Disclaimer: This is a work of FICTION. Only the names of my main characters have been inspired by real life.
Not proof read and the entire chapter was typed using a mobile device. Please bear with typos.
This is a "What if"of Sattena Nenaindhadhu Nenjam. Please do read that series (chapters 1-4) before starting Anbarey, if you haven't already. This is going to be a super short series with may be two chapters?
I guess "what if" is a sufficient warning for anyone who wishes to read this series! I am trying something different than my usual (not that I have written enough to have a typical style!!!) .
If you do read the work, please read the note at the end.
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Anbarey: 1
Sivaangi splashed some cold water on her face at the toilet sink after what was beginning to feel like a long day that Tuesday. Staring at herself in the mirror, she nervously reached for the handkerchief that she had haphazardly tucked in her hip over her saree earlier that day. Wiping at her face, she tried to calm herself. She could hear her heart drumming in her ears. She barely heard anything around her, not that it was quiet. The ladies restroom in the ever busy government hospital was in fact noisy with women shuffling in and out. A pang of nausea suddenly hit her. She breathed out tucking the handkerchief back in her hip.
A part of her wished to walk away, but a part of her was curious. Just a morbid curiosity she reassured herself. She wished she hadn't seen his name on the chart. Why did she have to poke her nose? Why did she have to look at a random chart of the patient in the next bed? She knew why, the handwriting looked familiar and she couldn't help herself.
"Unaku arivey Illa, seriyaana aarva kolaaru de nee", she chided herself as her nose pricked, that set off the anxiety that she had been trying to ward off for a while now.
It has been been over four years, almost five, he was a part of her past. But was he? Was he just that? A ghost from her past? Something seemed to trickle down her forehead, the forehead that had started sweating again. She looked in the mirror to see the red stain that sat at the edge of the center partition of her hair had started dripping down. She quickly corrected it and patted her forehead with the back of her hand.
The last time she saw him, he had told her it was just going to be two weeks and that they'd meet again.
She blinked her eyes watching the swirling water rush through the sink.
Five years ago, five freaking years ago, when everything had come crashing and how. She remembered the tight slap that she had received from her chinna anna Mani. Right when she had arrived at the decision of confessing her heart to him. Right when she had told her anni Indu of her decision. Neither women had anticipated Mani to arrive that very moment. Of all the days, it had to be that wretched day that her brother's scooter ran into a thorn and he had to come back home at an odd time and look for his wife.
She remembered her mother's wails from the wretched day, "rendu naal munnadi padikanum adhaan kalyanam venaam nu sonna, Ippo vera yaaraiyo pidikudhu nu Mani solraan? Yaaru de andha paiyan ?". She had stayed mum not knowing what to tell her family.
Her father had remained eerily quiet the entire time.
A week of contemplating what she could do when her family had refused to listen to her, a week of begging her father to give her a chance to just finish her BSc and that she'd come back to marry the man of their choice, a week of being alienated by her own family, a week she never wished upon even her worst enemies.
