The mirror reflected more than my face tonight.
It reflected everything I wasn't supposed to feel—hope, fear, the silent longing I had locked away in the corners of my heart. My fingers trembled slightly as I adjusted the soft ivory dupatta over my shoulder, its sequined border brushing against the inside of my wrist like a whisper. I wasn't dressed as a doctor tonight. I wasn't even sure I was dressed as a wife.
I was dressed as someone expected to be watched.
The Rathore Medical Gala was one of those events where presence meant power. Where families wore elegance like armor and smiles like strategy. Where alliances were forged over crystal glasses and veiled intentions.
And tonight, I was walking in as Aaryan Rathore's wife.
Not Aleena. Me.
Even now, a part of me couldn't quite believe it.
Three months into this marriage, and it still felt like a suit tailored for someone else's shape. I wore the name, lived in the room, even shared the space he slept in—though calling it "shared" felt generous. We lived on opposite shores of a very silent ocean.
In those first weeks, he would come home late—so late I was already asleep, or pretending to be. He would leave before dawn. I memorized the rhythm of the bedroom door creaking, the rustle of his coat, the soft sigh of him exhaling. Sometimes I'd wake and hear the shower running. The water between us felt warmer than the silence ever did.
He never touched me.
Never crossed the invisible wall we both maintained.
And yet... tonight, something was different.
I saw it in the way he waited for me downstairs. In the way his eyes rested on mine—not impatient, not dismissive, but something close to... consideration.
"You ready?" he asked, quietly.
I nodded. "Yes."
He offered me his arm.
It took me a moment too long to place my hand on it.
⸻
The gala was held at the Oberoi Grand, transformed into a haven of light and prestige. Chandeliers spilled gold onto polished marble floors. The air carried soft strings of classical violin music. Men in tailored suits. Women in chiffon and silk. The elite of medicine and power, gathered in their most graceful armor.
We hadn't even crossed the main entrance when the glances began.
Rathore's wife.
That must be her.
She's the younger one, isn't she?
I felt the whispers before I heard them. I smiled as one does when they have no weapon but grace.
"She's very...quiet," one of the trustees' wives murmured behind her wine glass as we passed.
Aaryan didn't flinch. His hand on my back didn't move. If anything, he guided me closer into his side. It was the first time he'd ever touched me in public—perhaps the first time since the wedding that he'd held me with something that felt like quiet protection.
My breath caught in my chest.
"Don't listen," he said under his breath, just for me. "They don't matter."
I looked up at him, startled.
He was looking ahead—but his words, they had been for me alone.
⸻
We made our way through the sea of conversations. Aaryan greeted board members, key investors, and visiting medical faculty with effortless precision. Every time someone looked at me with curiosity, he introduced me not just as "Inaaya"—but as "Dr. Inaaya Mirza. Intern in the Trauma Wing."
I wasn't just his wife. He made sure they knew I was a doctor.
For the first time since this marriage began, I felt...seen.
"Dr. Rathore," an older gentleman with a trimmed white beard and an accent I couldn't place, smiled warmly. "And this must be the wife I've heard so much about."
I prepared for the usual pleasantries, the veiled comparisons to Aleena, the awkward reminders that she had once stood beside him at a gala like this.
But before I could speak, Aleena appeared.
⸻
She looked breathtaking, of course. A deep emerald gown that matched her sharp eyes. Her smile was perfect—measured, glossy. But her eyes gave her away.
There was stiffness in them when they landed on me.
"Inaaya," she said with the kind of smile that left no warmth. "You look...sweet."
I returned the smile with my own armor of politeness. "Thank you."
Shabana was behind her, dressed in silk and pride.
"Dr. Rathore," she greeted Aaryan smoothly, as if she hadn't tried to keep her real daughter by his side. "It's good to see you. Inaaya, fix your dupatta—it's slipping."
It wasn't.
But I nodded anyway and adjusted it slightly.
Aaryan glanced at me. "She's perfect," he said.
The words were soft, nearly lost in the room's din.
But I heard them.
So did Shabana. Her eyes cooled further, just a fraction.
Aleena's jaw tightened.
⸻
Later in the evening, I stood by the refreshment table alone for a moment, needing space. The chandelier above cast long shadows across the velvet floor. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned, expecting Aleena.
It was Aryav.
"Inaaya," he greeted me with an easy smile. "You look uncomfortable."
I laughed, quietly. "Is it that obvious?"
"I grew up watching these games. They're vicious, but polite. You're doing well."
Aryav Rathore, Aaryan's younger brother. In a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway, hair falling on this forehead, he looked every bit the golden boy of the Rathore family, with a smile that could disarm a battlefield and laughter that didn't quite reach his eyes. There was something deceptively easy about him, the way he leaned into conversations, the way people gravitated toward his casual charm. But Inaaya noticed the hollowness tucked beneath his grin—the kind that only someone who had studied grief up close could recognize. He looked lighter than Aaryan, freer, but there was a quiet density in the way his gaze lingered just a second too long, like he was always half-present and half-somewhere else. A 29 year old , trauma resident , in Mumbai, living alone, healing strangers while quietly unraveling himself—he carried his scars like silk, hidden, soft, but impossible not to feel if you brushed too close.
We spoke briefly—about the hospital, about how chaotic the Trauma Wing had been lately. He mentioned a case—an older man with a history of epilepsy who'd collapsed after a mysterious drug interaction.
"File's strange," he said. "The meds he was on—no doctor's signature matched. I flagged it. It's being looked into."
I stored the detail somewhere in my mind.
Another subtle ripple beneath the surface of Rathore General.
⸻
Aaryan appeared beside me again just as the chairman took the stage to begin his speech.
"Come," he said, placing his hand on the small of my back again. "Let's be seen together."
We stood in the front as donors were thanked and doctors applauded. I caught glimpses of Shabana watching me, her smile fixed and hollow.
But it was when Aaryan leaned down and whispered—
"I'm glad you're here tonight"—that something shifted in me.
Not everything. But something.
⸻
On the drive home, I leaned my head against the window, watching city lights smear across the glass. Aaryan broke the silence.
"You were graceful tonight."
"Thank you."
"I know these events aren't easy. Especially...with your family."
I turned to him, surprised. "You noticed?"
He let out a breath. "I notice more than you think."
I hesitated, then said quietly, "It's...lonely here, sometimes."
He was silent for a beat.
Then, softly: "It doesn't have to be."
I looked at him.
He didn't look away.
⸻
That night, in our shared room, he came home before me.
He hadn't done that in weeks.
I stepped in to find a cup of warm chamomile on my side table. No note. No explanation.
But it was there.
And for the first time in months, the silence between us didn't feel cold.
It felt like a beginning.