2. Mild Man-child

"Do you want this marriage?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Eyebrows that would be every girl's envy furrowed in confusion at my question. They belonged to Dhruvan, the man I was set to marry who was not so set in his confidence, or so it seemed.

My, the naturally thick eyebrows on this man sure are something.

Is that what testosterone and male ego do to you?

"You heard me," I said, looking across his broad shoulders at the door, keeping an eye for prying eyes or ears. I'm as good as dead if my mother hears me asking him such questions, but I have to do what I have to do.

"As much as I find you attractive and as much as I'd like to marry you, I don't want to bind myself to a loveless man. Speak now," I commanded.

He was looking everywhere except at me, typically dark brown eyes fishing for answers in the Jasmines of my backyard. It took him three full seconds to open his mouth beginning with a deep breath. That gesture exposed a part of his neck where I saw a red nick shyly hiding from the world. Someone had problems shaving this morning. Must've been the anxiety.

"Where did that question come from? I am standing right here before you. That must be message enough, should it not?"

"It should not. Never. I don't want to leave unsaid things unsaid and live a life of regret later."

The heavy silk saree and the prickly jewelry fueled my pre-existing irritation with this man. The stopping of the rain upset me even more. What was I expecting, and what did I get?

This is so much like Amazon's 'what you bought' and 'what you got' meme.

"What about your mother?" He asked without batting a lash. He wasn't smirking though. He was acknowledging. Serious. That stung.

He knows.

"And what about yours?" Right back at you sir.

I found myself tapping my feet in annoyance. My anklets made a soothing jingle every time my foot touched the ground. Why don't I wear them more than I like to?

"Ma will figure something out," he bent and picked a fallen jasmine flower, never making eye contact with me. Avoidant much?

He nodded at the ground. A sign of self-conclusion. "She always does."

'Except for that cancer,' I thought.

It was as if he was telling himself that, and I don't think it was about the marriage.

I took two heavy yet careful steps toward him. Close, but not close enough. I had to pull this posture to gauge the truth out of him. At least attempt to.

"Will you take care of me after we're married? If we get married?"

His eyebrows dived deeper on his forehead, almost like two waves gently crashing. "I think you were present during the discussion of a prenup and asset distribution to the bride's family earlier."

Another Finance bro. What next, is he going to make my ears bleed with trivia about cryptocurrency?

Even a squirrel at a close distance heard my heavy sigh. "That's not the kind of care I was talking about. That belongs to your family. What do you have that you can give me? What have you earned and owned by yourself that you can give me without expecting anything in return?"

I didn't say it out loud, but I was pleading for a compassionate answer in my mind.

"...my car and properties?" he asked without a second thought.

I was so close to whacking his head. "No! That's not—" But decided against it.

"Okay, hear me out well this time. Are you emotionally available? Emotionally intelligent?" His mouth was so agape, I thought he'd shoot balls at my face any second, but I still continued.

"That's the kind of care I'm talking about. Will you take care of me like a proper, adoring husband? Will you respect me the way I deserve it? Will you love me?"

The petrichor now emanating from the soil would have soothed my nerves if not for this man ruining a perfect monsoon evening for me.

"I don't know."

Son of a—

"You don't know?" I asked in utter disbelief.

He brought his arms around himself like it was cold here. "I honestly don't know."

The way he held himself for comfort made me a little sad. He was giving away too much without saying anything about it, or was it my overthinking reading everything in nothing?

"Then what do you know?" I asked with a softer tone.

"I know not to make my mother depart without watching any of her sons get happily married."

Oh my God. Is this what men are like these days?

"Is it just about your mother? What am I then?" I asked. His words fanned the dying anger in my soul with the wind of the gods.

I made sure to say every next syllable dripped in enough venom to let him know how much of an idiot he was. "A convenience with a hole to consummate and shove babies out before your mother breathes her last?"

And I knew it worked when I saw his face twist with guilt. "That's not what I meant."

"Then how else did you mean it, Dhruvan Prakash?"

"I wouldn't want to make you sad either."

Where is he even going with this?

"But would you make me happy? Do you even want this marriage?" Never before had my patience been bested by rage this way.

His look then said it all. As if all the unfairness of the world and his life had prepared him for his doom in this situation, and it made my blood boil all the more.

"I have never once been asked what I wanted. Never," he spoke slowly, clearly giving thought to each word. "All I was taught was to obey because my brother never did and my parents didn't want me repeating history. I don't know what I want. I've never been taught how to want and decide anything, and I don't know what a dazzling woman like you is doing with me here when it's evident you deserve better. The very best. I'm afraid I'll never meet you wherever you are, up there because I don't know how to as much as I ache to," He finished, holding his hand up in the air above his head, marking an imaginary line.

"You don't teach it," I remarked.

"You don't teach what?"

"Wanting. You don't teach anyone wanting anything. When you want something, you just want it. When you don't, you don't."

"Then what do you do?"

"You just act on your instinct. Your desire."

It was as if a switch turned on. This time, he stepped closer to me. Close enough for one to observe his now dilated pupils. The setting sun did its justice making his dull, brown eyes look like gold ore.

"Then maybe you could teach me," He concluded.

"I am not your teacher. I'd have been a professor if I wanted to spend the rest of my life teaching children. I'm looking for a man of sound mind to marry who can love and spoil me. You may leave if you're not that man...or a man at all. I don't even care if you tell my mom you refused this alliance because I wasn't good enough, but get out of my sight if you're going to waste my time."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. Please don't be angry. I understand your requirements and it's my own fault that I couldn't grasp them. I am not good with words, but I will learn how to take care of you; of things. Give me a chance."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because you are the first person ever to tell me to act on my instincts. And call it what you want, but my instincts tell me not to let off this opportunity to learn more about you and myself in the process. Please allow me a chance to prove myself worthy of you."

Shit. He's good with his words if he tries hard enough. "Fine. I will not teach you anything, nor will I tell you anything. Never expect that from me, but I'm out the second you falter."

He nodded with a huge sigh of relief and the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. "Then do I tell my mother I am ready to get engaged?"

Men never learn, do they, dear reader?

"Engaged to your mother?" I asked.

"No! You!" He exclaimed with such passion and disgust at the same time, it would look like a confession to a third person.

I placed my hands on my hips, unable to bear my own weight because damn this man was making me tired. "Then why would you ask her?" It's so simple. Why doesn't he get it?!

"That because- oh! Of course, of course, my apologies. May I please know if you're willing to get engaged to me?" He asked.

"No," came out my answer.

"But you said-"

Oh hell no.

"I agreed to give you a chance. An engagement is not a chance."

"Right. Umm...what do I tell her then?" He was eagerly waiting for an answer from me. An answer he would never get.

I shrugged before I left to join the others inside. "Your cross to bear."