The king's first wife

That day

She wasn't the least bit happy. Being the woman getting her husband ready for his own wedding on her 18th birthday? It should've been a special day for her but she was making do with the ghunghat over her face. Generally, she never wore it when they were alone with each other but for 3 months now, she had not shown him her face. She hadn't shown anyone her face. It was like, she no more had a face to show to anyone. She was in peril from inside, broken, hurt, and fighting with herself. 

" Second weddings are not that bad," she kept telling herself but, that one statement was really not enough for her to not feel sad and angry about that wedding. 

" Pari," he called her softly and she only looked at his chest, while fixing a gold ornament on his kurta. She never got a wedding of her own, she just seemed to have belonged to him since birth. 
" Pari," he held her hand but she only pulled her hand back and looked away. Slowly, she walked to the mirror and picked up the pagdi kept on the table in front of it 
" I didn't have a choice you know," he tried to justify his wedding to her and she just walked over to him and put the pagdi over his head 
" I know," her voice was paler, smaller, and timider than anything he had ever heard her say in his entire life. There was so much pain in it but he really couldn't see her face through the black ghunghat and lehenga she chose to wear that day 
" But it still hurts and I can't do anything about that," now her voice was filled with anger and her feet were slowly moving away from him 
" Pari," he took one step forward while looking at her with so much guilt and love in his eyes but he couldn't touch her again. 

" BHABHI!? Is bhai ready?! Everyone is waiting!!" a woman shouted from outside and Pari put a hand over her cheeks while wiping her tears and started walking away from 
" He's ready," she answered and just walked away from him while a crowd of people walked into the room with smiles 

" Bhabhi! How to do this?" her brother-in-law asked her and she walked over to him in his room. He was getting married that day too. 
" Pch. Don't move," his mother hit him lightly and she held his buttons while buttoning them up 
" Devar ji. This Kurta is small for you," Pari stated when she found it too hard to put on a button-up and his mother laughed 
" Pari. Say it correctly. Shauray beta, you're grown fat-" " Amma!!" he shouted  
" Bhai! Come down! Sohit bhai is already sitting in the mandap!!" his sister ran into the room in excitement and he immediately followed her out. But Pari's feet stumbled from going forward. Seeing her husband in front of the holy fire along with another woman? She didn't want to see that. 

" Pari," her mother-in-law held her hand and she turned around to look at the woman. You know, generally, when men got remarried, the women would at least have their own children to spend their lives with but here, all Pari had was sitting next to another woman. Maybe if she had had a kid by then. Maybe if she had managed to force Sohit into it, she wouldn't be there all alone in the room with her mother-in-law 

" Ma," she just burst out crying and hugged the woman tightly 
" You're such a brave girl, Pari. Sohit won't leave you all alone. He really loves you, baby," the woman tried to calm her down but it really wasn't any help. What was ahead was only a road full of misery for the young princess and she knew it. This was only the first thorn that pricked her heart, there were many more thorns that were left to come her way... 

No one except Sohit knew how she was breaking as she tied his cloth along with his new wife's and no one in the world knew how bad he himself was feeling as he took the 7 rounds around the sacred fire with someone other than Pari. She was the one he had been married to in her mother's womb and till date, he only counts her as a wife to him. But the outbreak had given him a clear view of how Pari was feeling. And his calculations were true, she was hurt and sad, not snotty and self-obsessed. His Pari wasn't anything like the other woman he was getting married to that day...