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Mr. Porter is right. Imtiaz doesn’t deserve the humiliation of me leaving him and he doesn’t deserve to marry someone who doesn’t love him and doesn’t know if she can ever love him in the way he wants.
Guilt ensnares my stomach and holds on with a vice grip. My throat closes up, and something in my chest twists. Imtiaz doesn’t deserve this repeats over and over in my head until it drowns out every other rational thought. This isn’t even about me anymore; this is about me hurting someone who I was...using. The word causes the guilt to sit heavier in my gut, but it’s what I did. I used him without thinking about the consequences. I used him so I could escape.
The thoughts swirling around in my head make me move without thinking. I step away from Ammi’s grip. “Not even that,” I say. “I’m marrying him because I’m tired of feeling caged!”
Ammi takes a step back. “Kya? I don’t understand.”
I loose a strangled breath. “Imtiaz is a great guy,” I start, “but I’m not in love with him, and I don’t know if I can ever be. I only agreed to get engaged because it got you off my back.”
Confusion stretches across Ammi’s forehead, but she steels herself and puts her hands on my arms. “You’re just scared. I know we talked about it last night, Maya, but you don’t have to be afraid. You’re worried that what happened to Baba and me is going to happen to you, but I promise you it won’t. You’re going to be fine.”
“How do I know that?” I push her arms off me, and I continue despite her stunned expression. “How do I know that I won’t wake up one day and find my side of the bed empty?” I suck in a deep breath and blink away my tears. “I know love can happen after marriage. I’ve seen it, so I’m hoping that it happens to me. But what if I wake up one day and realize I’ve been sleeping next to a stranger my whole life? What if I wake up one day and realize that I spent the only life I have being unhappy?” My mind drifts back to my conversation with Sarfaraz last night. “I thought being married was enough. I thought the gamble was worth it.” I lift my head. “But I want to be married to someone I know I love. I never thought it would happen for me, but that’s because I was pushing it away. And I don’t want to push it away anymore. I was willing to see if I could fall in love after marrying him but that was before—” I cut myself off.
I think Ammi’s shell-shocked, because anger doesn’t color her face, nor does sadness. Confusion floods her features. “Before what?”
I stay silent, but Hibba Baji opens her mouth. She’s been quiet during the whole exchange, but now she says, “Before she met Sarfaraz.”
Ammi’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. “You’re in love with Sarfaraz?”
“No.” At both of their unimpressed faces, I wince. “Fine, I don’t know if I love him but...but he makes me feel things. Things I thought I never could.” I move on before they can ask any more questions. “I don’t know how I feel. But what I do know is that I want more in my life than to be married because you won’t let me have any freedom. I’m an adult, Ammi. I don’t need to be taken care of, I don’t need to please people I don’t know, and I definitely don’t need to be married to be happy.” I clench my fists. “You’re right. I don’t want to be alone. But you can still be alone when you’re with someone, and in my opinion, there’s nothing worse than that feeling. I need to be with someone who I know won’t make me feel like that. And I don’t want to have to start over two or ten or twenty years from now when I realize that I didn’t marry the right person for me in the first place.”
I huff, all the steam flushing right out of my system. With my body cooling down, I’m fully registering what I said. I can’t believe all that stuff...poured out of me. But I can’t bring myself to regret saying it. I think the words have always been there, lying dormant, the emotion hiding under my skin until it couldn’t be hidden anymore.
Ammi opens and closes her mouth a few times. Her brows move up and down like a caterpillar is crawling on her forehead. It’s finally happened—I’ve stunned a brown mother into silence. “I didn’t know you felt like that,” she settles on.
“That’s because I didn’t want you to know. I knew it would be worthless telling you how I feel, because how I feel has never mattered. Every time I want to bring it up, you make a comment about how happy you are that I’m not going to be alone anymore...and then the guilt takes over.”
She chokes out a sob as she comes over to me, grabbing my face. “Of course what you feel matters, jaanu,” she breathes. “Your happiness is all I’ve ever wanted. I thought I could help make you happy by getting you married, because it would mean you would be in love and safe and secure.”
“I don’t need—”
“To be married to be secure,” Ammi finishes for me. “I know. But, beta, you need to realize that I grew up in a time where the only way I could get any freedom was to be married. And that didn’t work out for me, so I had to struggle alone. I’m damn proud of the job I did with you and Hibba, but I know firsthand how hard it is to be alone. That’s why I needed to know that you two would be taken care of. I know what it’s like to grow alone. I have my daughters, yes, but you have your own lives. I don’t have anyone to be by my side, and while I don’t regret focusing on you two instead of finding someone to marry again, I do feel sadness.” She rests a hand on her chest. “This is not a feeling I would wish on my worst enemy, let alone my own dear daughters. I’m not going to be around forever, Maya, and I know that sounds very cliché, but it’s an anxiety you’ll understand when you’re a parent. But...” She brushes at a tiny tear that escapes my eye. “But if this isn’t what you want...”
I sniffle deeply. “It doesn’t matter,” I insist. “Our whole family is out there waiting for me to get married. I promised Imtiaz I would marry him, and I don’t want to break that promise. I have to do it now.”
“No, you don’t.”
I stiffen, my blood running cold. I turn around, and Imtiaz stands in the doorframe. I have to admit, he looks incredibly handsome in his black sherwani. The light in the room reflects off the gold buttons that line his chest. A mauve-and-gold shawl is draped over his arms. To complete the regal look, a shimmering gold turban sits on top of his head.
When I heard his voice, I expected his eyes to be red, his nose runny, his lips puckered like he’s trying to hold back tears. Instead, he has a kind smile on his face. He dips his head at Ammi and Hibba Baji. “Could I have a second alone with Maya?”
My stomach churns as Ammi and Hibba Baji awkwardly shuffle out of the room. Ammi shuts the door behind them, and then it’s just Imtiaz and me. I pull on my fingers. We stand in tense silence, and it feels as thick as the heat outside at the height of the day.
I can’t take the quiet anymore. I clear my throat. “I can explain—” I begin.
“I think I kind of always knew,” Imtiaz cuts in. I clamp my mouth shut, and at my silence, he continues. “That you didn’t love me.”
A bulge forms in the back of my throat. “Imtiaz—”
“And I was okay with that,” he interrupts, and again, I quiet down. “Truth be told, I don’t know if I loved you, either. I mean, when the rishta came to me and we met again, I thought it would be nice to get to know and possibly marry someone I already knew in the past. I thought maybe it was even some kind of fate.” He chuckles. “I mean, who would have thought that a girl I knew in university would end up being the first rishta that my parents brought to me? She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s ready for a commitment. I knew we were rushing things, but I knew I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by. I thought we could get to know each other and things would work themselves out. And for a while, it did feel like that. We got along way better than I thought we would, to be honest.
“But I had my concerns, too,” he goes on. “You were always hesitant, but I was okay with you taking your time to open up to me. I thought that once we were married and things settled, it’d be okay.” When he looks at me, I expect anger or sadness to cloud his features. Instead, I see something like...acceptance. “Do you love me?”
My breath catches. “I could try.” After a beat, I ask, “Do you love me?”
“I could try, too,” he admits. “But honestly... I think we’re too different. With my work schedule and with how little we actually know each other, I think it’ll make things harder for us.” Imtiaz clicks his tongue. “I don’t think it’s fair to base a marriage on a gamble, do you?”
I chew my tongue. “No.”
