"I know I just married you to save you."

Krishav's voice was firm, but there was something tired in it too, as if even he was struggling to believe what had just happened.

I stood in the hospital corridor, staring at him with tear-filled eyes, my whole body still trembling from everything that had happened since morning. My head felt heavy. My chest felt tight. I had lost Siddharth only a little while ago, and now this man stood in front of me saying he had married me to save me.

To save me.

"All those people who had gathered there were talking about you," Krishav continued, looking straight at me. "They were calling you bad luck. I am Siddharth's best friend. I know him. He would have died before he let anyone insult you like that. He loved you more than his own life. At least his death should not become the reason for your humiliation."

His words struck me, but they did not calm me.

They only made the anger inside me rise faster.

The hospital corridor felt unusually cold. The white lights above our heads were too harsh, too bright. Nurses were moving in and out, wheelchairs passed from time to time, and somewhere far away, a child was crying. Life was moving normally for everyone else, but mine had already stopped.

I looked at Krishav as if I could not believe he was real.

He had really done it.

He had really filled my hairline with vermilion in the middle of all that chaos.

He had really stood there and declared me his wife.

"I don't even want to marry my best friend's girlfriend," he said after a pause, his voice lower this time, "but I have my own reasons..."

"I don't care about your reasons," I cut him off instantly. My voice was shaking, but it was filled with anger. "I don't care what your reasons are. I have no reason to marry you."

For one second, no one said anything.

Akriti stood beside me, silent, her own face pale and tired. Her eyes were red from crying, but she was still trying to stay calm for me. I knew she was hurting too. Siddharth was not only my love, he was also one of our closest friends. The three of us had been together for years. We had laughed together, fought together, celebrated together.

And now one of us was gone.

"Please try to understand," Krishav said, and for the first time I noticed that his own voice was not as steady as he was trying to make it sound. "I am not asking you to become my real wife. At least pretend to be my wife..."

"Why?" I almost shouted. "Why would I do that?"

"For Siddharth," he said, his voice turning firm again. "I will explain everything to you."

I laughed bitterly, though there was no real humor in it. My throat was burning and my eyes still felt swollen from crying.

"For Siddharth?" I repeated. "You don't get to use his name to justify this."

"Kavya..." Akriti stepped closer to me and held my arm gently. "I think he is right."

I turned to her so fast that she almost let go of me.

"You think he is right?" I asked in disbelief. "Akriti, are you even listening to what he is saying?"

"I am," she said softly, but her tone stayed firm. "And I am saying this because I know how people are. If you live alone after this, society will make your life miserable. They will insult you, blame you, call you bad luck, and never let you live in peace. And your grandmother..." She stopped for a second, as if even saying that word was exhausting. "Your grandmother will never stop hurting you. She will never let you forget today. At least he is not asking you to truly accept him. He is only asking you to pretend."

I stared at her in shock.

I understood what she meant. I did.

But understanding it did not make me accept it.

My head was still spinning from grief. I still remembered Siddharth collapsing in front of me. I still remembered holding his cold hand in the ICU. I still remembered the doctor saying they could not save him. And now, before I could even properly process his death, I was supposed to think about pretending to be someone else's wife?

It felt cruel.

It felt impossible.

Before I could answer Akriti, a loud voice suddenly echoed from the other side of the corridor.

"Krishav Birla just got married! Do you think this is real or not?"

All three of us turned in that direction.

Several reporters had gathered near the entrance of the hospital corridor. Cameras were pointed toward us. Microphones were raised. One man was speaking loudly while another person recorded everything. Some people standing nearby were watching the whole thing with open curiosity, whispering among themselves. A few hospital staff members looked uncomfortable, but no one was stopping them.

For a second, I was too stunned to react.

"What is going on?" Akriti said, looking at me in confusion.

I was equally confused.

Krishav pressed his lips together and looked deeply frustrated. "Actually, I am a businessman," he said. "A well-known one. So this is common for me. Someone standing there must have recorded a video, and it probably went viral."

His words took a moment to sink in.

A businessman.

Famous.

That explained the cameras. That explained why the reporters had reached so quickly. Someone must have made a video when all that chaos was happening earlier, and now they were here to turn tragedy into news.

And it was true. A man standing at the end of the corridor was still holding up his phone, clearly the same kind of person who would record instead of helping.

