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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
She walked to the door instructing him to follow but stopped dead in her tracks, turned and said “Remember my warning. If you really want to meet your wife, don’t act smart.”
Even though Samar didn’t say anything his face hardened for a fleeting second; Vedika knew the message had been properly conveyed.
They got into her car, Samar on the wheel, Vedika providing directions. They reached the bungalow in the woods. She unlocked the gate by punching the password.
Samar trailed behind her. He wanted to enquire their whereabouts but decided against it. He didn’t want to have any conversation with Vedika, who came across psychotic to him.
Nostalgia flooded Samar, brought back memories from his days with Vedika.
The silly pointless bet with friends, the incessant convincing to make Vedika say yes to his proposal, the mutual gift exchange, candle night dinners at some of the costliest restaurants, Vedika’s constant care, attention, love, her vulnerability, her opening up to him slowly, their heart to heart conversations, her eager assistance in helping him with notes and assignments, her going the extra mile to get his proxies and make sure he had the minimum required attendance to pass the exams, her obsession with him. He tried a lot to be mad with her, to get out of the relationship slowly as the bet’s timeline loomed closer, but failed. Her simplicity, innocence, modesty won him over. He didn’t want to hurt her but he didn’t want to stay either. There were moments when he was confused if he had truly fallen in love with Vedika.
Things changed the instant Shruti entered his life as a wild card. She made him forget everything else. He was head over heels in love with Shruti. He continued the charade with Vedika just to win the bet. For a while he had decided to end it smoothly with Vedika, explain her the reasons, tell her that she was a nice person, just that they weren’t meant to be together. One day his friends teased him that he had fallen for Vedika for real, his anger knew no bounds. He lost his temper on being associated with someone who was the laughing stock of the college folks. To add to Vedika’s bad luck she happened to be passing by. He twisted her hands, started hurling abuses at her and said stuff he wasn’t proud of; all in an attempt to convince his friends that he had absolutely no feelings for Vedika. He broke her heart beyond repair. After that he never met her again and gradually she faded from his life. He never mentioned anything about Vedika to Shruti. Looking back, he did feel he had been cruel, almost brutal to Vedika, she who had been nothing but kind and affectionate towards him. However never had he had ever suspected her to be the kind of girl who could plot a revenge. For now, all he wanted was to find Shruti and get out of this mad house.
They reached the bottom of a staircase. Vedika placed a finger on her lips indicating him to be quiet and asked him to go first. He started climbing the stairs while she followed him. The staircase led them to a big vacuous room which seemed like a master bedroom. A four-poster wooden bed lied in the centre. Samar could tell, there were people asleep on it who seemed like a couple. He felt he was crossing a line by spying on a couple’s privacy. They were almost in the state of undress. Vedika nudged him to walk closer to them, when he tried to refuse, her face burnt up in anger, he complied unwillingly so as to not displease her.
When he stood at the foot of the bed, the girl under the sheets turned to her side. Samar could see her face clearly now.
He fell down with his head in his hands. The flames of shock seared his skin. His head began to spin.
“No No No No No this can’t be true. This is a bad dream. Vedika, enough. I can’t take this anymore!!” He started bawling uncontrollably.
Vedika chuckled, her satisfaction reaching the optimum level on watching him in pain. The entire feeling was larger than all her imaginations of this day, combined together.
“What happened? You never expected your wife to cheat on you? The same way I had never expected to witness your evil side? Am sorry to burst your bubble, but your wife isn’t as loyal as you believed. Even though her loyalty is none of my business, she meddled in my life, not once but twice. This time I decided to teach her a lesson along with you and be done with both of you for my entire life.”
Samar sprang on the bed, pulled the sheets, dragged and threw the guy and Shruti on the floor. They woke up with a start. The look of horror on Shruti’s face on seeing Samar looming over her was indescribable.
He shrieked “You bitch. How could you break my trust after all that I went through for you? You separated me from my siblings, my own parents, my friends. Heck, I attended your brother’s wedding instead of my mother’s tumor operation just because you wanted me to. I left everybody behind for your happiness and never uttered a word! Yet you had the audacity of sleeping with another person right here under my nose! If you thought I am going to spare you for this, you’re wrong. Wait and watch how I unleash wrath on both of you! I will kill you first followed by a slow and painful death for this bastard.”
Harsh was shaken with whatever that was unfolding at the very moment. He failed to recollect falling asleep. He had called Shruti for a short rendezvous, they had dinner together, the very next memory was of Vedika standing in the background with this stranger screaming at the top of his voice, hurling abuses at Shruti.
Shruti had said she would leave immediately but Harsh had compelled her to have dinner. After that when she started to leave, Harsh had held her hands and started kissing them. With Shruti, he always forgot his surroundings. This was their third meeting after they had gotten involved with each other, which was another saga in itself.
