Page 91 of The Secret Bride
Telling Viya the truth.
I could not put it off any longer. Papa was right. She deserved to know everything. About the prophecy. About the arrangement. About why I had really married her. And then I would have to pray that she loved me enough to forgive me.
The house was quiet when I entered. Mamta informed me that Dadi and Papa were resting in their rooms. And Viya had not returned from the office yet.
I went upstairs to our bedroom and paced restlessly. I had rehearsed what I would say a hundred times in my head, but none of it sounded right. How do you tell someone that your entire relationship started as a lie?
My phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts.
Vinay uncle. Viya's uncle.
That was strange. He had never called me before.
I answered immediately.
"Hello?"
The voice that came through was panicked, shaking, barely coherent.
"Armaan, it is Vinay. Viya... there has been an accident. I am taking her to the hospital right now. City Hospital. Please come quickly."
The phone slipped from my suddenly numb fingers. For a moment, I could not move. Could not think. Could not process what I had just heard.
Accident.
Viya.
Hospital.
Then everything snapped into sharp, terrible focus.
I grabbed my car keys and ran. Down the stairs, through the foyer, past the living room where Dadi was sitting with her evening tea.
"Armaan? What is wrong?"
"Viya had an accident," I managed to say without stopping. "City Hospital."
I heard her gasp behind me, heard her calling for Ramesh, but I was already out the door, already running to my car.
The drive to the hospital was a blur of traffic and red lights and my own thundering heartbeat. I drove faster than I should have, weaving between cars, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white.
Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay.
The words repeated in my mind like a prayer, like a mantra, like the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.
I could not lose her. Not now. Not when I had just realized how much she meant to me. Not when I had not even told her the truth yet. Not when we were supposed to have forever.
I screeched into the hospital parking lot and abandoned my car at the entrance, not caring if it was towed, not caring about anything except getting to her.
I ran through the automatic doors into the bright, sterile lobby. The smell of antiseptic and floor cleaner hit me immediately. People in white coats moved purposefully through the corridors. Somewhere, a monitor was beeping steadily.
I spotted Vinay uncle standing in a corridor near the operating theater. His clothes were stained with blood. Viya's blood.
"Where is she?" I demanded, running up to him. "What happened? Is she okay?"
He looked at me with red rimmed eyes, his face aged ten years in the span of an afternoon.
"She is in surgery. The doctors are with her now. They said she has multiple injuries. Head trauma. Broken ribs. Internal bleeding."