I felt disgusted.

"I request all of you to leave," Krishav said loudly, stepping forward. His voice was controlled, but the frustration in it was visible. "This is my personal space right now, and I hope you understand that I will not be able to deal with any of this."

"Sir, did you actually get married?" one reporter asked immediately.

"Where is your wife?" another shouted.

"Why did you marry in the hospital?" another one asked. "Was it because of a family emergency?"

"Were you forced into this marriage?" someone else called out.

Questions kept coming one after another, not giving anyone time to breathe.

"Please understand," Krishav said again, this time his voice slightly raised, "I will not be able to answer all your questions right now."

But they did not stop.

The cameras remained fixed on him.

On us.

On me.

Suddenly, all the anger inside me turned toward him.

"Now you are making a joke of Siddharth's death," I said, my voice trembling with rage. "You talk so much about being his best friend. Then how did all these people come to know about our wedding?"

Krishav turned to me immediately. "It's not like that. Please understand. I don't know how they found out."

"I don't want to understand," I said, glaring at him. "First all this happens, and now this whole thing has become public? Siddharth is dead, and these people are talking about marriage in a hospital!"

My words broke at the end.

Even saying the word dead  for Siddharth felt unbearable.

For one moment, none of us spoke.

Then the doctor's voice interrupted us.

"All the formalities are over," he said in a professional tone. "You can take the body of the patient."

The word body cut through me like a blade.

Not Siddharth.

Body.

The doctor had said it so normally, so practically, as if he were only finishing his duty. Maybe for him it was routine. Maybe for him this was just another case. But for me, that one word turned everything even more real.

"We need to do the rituals of Siddharth," Krishav said quietly.

The moment he said his name after the doctor had said body, my throat went dry.

For a few seconds I could not even breathe properly.

A few minutes ago, he had been my groom.

Now they were talking about his body and rituals.

Everything felt unreal.

The rest of the time passed like a blur.

I do not remember every single detail clearly. I only remember pieces.

I remember people moving around quickly. I remember hearing low voices, the sound of crying, the smell of incense mixed strangely with hospital air. I remember someone handing me water, but I did not drink it. I remember standing still while everything around me moved.

At some point, I changed out of my bridal clothes.

The green saree that had felt so beautiful in the morning now felt unbearable.

The jewellery was removed. The makeup was wiped away. My bangles came off one by one. Every small thing that had once made me look like a bride was removed as if it had never belonged to me in the first place.

When I finally looked at myself again, I was wearing a simple white kurti.

A white kurti.

That alone felt enough to break me again.

I had gone from bride to mourning white on the same day.

We completed all the rituals.

I stayed quiet through most of it because I did not have the strength to do anything else. My tears had not stopped fully, but they no longer came like a storm. They came silently now, like something inside me had accepted that there was no use fighting reality anymore.

By the time evening came, everyone looked exhausted.

Later, after most of the people had left and the formalities were over, I stood in Akriti's hotel room. The room was neat, quiet, and softly lit, but none of that comfort reached me. My mind was still in the hospital. My heart was still in that ICU room. My soul still felt stuck in the moment Siddharth had collapsed in front of me.

Krishav had gone to complete some of the remaining rituals and other formalities.

It was only me and Akriti in the room.

I looked at her and whispered, "It was the worst day of my life."

My voice sounded empty.

Akriti looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. Her own eyes looked tired and swollen. "Yes," she said softly. "The worst day of all our lives... including Krishav's."

I frowned immediately.

"I won't see Siddharth again," I said, ignoring her last words. "But his memories will always stay with me."

The moment I said that, fresh tears gathered in my eyes again.

I remembered his smile at the mandap.

I remembered how he had wiped my tears.

I remembered the way he had looked at me like I was the only person in the world.

And now all of that had become memory.

"Yes," Akriti said. "It will be hard for Krishav too. Take care of him."

I turned to her, shocked.

"What are you saying?" I asked. "He is no one to me. I do not even need him. I am not going to stay with him."

My voice was not just shocked, it was angry now.

Akriti looked at me with concern. "I know it is your decision, and I know I should not interfere, but.."

"But what, Akriti?" I cut her off. "What are you trying to say?"

She hesitated before replying.

