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I don’t remember the first time my mother decided I would marry. Maybe it was the night she found messages from Maya on my old phone. Maybe it was the day I cut my hair short and she said, “Don’t invite shame into this house.” Or maybe she always knew: a daughter’s rebellion is forgivable only until she must be displayed in bridal silk.
I never said yes. But they never asked.
The wedding rituals began on a Monday. Turmeric on my cheeks, oil dripping down my hair. Aunties fussing over my wrists, my mother standing behind them, her eyes begging me to smile. I did not smile. She pulled me aside when the others left. “Look at me, child. Look at me. I know what you think you are. But a woman must be a wife. You’ll see, it will cure you.” When I turned away, she pressed her nails into my arm and whispered her final threat, her winning card: “If you don’t do this for me, I will not live to see the shame.”
I didn’t cry. I nodded.
I met him at the mandap the next morning. He had kind eyes. Too kind. He said “Hi” under his breath while the priest tied our fates together with jasmine and fire. I kept my eyes down. Later, he tried again: “You are beautiful! Tell me something about you. I want to hear your sweet voice,” I told him, “I don’t talk much.” He laughed softly. He thought I was shy. He didn’t know he had just bound himself to a ghost.
Nights were the hardest. He would sit on our new bed, turning over old stories from his boyhood, asking if I liked movies, mangoes, music. I’d nod. I’d say “Yes, fine,” like a polite hostage. I saw the hope in his eyes... the hope that one day I’d melt and love him back. I would turn my face to the wall and swallow the guilt like poison. This is betrayal, I told myself. But I thought: I’ll fix it. I’ll be normal. I will open my legs and pretend it means something.
I tried. I tried to want him. I lay beside him like a corpse and tried to remember what girls were supposed to feel. I thought of my mother’s relief when she saw us together at the wedding bed, her face bright with a victory she didn’t earn. I thought of Maya’s fingers in my hair once upon a time. Her laugh against my neck. How I never felt wrong then. I bit my pillow and cried so softly he wouldn’t wake.
One night, I broke. I sat at the edge of our bed, hair dripping from my shower, my heart a stone. He was half-asleep. I whispered, “I need to tell you something.”
I said it all in one breath. That I was never meant to be his. That I never wanted a husband. That I loved women. That I tried to change. That I couldn’t. I told him about the guilt, the sick weight inside me every time he looked at me like a miracle.
He sat up. Silent. A slow, deep disappointment in his eyes... not anger, not disgust. Just the gentle grief of someone realising he was loving a dream that never existed.
He didn’t touch me for a long time. Then he said, “All this time have I been using your... You don’t deserve this prison. Neither do I. I won’t keep you.”
He helped me pack a single bag. He told his family we were visiting my aunt. He held my hand in the taxi, just so I wouldn’t shake. At the bus station, he gave me a bundle of notes, my ID, and a train ticket far from the city. “When you’re safe, text me. I’ll tell them whatever lie they need to hear. Go live. Please.”
I wanted to say thank you. But I just looked at him. He understood.
The train rattled into the night. I sat by the window, the wind stealing the last scent of sandalwood from my wedding hair. In the dark glass, my reflection looked back—tired, thin. Alive.
My chest felt hollow, then tight. I thought of my mother’s face when she would hear the shame I had invited into her house. Her final, whispered threat... I will not live to see the shame.
The guilt was a familiar, heavy poison in my stomach.
I thought of him. His kind eyes, his gentle grief, his last words: "Go live." What had I left behind for him? What lie would he tell? What would his family do when they knew?
I clutched the single bag on my lap. I had a ticket to a place I didn't know and no plan. A knot of pure, cold fear tightened in my throat. I was a ghost running from one prison, but what was I running to?
The wheels kept turning. The air rushing through the open window was cold, and for the first time in months, I could actually feel myself breathing it in.
The End