Chapter 1: Betrayed

Zoya’s P.O.V

I wasn't exactly the poster child of courage and confidence. In all my twenty-four years of existence, not once had I ever found it in me to stand up for myself in a way that didn't play into what other people wanted.

When I had to choose between fight or flight, I always chose compromise, the in-between. I could allow myself some form of comfort, so long as I still pleased others in the exchange.

Even when my pride was out the door, and my knees were on the floor, and I was quivering, bloodied, and bruised, I would not scream in pain nor would I barrel toward the enemy with my fists thrust out, hungry for a fight. Even when I was being beaten up, taken advantage of… still, I did not want to hurt those who hurt me.

I had always considered that as some form of twisted and mangled courage, however pitiful and self-destructive, but now I was not so sure that it ever was a type of bravery.

“What the fuck?” I barely managed to spit out, my tongue tying  itself into a knot inside my mouth. There was a sharp twinge of pain blossoming in the pit of my chest, and it took all of me not to dig my nails over my breast and claw my heart out of my ribcage.

It was not a new thing that I came home exhausted and barely functioning from work. In fact, as the hospital found itself growing busier and busier by the ticking second, I, too, found it increasingly difficult to come home in one piece, without the perpetual tiredness that my fiancé, Ravi Raichand, had always called me out for. And now that I was finally able to slip past my work senior's vice-like grip and get out of work earlier than usual, I came home…to this nightmare.

The first red flag was the extra pair of footwear outside the door that I did not recognize as mine. I saw those flats as soon as I walked up to the door. I knew that those shoes were my cousin's, as I had seen her wear them a couple of times, and while it struck me as odd that she was here even though she was supposed to be out on a schedule, I did not pay it much heed. Perhaps she just came by to take something she forgot that she was supposed to bring. And even though I found it odd that my fiancé was here at the same time that my cousin was, despite the fact that I'd never seen the two of them interact with each other all that much, I still ignored the alarm bells in my head and went to focus on fumbling my bag for my keys.

Then came the next bad omen: the suspicious sounds — wet and slippery moans of pleasure, the smacking of skin against skin. I was never the malicious and jealous partner, so I just assumed that he was watching p**n and pleasuring himself. If that was the case, it would not have been an issue with me — such a thing was normal, especially since he and I promised not to make love before our wedding.

I peeked into the living room and there they were on the couch, my fiancé and my cousin, his lips on her breasts as he thrusted in and out of her, like a dance, like a workout. Infidelity, in the heart of my own home.

“What the fuck?” I repeated, because I didn't know what else to say. What other words could even encapsulate the turmoil bubbling in my heart right now; the tornado churning in my brain? I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream… How could they? How dare they? But the words wouldn't come and the fire died in my throat, the ashes resting on the tip of my tongue.

Ravi took one glance at the sheer look of betrayal plastered all over my face and rolled his eyes, pulling out of my cousin in one quick motion, sitting up on the bed languidly like he did not just commit a sin, like he did not just take a knife to my heart and stabbed it a thousand times.

He looked a million miles away from the kind and carefree boy I had known — used to know — since high school. Now he looked cruel, almost cold, except for the trace of pity on the subtle curve of his lips. “You should have knocked before entering,” he told me, his tone mocking and unsympathetic. “In case you forgot, you happen to share this apartment with your cousin.” He pressed his lips together for a few moments, before continuing, “And you should have told us that you would be coming home early. It would have given us time to prepare.”

I blinked back the tears that were starting to pool in my eyes, allowing a wave of anger to pulse throughout my body. I balled my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palm. “You—” I began to say, but still the insult, the curse, would not come. Even with my pride out the door, even when I had my entirety shattered into innumerable shards of glass, I still did not have it in me to hurt him.

The two of them took their sweet time in getting dressed. “Zoya,” my cousin told me in a tone I could not decipher, “this is the reality. This is happening. Accept it peacefully and please don’t cause a drama about it…it’s tiring.”

I kept my fists clenched; they must be blanching by now. When I finally felt myself to be composed enough to speak, “Why?” Was all that I could think to ask.

Ravi pretended to think about the answer, making contemplative noises as he did so. “Long story short, I'm sick of waiting…” he gestures to him and my cousin, “to do this with you until we are wed. It feels like I’m waiting for a nun.””

“But—” I started to say, but no one was having it. At this point, they had finished putting their clothes back on and were now standing to leave.

“Speaking of that wretched wedding,” Ravi continued his voice cool, as if what he was saying wouldn't upheave my entire world, “let's just do both of us a favor and cancel it, yeah?” He ushered his lady out the door and followed suit. At some point, he turned his head slightly before closing the door. “By the way, you need to clear all your stuff since I'll be taking your place in this apartment the first thing next morning.”

As if it wasn't enough that he cheated on me with my cousin. He just had to move in with her the minute I found out about them. A seed of anger implanted itself in my chest, and I did not know what to do with it. There was a rage bubbling inside the depths of me, and because I had always been the submissive, by-the-book type of girl, I had never tried letting my anger out on those who hurt me. I did not know what to do with anger, because I almost never let myself feel it.

In my anger and devastation, I clenched my hands into fists, and I screamed. I didn't care if they could see me like this, because it seemed that they did not care about me either. Perhaps the best revenge against them would have been to feign indifference and keep my pride intact, but after what happened to me at work as well as what happened to me now, I no longer cared about what they thought of me so long as I could have an outlet for my pain.

I screamed until my voice was gone, until my throat felt like it was scrubbed raw.

And when I finally had no voice left to scream, I fell to my knees, sobbing and mourning a love I never thought I would lose …like all we had and all we were to each other for the past eight years, hadn't meant a thing to him.