Chapter Eighteen: The Fear of Becoming Her

Sleep didn’t come.

No matter how tightly Poornima shut her eyes, no matter how still she lay on her bed, her mind refused to rest.

The silence of the room in wasn’t comforting tonight.

It was loud.

Filled with thoughts she couldn’t escape.

She turned to her side, then to her back again, her breath uneven, her chest heavy as if something was pressing down on it.

And then—

The thought came.

Sharp. Terrifying.

“What if…”

Her lips trembled slightly.

“What if he never loves me back?”

The question didn’t just sit in her mind.

It spread.

Deep.

Slow.

Like something she had always feared… but never said out loud.

Her fingers tightened around the bedsheet as her eyes filled again.

Because suddenly—

It wasn’t just about Veeresh anymore.

It was about her life.

Her fate.

Her story.

“What if…” she whispered again, her voice breaking softly,

“…my life becomes the same as hers?”

Her mother.

A woman who had loved a man who never chose her.
Never respected her.
Never gave her a place.

A woman who had hoped…

And waited…

And stayed…

Only to be left with nothing but pain.

Poornima’s chest tightened painfully.

“I don’t want that…” she said, her voice trembling as tears slipped down her temples into her hair.

“I can’t live like that…”

Her hands moved to her face, covering it as if she could hide from the thought itself.

“I can’t love someone who doesn’t love me…”

But even as she said it—

Her heart knew the truth.

She already was.

Or at least…

She was standing at the edge of it.

And that scared her more than anything else.

Because love, for her, had never been safe.

It had never been soft.

It had never been something that protected her.

It had always been something that hurt.

Something that took.

Something that left her questioning her worth.

Her hands dropped slowly as she stared blankly at the ceiling, her tears continuing silently.

“I don’t want to beg for love…” she whispered.

Her voice was raw now.

Bare.

“I don’t want to wait for someone to choose me…”

Her breath hitched.

“I don’t want to feel like I’m not enough again.”

Each word came from somewhere deep.

Somewhere she had buried for years.

Because all her life—

She had been the second choice.
The hidden truth.
The one no one openly claimed.

And now—

She was about to step into a marriage where love wasn’t even promised.

Her fingers slowly curled around the ring again, her gaze falling on it through blurred vision.

“He said he won’t leave…”

A tear slipped down.

“But what if he stays… and still doesn’t love me?”

That thought—

It shattered something inside her.

Because staying without love…

Was worse than leaving.

Her body curled slightly into itself, as if trying to protect her heart from a future that hadn’t even happened yet.

“I just want to be loved…” she whispered, her voice barely holding together.

Not desired.
Not accepted out of duty.

Loved.

The kind of love she had written about.
The kind she had dreamed about in quiet nights.

The kind where she didn’t have to question her place.

The kind where she wasn’t compared.
Wasn’t hidden.
Wasn’t tolerated.

Just… chosen.

Her breathing grew uneven as her tears came faster now.

“I don’t mind his flaws…” she admitted softly.

“I don’t mind his anger… his habits… his past…”

A pause.

Her lips trembled.

“But I need him to be mine.”

Completely.

Not shared.
Not divided.

Not uncertain.

Her eyes shut tightly as if she could force the pain away.

“I can’t go through what my mother went through…”

Her voice cracked completely now.

“I won’t survive it…”

The confession hung in the air.

Fragile.

Honest.

Because beneath all her strength…

Beneath her independence, her success, her composure—

Poornima Singh Mewar was just a girl who had never been loved properly.

And now…

She stood at the edge of giving her heart to someone who didn’t even promise to catch it.

Her tears slowed eventually, exhaustion taking over where strength failed.

Her body stilled, her breathing uneven but quieter now.

And as her eyes finally began to close—

One thought lingered, soft and aching—

“If I fall…

Please don’t let me fall alone.”