"But he is a public figure, and now everyone knows he is married. It will create a problem for him if you refuse all this. Won't that create a problem for him?"

The moment she said that, something inside me stiffened.

Something felt wrong.

It was not just concern anymore. It felt like she was trying to convince me of something too strongly.

"Are you sure you are my best friend?" I asked her, my voice full of hurt and anger. "And one more thing, I do not care whether he is a public figure or not. He can do whatever he wants. He is not my husband."

"Kavya..." Akriti said softly.

"No," I said immediately. "I am serious. He is not my husband."

She took a deep breath.

"If I ask you to do it for me, will you?" she asked.

I stared at her.

"No," I said firmly. "That's it. No."

For a few seconds, there was silence between us.

Then Akriti looked at me carefully and said, "Okay... but what if I tell you Siddharth wanted this to happen?"

I felt my whole body go still.

For one second, I genuinely thought I had heard her wrong.

"What?" I asked, my voice low and filled with disbelief.

"Yes," she said, but there was hesitation in her voice now. "You can consider this his last wish."

"No," I said immediately. "You are lying. He would never say something like that. He loved me."

"Yes, he did," she said quickly. "He really did."

"Then don't say things like this," I said, my voice breaking again. "He would never want me to marry someone else. Never."

Akriti looked away for a second, and that small action made my confusion worse.

She was hiding something.

I could feel it.

There was some truth she knew that I didn't.

But I could not understand what.

"Why are you saying this?" I asked her, now more confused than angry. "What are you trying to prove? What do you know?"

She gave me a tight smile, but instead of comforting me, it only made me feel more disturbed.

Her eyes looked guilty.

Her voice looked careful.

And her words made no sense.

I took a step back from her.

My mind was racing now.

Siddharth loved me.

That much I knew with my whole heart.

Then why would Akriti say something like this?

Why would she ask me to stay with Krishav?

Why would she make it sound as if Siddharth had wanted it?

None of it made sense, and the more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt.

The room suddenly felt too quiet.

Too still.

I looked at Akriti, trying to read her face.

She was my best friend. She had been with me through everything. She knew my life, my pain, my love for Siddharth. She knew how broken I was right now.

And yet, at that moment, I could not understand her at all.

My head was already hurting from crying and from thinking too much. Every nerve in my body felt tired. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted Siddharth back. I wanted this whole day to be erased.

Instead, all I could do was stand there and look at Akriti with confusion and pain.

She slowly came closer and held my shoulders.

"Kavya," she said softly, "not everything is what it looks like right now."

That sentence made my heart beat faster.

"What does that even mean?" I asked.

But she did not answer properly.

She only looked at me with that same strange expression, a mix of pity, sadness, and hesitation.

And somehow that made everything worse.

Because at least anger was simple.

Confusion was not.

I sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, feeling completely drained.

Siddharth was gone.

Krishav had suddenly married me.

The media already knew.

My grandmother had insulted me even on the worst day of my life.

And now Akriti was talking as if there was something more behind all this.

Something I didn't know.

Something I was the last person to understand.

I lowered my head and closed my eyes for a moment.

The day kept replaying in my mind.

Siddharth smiling at me.

His hand holding mine.

The priest calling us for pheras.

His body collapsing.

The rush to the hospital.

The doctor saying they could not save him.

The ICU.

His cold hand.

The #SidYa tattoo.

My grandmother's taunts.

Krishav's sudden decision.

The vermilion.

The cameras.

Everything had happened so fast that my soul had not been able to keep up with it.

And now there was this new confusion too.

I looked up at Akriti again, my eyes tired and swollen.

"I don't understand anything anymore," I whispered.

Akriti's expression softened completely at that.

She knelt in front of me and held my hands. "I know," she said quietly. "I know you don't."

I wanted her to explain.

I wanted her to say something clear.

I wanted at least one part of my life to make sense.

But she still did not tell me more.

And that silence told me only one thing

there was definitely something she was hiding.

Something important.

Something connected to Siddharth.

And for the first time since morning, along with grief and anger, another feeling rose inside me.

Fear.

Not fear of the world.

Not fear of society.

Not even fear of what people would say.

But fear of the truth.

Because whatever Akriti was hinting at, I had a feeling that when I finally learned it, my life would change all over again.

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