Chapter 3 - The Cruelest Performance
Maya began with small distances.
She stopped asking when Arjun would be home. She declined dinner invitations. She moved her work to the spare bedroom and claimed she needed quiet.
When he tried to touch her, she turned away.
At first, Arjun blamed the pressure of her job.
Then he blamed himself.
He began leaving meetings early. He sent flowers to her office. He planned a weekend at the coastal town where they had spent their honeymoon.
Maya rejected every attempt.
“I don’t want another weekend designed by your assistant,” she said.
“I designed it.”
“Then perhaps you should have designed time for me during the last three years.”
The accusation was not entirely false, which made it more effective.
Arjun stared at her. “I know I’ve been absent. I’m trying to change that.”
“It’s too late.”
During the following weeks, Maya attended medical appointments alone. She scheduled treatment sessions during Arjun’s business hours and hid the medication behind cleaning supplies he never touched.
Her colleague Elena covered for her whenever she was too weak to work.
At home, Maya became colder.
She removed their wedding photograph from the hallway. She stopped wearing her ring. She told Arjun she had become someone different.
Finally, she placed divorce papers on the dining table.
Arjun did not sit down.
“No.”
“Arjun, read them.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
The sentence left a silence so deep Maya could hear the kitchen clock.
Arjun studied her as if searching for the woman he knew beneath her expression.
“Look at me and say it again.”
Maya forced herself to meet his eyes.
“I don’t love you.”
He waited.
For one terrible moment, she thought he had seen through her.
Then his face hardened.
“If you truly believe that, I won’t trap you here.”
He signed the papers two weeks later.
On the morning Maya left, she stood outside their bedroom while Arjun pretended to sleep.
May you like
She wanted to run back to him.
Instead, she placed her wedding ring inside the blue notebook and closed the door.
