Zayne

I didn't know how much she had heard. But Naina had walked in right when I told Maya that I didn't want Naina friendzoning me.

I wanted romantic love from her. And I couldn't see her giving it to me if I didn't make a move.

But there she stood, the clothes from the laundry basket on the floor, a stunned expression on her face. Trembling.

Maya approached her while she and I stood there locking gazes. I was making mistake after mistake with her, wasn't I? Would she still come and stay with me? Was it wrong that I still wanted her to?

Maya picked up the clothes from the floor and put them back in the laundry basket.

"I'm sorry," Naina mumbled, placing the basket on her bed and taking out the clothes, sorting them.

I waited for her to finish the task while Maya gave me a look that clearly said, "I told you so."

"Okay, let's go!" said Naina after what seemed like hours, though it was probably minutes.

I felt relieved.

I picked up her overnight bag while she hugged Maya, bidding her goodbye.

"Brunch?" Maya called out while we were leaving. No, I wanted to do brunch with my wife.

"Maybe lunch," I responded.

"Text me," she insisted.

"Okay," I said, stealing a glance at Naina. She was smiling.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked her, knowing she wouldn't want to be at the hotel just yet. It was around 7 pm. Not quite dinner time.

"Let's do dinner at Shahzeen's?" she suggested. Shahzeen's was a restaurant that served Malabar cuisine. We used to frequent it when we were both doing our PG.

"Sure!" I said with a smile.

We took a seat outside on the balcony overlooking the sea. We watched the waves hit the rocks with brutal force, spraying seawater about 4 meters high.

The rocks below were famously called the suicide point by the locals. If you jumped down, the waves would throw you against the rocks, and you wouldn't stand a chance.

"Such a horrible way to die..." Naina commented as though she had been reading my thoughts.

"Is there a good way to die?" I asked her softly.
She looked at me as though considering whether to answer but then she looked away.

"I think drowning would be the worst..." she said, staring at the ocean. I didn't like where the conversation was going, but I let her continue. "Not being able to breathe..."

I remembered the moment I had found her in the pool, thinking she was dead.

"But I can't drown... It's hard to stay below the water when your body knows to float," she continued.

"I have passive suicidal thoughts, but no active suicidal ideations."

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw that hers were still fixed on the ocean.

"I feel like everything important in my life is somehow connected to the ocean. It was in Pondicherry that Adi and I became friends, in Goa that he first kissed me. Gokarna that he proposed. In Cherai that we broke up..." Her face was blank. I was nowhere on that list of 'important things' in her life.

"I think my life will end in the ocean too..." she concluded. A lump formed in my throat.

"Maybe you'll give me a heads up before you end your life?" I asked her, my voice unrecognizable to me.

She looked at me, her eyes wide, as though just realizing I was there.

"I wouldn't want to lose you, Naina," I said, my voice filled with pain. The image of her in the pool revisited my mind.

"You'll be better off..." she began.

"As a widower?" I asked her. She held my gaze for a few beats before looking back at the ocean.

"What was it all for, Zayne?" she asked softly, her eyes filling with tears.

"It was so that you and I could be together," I told her, though I didn't believe those words myself. She would have had a clear path to me if it weren't for him.

She shook her head. "If you and I were meant to be together, I wouldn't have been with him. It would have just been you and me from the start."

I was convinced she could read my mind.

"What would you like to order?" the waiter asked. Neither of us had seen him approach. Naina sat up, startled, and wiped her tears.

"One chicken polichathu and four pathiris," I ordered. It had been almost three years since we'd last been here, but I remembered her preferences as if it were yesterday. Naina stared at me. The waiter poured water into our glasses and left us.

"I don't know what it was all for, Naina. I just know that you are mine now. And I won't let the ocean or anything else take you," I said, reaching across the table, my hand hovering near hers.

She gave a small smile but moved her hand away.

"I want to do interventional cardiology," I told her, changing the topic. "But my parents want me to join the hospital." My parents co-owned a hospital in Kollam, and they wanted me to take over eventually.

"Do you want to live in Kollam?" she asked.

"Not really. I want to go to Dubai," I said, voicing this for the first time. I had grown up in a small town, and my parents' hospital was in that same small town. I wanted to get out. I didn't like the small-mindedness, and I didn't like how everyone was in everyone's business.

"I don't want to go abroad," Naina said, surprising me. "Adi and I went to the US for a couple of months for a clinical rotation. I didn't like it."

