.
And then it came—my mother's words.
Words I had dreaded, words I thought I had grown used to.
"Vedehi… I wish you had never been born from my womb."
For years, I had heard those words tossed carelessly at me, as if they meant nothing. But tonight… tonight they struck differently. They weren't just sounds in the air—they became arrows, stabbing, lodging themselves deep in my chest. I couldn't breathe.
Why, mother? I wanted to scream. Why do you hate me so much? Why can't you see me? Why can't you love me?
And then it hit me—the answer I had been running from, the shadow I had refused to face. It was because of Jasmine. Because of Kanika. Because of the choices I had made to hide, to deceive, to control.
Just an hour ago, my anger at Jasmine had been a wildfire, raging, unstoppable. But now? That fire had cooled into something far more terrifying—fear. A creeping, paralyzing fear that spread through my veins, whispering that the truth had finally cornered me.
And inside my head, voices began to echo.
You ruined everything.
If you hadn't interfered, She would have stayed safe.
You pushed too far. And now… look what's left of you.
I pressed my hands against my ears, but it didn't help—the voices were mine. My own conscience, merciless, gnawing at me from the inside.
The walls of my home suddenly felt like a prison. My family surrounded me, but I had never felt more alone. My sister's horrified face, my mother's hateful glare—they weren't just angry; they were verdicts. Judges in a trial I was destined to lose.
My chest tightened. I could almost hear the sound of a clock ticking somewhere, slow but cruel, reminding me that time was running out. Sooner or later, everyone would know. Sooner or later, I would be exposed.
And the truth?
The truth was darker than any punishment they could give me.
Because I was no longer just guilty.
I was haunted.
Ten years ago, when I was in the 10th grade, there was a girl in my class—Rama. She was everything I wasn't, and everything I wanted to be. She was beautiful, effortlessly so, the kind of beauty that made people stop and notice her without her even trying. She was brilliant in studies, her grades always shining at the top of the board. She was athletic too, running faster, playing better, and winning hearts in the field just as she did in the classroom. And as if all that wasn't enough, she wrote poetry—words that danced like magic, words that everyone admired.
To me, Rama was not just another friend; she was a mirror of everything I longed to become. She was a thousand times better than me in every way I could measure. And yet, the strangest, deepest bond I felt with her was not about beauty, brains, or talent—it was about love. Like me, Rama too loved girls. But unlike me, she wasn't ashamed, she wasn't afraid, and she wasn't hidden in shadows. Her truth was brighter, easier, somehow accepted. While I was struggling with whispers, stolen glances, and suffocating secrets, Rama lived in a world where even girls in our school adored her, wanted to be around her, wanted to be her.
And me? I just wanted to be like her.
I began copying her—her style, her voice, her presence. I started dressing like her, wearing clothes the way she did. I grew my hair like hers, tried to walk like her, even practiced speaking the way she spoke. I thought, maybe if I could become Rama, people would love me too. Maybe if I became her shadow, I could steal a fraction of her light.
But it didn't work. No matter how hard I tried, people didn't see Rama in me—they only saw the clumsy imitation of a girl desperate to be someone else. Instead of admiration, I invited complaints. My teachers began calling my mother, saying that I distracted other girls in the class, that I stopped them from studying, that I wasn't focusing on my own work.
And my mother? Every call from school was another wound, another reason for her to look at me with disappointment. She never saw the loneliness that drove me, the desperate hunger to be loved the way Rama was loved. All she saw was failure.
Back then, I couldn't put it into words. But now, looking back, I realize I wasn't just trying to be Rama. I was trying to escape myself.
To be continue....