Betrayal and tears(Season 1) | ✔

Chapter Ten

The distorted vision slowly came clearer as she managed to blink back the stream of moisture. The sight greeting her eyes however made her seethe more, and consequently, more and more tears of resentment burned her brown eyes, for they looked so confused, as if they were being wrongly accused.

"Wha-what did we do?" Anjali's stuttering reached her and she snapped her eyes towards her. 

"What did you do?" Payal growled, glaring at her with a known hostility, causing Anjali to lower her eyes as the realization started settling in - a realization nowhere pleasant.

"You really have the guts to ask me that, after literally ruining my life?" Payal added incredulously and upon getting nothing but a shameful yet somehow confused stare from Anjali, she moved towards Akash.

"Payal-" He attempted to talk but failed as this time, she managed to cut him off, to make him listen to things he should have already known, without her even voicing them.

"And what did you asked me, Akash? That why I was doing all this? You really want to know it now, huh? So listen, I did it because you, and your entire family forced me to do it! You broke the last thread of my patience, and so I had to do this. Even though I never wanted to be like this, I HAD TO BE LIKE THIS!" Her whisper turned into an excruciating shout towards the end, showcasing him how pained she really is and almost paralyzing him with the intensity of her anger and hurt mixed together. 

Payal turned her face away from his agonizing gaze for a brief moment, just to gather herself up as the memories of her crying herself to sleep, pleading for forgiveness and taking the blames of crimes she never committed, burdened her again. 

"What was my fault, Akash?" She asked, her voice dropping into a drawn mumble, barely audible to anyone else other than Akash, who stood, paying attention to her words for the first time in an eternity--regretting for having not done this earlier, much earlier, when Payal was still there.

He lost her her, didn't he?

He asked his breaking self, tears brimming in his rounded black eyes as she continued.

"Tell me. For once, please tell me what was my fault! Please! Tell me, what did I do for you to disown me just like that? That too, for someone else's mistakes? Why was I discarded like a piece of disgust when it was Khushi on whom Shyam lusted? Why, why was I-I blamed when it was actually your own sister's fault that she couldn't bear the truth? Why?" She screeched, now holding his collars. Their faces were inches apart, as she stared straight into his eyes, wanting and succeeding in drilling holes in his soul, just like he has been doing. In fact, that's what he did now, when he turned blind eye to his own misdeeds, his own wrongdoings towards the innocent and dared to demand her answers. 

That thought brought a weary smile on her face and she jerked him back, distancing him from herself and shook her head, in utter pity, for once having loved him so much. 

"Remember, Akash, when I asked you why you hid the truth of my first marriage from your mother? Remember what you replied then?" Her question made him look down, in intensified self-loath. 

"You said, some matters are better left unspoken, for the welfare for others, right?" She asked for confirmation again, and except for gulping the bile that painfully constricted his throat, Akash couldn't do anything, not even look at her as she answered her own question.

Her smile stretched but it was barely reflecting any joy as she continued. "Then why didn't you consider your own words then, when you found out that my family and I hid the truth of Shyam? Why before blaming us, you didn't even for once think about the situation we all must have gone through? Why Akash, why accusing me became easier than trusting me and since when?"