He had always felt close to Shruti at an emotional level, which he had never felt with Vedika. Even when Vedika was with him, she wasn’t with him. Vedika was emotionally unavailable for him most of the time. He knew Vedika’s heart had broken in college but he had tried his best to make her happy; somehow, he had never been enough. She loved him but he wasn’t her soulmate, that he could tell. Amidst all that, when she left for pursuing her studies in Australia he had thrown himself into work. He got the responsibility of heading a high turnover project which he had to shoulder with Shruti. She was the Canadian Point of Contact (POC) while he was the American POC. As they had to run their projects in parallel, their teams needed to be in sync with each other. They had daily stand up calls, meetings, even on weekends they had to connect to update each other about their respective progresses. As a result of being in constant touch combined with the loneliness in Harsh’s life, he started developing feelings for Shruti. She charmed him with her sense of humor and intelligence. What attracted him the most was the way she always completed his sentences midway, as if she knew exactly what he would say.
Shruti had to come over to NY for an important meeting. He offered to show her around the town. One thing led to another and soon Shruti confessed about her crush on Harsh and how her married life was in shambles as she was in a deadlock situation with her husband over the topic of kids. They weren’t seeing eye to eye for quite some time now. At the heat of the moment, both of them had ended up making out. They had spent an entire day locked in the hotel room talking and making love, then repeating the sequence again. They had opened up their hearts, their lives. They had never been happier.
A month after this incident, Shruti had called up one day to say that she was ending things with Harsh as she didn’t want to desert Samar who meant a lot to her. Even Harsh had resonated her feelings by saying that Vedika needed his company more than he needed her, so he couldn’t break up with her. They had ended things mutually. They had also promised each other that they were never to breathe a word of this to Samar or Vedika, as hurting them would be of no use. They didn’t consider the possibility of leaving their counterparts and marrying each other. Love was complicated, so were responsibilities, they had concluded.
Shruti couldn’t leave Samar, the same stood true for Harsh with Vedika. He knew she was precariously fragile. He had stitched her broken heart bit by bit, how could he be the person to tear it apart all over again. Besides, Vedika was genuinely nice to him and he wouldn’t ever find that stability with Shruti or anyone else. Afterwards, they had kept in touch as colleagues. Both of them had practiced immense restraint on their desires to reach out to the other person. Life had gone by as usual. When Vedika had brought him to Toronto for spending the weekend, the realization had hit him that Shruti lived in the same place. Almost immediately the desire to meet her had engulfed him.
He had texted her “In your town for the weekend. Could you meet for 10-15 mins? Just one last time, for old times sake?”
She had replied a long time later “Yes, on my way.”
Harsh had waited eagerly for her seated in the balcony and prayed for Vedika’s return to be delayed until Shruti left. He had let Shruti in by using the passwords shared by Vedika.
He regretted acting on his whim and inviting Shruti over. Somehow Vedika had come back with Shruti’s husband and found them in this awkward position. Things were messed up now. He desperately wanted to make things okay and explain Vedika that whatever it was with Shruti was over. He knew she would forgive him, she loved him dearly after all.
His reverie was cut short by Samar’s sudden attack on Shruti. He pounced on her and clasped her throat. His eyes were bloodshot. He wasn’t going to listen, Harsh realized. He tried releasing Shruti from Samar’s powerful grasp but it was too late. Harsh watched in horror as Shruti breathed her last. Shruti’s lifeless body dropped on the floor with a crash. Her eyes wide open, her neck bearing fiery red marks from where Samar had wrung it.
Harsh leapt at Samar who shouted “Look what you made me do you asshole. I killed my wife because of you, you bastard. Now you have to pay the price for her death with yours!” and ambushed Harsh. Harsh somehow was able to turn the tables, he not only rid himself of his strong grasp but also managed to throw him on the bed’s railings. Bang.
Samar’s head hit the iron railing with a loud crack. He fell down convoluting with pain and agony. His entire body was trembling from the aftermath.
While Samar hovered between life and death, Harsh screamed out loud “You fool. This didn’t have to end this way. Shruti loved you. She would have never forsaken you for me. It was a one-time thing between us. We both shared something really beautiful, beyond this world, which we decided to end because of our loyalties to both of you. She was an amazing person, she was my true soulmate who I was happy to have with me even without having her. I swear to God I don’t know how we ended up on the bed, with our half naked bodies. She had come to say Goodbye. We would have never met each other nor kept in touch. But there’s no use of saying all this now. YOU KILLED HER. You took her life. You didn’t understand about Vedika’s planning and brain behind all of this. This wasn’t a coincidence. We were all puppets in her show. She won. She made you kill Shruti and now I am not going to spare you. After that I am going to finish her.” Harsh wrung Samar’s neck and snapped the leftover life out of him.
Devoid of any regret or remorse, he started taking steps towards Vedika who had an unreadable smile on her lips. As he stepped forward, she kept stepping back.
“You know you can’t walk away from me forever.”
“I don’t intend to. Come catch me. Walk to me.” She teased him. His anger kept growing.
“Why Vedika, why did you have to do all this? It could have been so different. It could have been so much better. Why didn’t you confront me once? I could have explained”
Was Harsh pleading with him, being remorseful of what he had done? Vedika wondered, could he be given a second chance, Naah, too late now, she concluded.
