Chapter 2: The Weight She Carried

The soft hum of machines and the distant chatter of engineers echoed through the corridors of Bharat Electronics Limited, but Poornima moved through them like a shadow—present, focused, yet hollow.

Clad in a neatly pressed kurta and her ID swaying gently around her neck, she sat at her desk, mechanically typing up a report. Her eyes, however, weren’t on the screen.

They stared at the wedding photo tucked into the drawer. One she never displayed.

She opened it sometimes… just to remind herself it wasn’t a dream. That she had indeed married Veeresh Suryavanshi. That she was someone’s wife again—even if only on paper.

---

Flashback – 3 years ago

The wedding mandap was lit with soft golden lights, the air filled with the sacred scent of jasmine and camphor. But inside Poornima, there was no celebration. Only pain and fear.

Because this was not her first marriage.

At just twenty-three, she had once stood before the fire with another man—Arjun, her first husband. A kind soul, someone she had barely known but learned to care for.

He was quiet, gentle, and never forced her to love him. He waited… and in the fourth month of their marriage, when she finally whispered “I think I’m falling for you,”

…he died in a car accident the next morning.

Just like that, her world shattered.

What followed was worse—the blame. Whispers from his relatives, looks from neighbors, taunts behind closed doors:

"She’s cursed."

"Four months and he’s dead. What did she do?"

"It was her fate that killed him."

Poornima bore it all. Her parents, helpless and broken, watched her spiral into silence.

---

One year later, after therapy and a soul-healing trip to Himachal, where the quiet mountains listened when no one else did, she returned. Not healed. But breathing.

That’s when her father arranged a marriage with Veeresh—the respected son of the Suryavanshis.

She had said yes.

Not because she was ready.

But because maybe he, too, was hurting.

She had heard whispers:

“He lost someone too.”

“It’s just an arrangement. He won’t expect love.”

---

But that wedding night… she had waited in their decorated room. Dressed in a red silk saree, her hands trembling, heart pounding.

He walked in… looked at her once… and walked out.

Without a word.

Not even a glance of empathy.

He left her alone.

And that night, she cried like she hadn’t even after Arjun’s death.

---

Present Day – Bharat Electronics Office

“Poornima ma’am,” someone called softly.

She blinked, shaken from her memory.

“Meeting at 3 p.m. with the new partner company’s CEO.”

She nodded, voice steady. “I’ll be there.”

But as the staff member left, her heart dropped.

A whisper in the hallway said the name of the company:

Suryavanshi Enterprises.

And she knew.

After two years of silence, she would come face to face with the man who married her and left her, the man who never once asked how she was, the man who still wore the pain of another woman…

While she was still healing from two broken marriages.