Page 44 of Mrs. Pandey
I twisted my arm, yanking it free in a fluid, practiced motion, stepping back into a defensive stance.
"You forget, Kabir," I said coldly. "I'm not helpless like your ex-wife. I'm a trained army officer. You think you can just walk in here and intimidate me?"
"Big talk," he hissed, charging toward me again.
This time, I was ready. I blocked his hand, drove my elbow into his ribs, and then kicked him hard in the knee. He stumbled back, groaning, clutching his side.
"You want to fight?" I said, breathing heavily. "You came to the wrong house."
But before I could catch my breath, the door creaked open again. I turned, just as Amish Patel stepped inside, calm and collected, the usual deadness in his eyes.
I froze.
"Ira, my darling," he said with a smirk. "Still causing trouble?"
"Leave. Both of you," I barked, my eyes locked on them. "Now."
Kabir recovered quickly, and while I was distracted by Amish, he lunged again. I managed to elbow him, but Amish rushed me from behind. I twisted and punched him in the gut, but Kabir grabbed me and slapped me hard across the cheek.
Pain exploded. My knees buckled, and I fell, blinking through the haze, blood trickling from the corner of my lips.
Kabir grabbed my hair, yanking my face close to his.
"Think you're strong?" he spat. "You're nothing. Just a woman playing a warrior."
I struggled weakly, blood in my mouth, vision blurring.
Amish crouched beside me, staring. "Pity," he said. "Could've been beautiful, if you'd just kept quiet."
"You'll both regret this," I rasped, every word thick with fury. "I swear it."
Kabir struck me again and this time, everything went black.
________
My chest felt tight. Not just nerves, I'm talking about that crushing kind of feeling where your heart pounds so fast, you wonder if it might actually stop. My breathing was all over the place. I was gasping like someone who'd been underwater too long and had just come up for air.
Something inside me was knocking emotionally. It was loud, constant, like a warning bell. Like something was dying inside me, and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.
Prashant.
His name burned in my mind like someone had pressed a hot iron to my skin. He was getting married today.
That single fact kept ringing in my head, over and over again. I couldn't escape it. It felt like the world was ending, or at least my world.
I sat frozen in my room in Udaipur. My emotions were running wild, confusion, pain, guilt, fear, all tangled together like messy wires sparking in my brain. Did I love him? No, but still these stupid feelings.
I didn't even know. Maybe it wasn't love anymore. Maybe it was just guilt. Or the comfort of familiarity that feeling you get when someone knows you so well, it's scary. Or maybe it was just the stupid belief that he was the only one who ever got me. The real me.
And that thought? That thought broke me. Because what if it was true? What if only Prashant had really seen me, understood me, and accepted me?
I didn't think anymore. I just acted. I picked up my phone, opened the flight app, and typed "Jammu." I booked the first flight.
Next thing I knew, I was at the airport with nothing but my phone, my purse, and a lie I hadn't even figured out yet. I didn'tpack, I didn't call anyone. I drove straight to the airport like something inside me had screamed loud enough that I had to listen.
And as I sat on that flight, reality hit me hard. What was I doing?
But it was too late to back out. The lie was already building inside me; it was messy, raw, and terrifying. But more than the lie, what crushed me was the silence. The silence I had lived in for so long. Not just around others, but inside me too.