“You know Harsh, the greater our love, the deeper and more profound is our hatred. Remember, when you had proposed to me, I wasn’t in a condition to love again. You had persuaded me to the point that I had to say yes. That time I had made just one condition with you, Don’t ever cheat on me or break my heart else the consequences would be fatal. Today is that day when you have to pay the price for breaking your promise, with your life.” Saying so Vedika swiftly stepped aside, Harsh took a disoriented step forward and before he could fathom what was happening, Vedika dragged him taking his feet off the balcony. He fell four floors below with a thud. Soon there was a pool of blood all around him. She watched as life passed out of his body slowly and rendered him lifeless.
She breathed a sigh of relief. She just had one more thing to do.
The bodies were taken to the basement’s laboratory with the housekeeper’s help. It was the housekeeper who had mixed the sleeping pills in the dinner, then placed Harsh and Shruti on the bed. One by one they were thrown into a drum of viscous liquid. In no time the bodies were engulfed by the liquid and turned into nothingness. Not a muscle or tissue was left. The bodies dissolved in the liquid just like salt disappeared in warm water. The blood marks were removed, the house was wiped clean of fingerprints, Samar’s car and his mobile devices were returned to his home by the housekeeper.
Vedika rested on the fourposter and recollected the highlights of the past few months of planning.
Her pathbreaking invention of a liquid produced from the combination of a particular bug and few herbs, that could devour the cancer cells painlessly and effortlessly. Even in its initial phase, it was a groundbreaking invention which was backed by a hefty grant from the governments of many countries. The plants were found in abundance in Canada, especially in the woods around Toronto thus she was offered a heritage property as a place to settle and carry forward her experiments. She had decided to share it with Harsh in person. She had flown into New York to surprise him but had rather gotten the shock of her life. She found him welcoming an unknown stranger with a rather long and cozy hug. She had followed them for the rest of the day and ended up watching them enter into a hotel room after sharing a protracted kiss.
She was heartbroken, grief stricken. She had wiped the tears which were quick to fall down her cheeks. Even though Vedika had wanted to confront Harsh right there and then, she had suppressed her anger promising herself that she would teach Harsh a lesson which he wouldn’t forget. With the help of a private investigator she had discovered the identity of the female who was involved with Harsh. It was Shruti who was, quite interestingly, married to Samar. She couldn’t believe the coincidence. Of all the girls Harsh could cheat her with, he had chosen the very same girl who had snatched Samar from her life!
A shattered Vedika, had planned for days, deciding her next move. One day while experimenting in the lab she had produced a potion by chance which could phage on animal tissues, bones, blood. She couldn’t believe her luck. She kept her discovery private, tested the liquid on mice and other tiny organisms. The tests were successful. After taking the ownership of the heritage house in Toronto, she had come down to produce the liquid in sufficient amount for consuming three human beings, bribed the housekeeper heavily to be her aid.
The plan set in motion with her landing at NY home. She still gave Harsh a chance to confess, or divorce her, rather than two timing her, but he didn’t do any such thing and continued with his facade of being loving and caring for her. She knew he would be tempted to meet Shruti given an appropriate chance, her hunch was proved right. After meeting Shruti in person, she did feel a momentary change of heart but all that dissipated when Shruti rushed to meet Harsh at the drop of a hat. She felt some leftover love and longing piling up inside of her on meeting Samar after a decade but it burnt out when he didn’t show the slightest of remorse for his doings.
The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ track plays in the background. Vedika takes a long swig of wine from her glass. She feels unsteady, wobbly. She had dreamt of this moment when everything would come to an end, when she would’ve kicked love out of her life promising herself never to be trapped by that emotion ever again. Reaching here had been her goal for the past six months; day and night she had slogged to conjure a foolproof plan. She knows there will be an investigation, enquiries, may be court summons, she had her stories ready, heck she could afford the best lawyer in town if need be! In the end without a body they can’t really pin the murder on her head, Can they?
The scars of your love they leave me breathless, I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all…..
She smirks as the realization hits her that against all odds, eventually they all ended up living together happily ever after…
For reading the stories I pen.
For taking out time for the blog from your life’s hustle
For being the smile on my face
For being the support my creativity needs to rely on.
Thank you for all this and so much more!
AC
-Storyteller
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I didn’t expect that ending!! Beautifully written, could actually feel Vedika’s motivation. Keep writing!
Thanks a lot Mukti for reading and commenting. It means the world to me. Your work is brilliant too. Love reading all your posts. If you are on Pinterest, please do share your link with me via Facebook.
I was completely glued to the story till the end… Amazingly narrated. Keep up the good work 👌👍….
Thank you so much for reading and the feedback dear 🙂 It means a lot to me!
So well scripted. Loved it.
Thanks a lot my dear friend. Your appreciation means the world to me 🙂
Ohhh god!! Wat an ending
😀 😀 😀
Amazing amazing and amazing 👏
Thanks a lot for the appreciation. Means a lot to me 🙂
What an ending !!! Flimy but very well written 👍🏻
Thank you so much Sir for the note of appreciation 🙂
Oh man.. brilliant girl.. ❤️
Love it love it..
Thank you Thank you and a big Thank you!!