"Dubai is different from the US. It's closer to home. We could visit India on the weekends. There would be more structure, less chaos. We could actually make a difference."

"We make a difference here," she retorted immediately. But then she relented. Her shoulders drooped, and she adopted that faraway look again. "We can go to Dubai if that's what you want."

"My parents won't allow that anyway, so..." I trailed off as our food arrived. Naina nibbled on one pathiri while I ate three.

"You want to come home for Onam?" I asked her. The harvest festival in Karnataka coincided with Onam, celebrated in Kerala.

"Yeah, I can come," she replied.

We lapsed into comfortable silence, the waves providing a soothing background.

Soon, I paid the bill and we headed for the hotel. It wasn't anything fancy, just a three-star hotel. I saw her look around with a weary expression. Guilt tugged at me; I should have booked something nicer.

"We'll stay at a better place next time. I didn't know you would be staying with me..." my voice trailed off.

"It's okay, I don't mind," Naina responded.

"We can still book somewhere else." I'd have to eat the cost of this room, but I wanted to make Naina happy.

"No, Zayne, this is fine," she insisted.

As we entered the room, Naina made a request. "My Scooty needs to be serviced... but I don't..." She stopped, looking embarrassed. I frowned. I didn't understand what she needed. I wasn't a mechanic. "Can you come to the workshop with me?" she asked, finally looking up to meet my eyes. This was weird.

"Of course," I responded, still unsure why she needed me there. She swallowed hard.

"I don't have the money to pay them... Will you be able to pay for the repairs?" Her cheeks flushed.

I didn't know why it felt odd. I was her husband. I was supposed to support her, wasn't I? Yet something felt off.

"I don't..." she started again but paused mid-sentence.

"I'll pay for it," I said quickly. Did she need money for anything else? "Do you need my debit card? Do you want to add your name to my account?" Was that the normal thing to do after marriage?

She shook her head and then said, "Can I add your credit card to my Swiggy and Uber?"

This was getting odder by the minute. I knew she came from a very affluent family. And she was also getting a stipend for her PG.

"Are you in debt?" I asked her.

"No," she said, and suddenly, her words came out rapid and jumbled. All I heard was "joint account," "runaway fund," "pappa."

"Slow down and tell me." I sat on the bed and patted the spot next to me for her to sit.

She sank down beside me, taking a deep breath.

"All my savings and our earnings from our Instagram are in our joint account—mine and Adi's. We did that so that we had emergency cash on hand in case we needed to run... run away..." she explained. She still had access to that. She could still run away with him. She could still leave me.

"Pappa took away my access to my primary account. I get rental income from a commercial building in my name. He thinks if I have money, I would elope or something. He is paying my fees directly, and my stipend barely covers my rent. I had some money from wedding gifts, but I used them to buy clothes and food."

She looked very embarrassed as she told me this. Her father froze her account so she would stay with me? I was still missing something.

"Naina, did your parents force you to marry me?" I asked, my heart in my throat, not wanting to hear her answer.

She shook her head, and I exhaled. "I wanted to marry you to have no way of going back to... to him. But my parents, they didn't trust me, so they enforced that they wouldn't pay my last installment of fees for my PG unless I married you. And they cut me off financially so I wouldn't run off with him. But I never planned to... I won't go to him."

I didn't know if I should believe her. I hated the thought that she was being financially manipulated by her parents to marry me or to stay married to me.

"Everything I have is yours," I said slowly. She stared at me. "I mean it, Naina. I'll even pay your last tuition fees," my heart aching. I wanted her to have freely chosen me.

"Zayne..." she began. I placed my head in my hands. I couldn't live with myself if she had been forced into this. But hadn't she agreed to this? We had talked about this on the phone, hadn't we? She had agreed to marry me. But I hadn't known about the threat to not pay her fees.

I felt her hand encircle my arm; she leaned her head on my shoulder. I exhaled and wrapped my arm around her.

"I wasn't forced to marry you, Zayne. I wanted to. I knew that you would understand me."

I cradled her face in my hands, and she closed her eyes, parting her lips slightly. I kissed her, and she yielded. She leaned back until her back was flat on the bed and I was over her, kissing her like my life depended on it.

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Thank you for reading.

Remember that you are amazing, and there is a reason for everything. You are going to be okay.
❤️Faiza