**Disclaimer, read this chapter at your own discretion**
___
And yet Coraline was still grateful for that one day above all else. Reassured that bitterness can still feel like sweetness if you pry at it repeatedly.
Armaan knocked on the door.
He had been knocking for a while but Coraline had submerged her head further into the water, muting her surroundings.
It was as if she wasn't gaining awareness after reminiscing.
'I wonder what Leilani would say," she softly chuckled, letting the water invade her throat and keep her eyes shut. She slammed her knees together making water slip out from the tub.
'I wonder what Mom would say."
No one to give her blessings, dismissing glares or gleeful words.
Somehow no matter what Coraline did, she was always reminded of her existential lonesomeness. But that was fine, or at least it had to be.
Who will care for her when her own husband abandons her?
It's inevitable, that a man's love only stretches out for so long.
Their obsession with a woman is the same as prey and predator. A temporary fascination sufficed the moment their teeth were sunk in and bellies full.
And the remains of the prey are left for the dead.
To rot on her own.
"Coraline!"
This time Armaan's harsh beckoning call had reached to her.
'Men are liars, deviating in their intention. It's exactly what Armaan had done to her now. Does he even know his father?'
Presumably, it'd be one more thing they had in common.
"Stupid girl," she murmured under her breath.
She took deep breaths before rising from the draining water, she had no guardians. No one to report to.
Vivianne was a close friend of hers but it wasn't like this title allowed her to dictate her life any more than she could with Vivianne's.
Coraline is the one who has to weigh out the pros and cons for the benefit of herself.
She stepped closer to the door, 'What does it matter to anyone, what I do?"
Who'd care if Coraline became prey or predator?
Wouldn't this mean she was in control of what role she played in biology?
Havanna and Vivianne will be the same women to have seven kids, unlike her who'd have none. She willed it to keep that number a zero, no matter what it meant. No matter what she had to say or accept.
Impusively Coraline turned the doorknob all the way with no hesitation, allowing Armaan to have an entrance.
The moment she watched his eyes feast off of what they saw, she had already regretted her actions. Already wanting to close the door and pretend she had never opened it in the first place.
The dress she had picked out had landed in his hands, and like they first got into his grip—it had now fallen. A worried anxiousness had now outweighed her excitement, the fierceness she had once had.
He approached her, his eyes looked like he had been injected with adrenaline, no sense of clearness in his consciousness. Armaan pushed further, reaching closer to her.
No words escaped from Coraline's throat, no remarks or screams, 'Did I want this?'
What was she trying to prove?
To test Armaan.
Was he like the others, did he care how I felt—or asked?
He did no such thing and continued his hunt.
He slammed her into the floor beneath them, keeping her in place and in benefit of him. She watched as he monopolized her, uncaring of her scared hiccups.
Bruises replaced his once kisses.
He thrashed her as he moved, forcing her to keep to his pace and pushing her face into the floor as he persisted.
Coraline shook as she began to feel coldness overtake warmth, deep scratches coveted her arms and her skin was filled with redness.
Barely even human.
Only nearing the end did her emotions return to her alongside waves of pain from all throughout her body. Flashes of what happened next are all she had to a memory of that day.
Armaan had pushed himself off of her, fixing the bath water yet again and grabbing a towel to wipe away the blood off from his 'fiancée.'
A numbness had wrapped itself in Coraline's expression as she stayed to herself.
As she watched Armaan attempt to undo his doings, her mind reeled back to the little girl listening to Havanna who screamed her head off like a maniac about babies.
'Was this what it was like to be a woman?' The image she had spent most of her life running away from?
Demanding those who thought otherwise about her to piss off, had she undermined everything she stood for with this one act?
'How fast things change,' she thought.
But like anything, it takes two to become one. The initiation was on her behalf but she couldn't bring herself to fight the urge in her to simply run to the tallest building and test her limits with gravity.
Where was the prince she had subconsciously sought for?
She thought it to be Armaan but maybe his kindness was a mask for what he really intended. Or completely the opposite. A man with virtue but no control?
As he worked his way to finishing up, Coraline threw her head back with heaving shoulders, 'When will I meet the one?'
When she started her business she knew that love was never a shoe that fitted her, even on the good days. She thought her standards to be normal but to others, it appeared to reach a place God could graze his hand over.
The water began to drain, and she felt Armaan's touch once again—immune to the damage it had caused her.
"I love you, Coraline."
Her name being sounded out by him caused her chest to wince, pained at the weight it held on her. He always found a way to say the right and wrong things to her at the same time.
He withdrew his hands from her and looked at her expectingly.
Like a priest expecting a prayer in given times of recession she caved, "I love you too."
Had Vivi ever felt this way?
Coraline didn't feel satisfied. She didn't even feel loved like the way she wanted to. She admitted to feeling a drawness to Armaan but maybe that's what she had in common with men. A fantasy of curiosity, with the wish of it being solved.
Armaan lifted her from the wooden floor and began to dress her. Fed her toast and allowed her to slump on him as they both walked to the place, he had mentioned a day earlier.
Soon after he will leave her to her own.
Coraline had made a deal with herself, if Armaan had not asked for an address, she wouldn't give one to him on her own.
All fascination she had towards him had been blown out and further darkened the way she perceived men.
What did it matter? No one, not Armaan or Vivi will take notice of the thoughts in her own mind except Coraline herself.
Identical to what had rushed through Armaan's mind moments earlier.
This was how she'd return the feeling.
She looked over to Armaan and caught him exchanging a look with a revealing woman passing by, flashing flirtatious gestures at him.
Coraline bit down on her lip to fend off any tears making their entry into being her bridesmaids.
'Damn every bastard born a man.'
Hate began to fill the cup she had once dedicated to loving another, hurt mixed in for tanginess and self-pity as the lime.
Unattentive to her own ceremony, she signed off the paper—it recalled to Coraline why she was here.
Never did she come out for love.
She came for refuge.
To utilize what being married would do for her.
It was on herself she tried to find that on her own. But even people in arranged marriages still try to seek a way to love or attempt to before ultimately coming to a conclusion.
Was it wrong for her to do the same?
Armaan rested his hand on her waist.
Perhaps it was.
Coraline gave him a half-assed smile, scrunching her eyes up more than she usually did, 'In sweetness, there is bitterness as well.'
She felt his hand caress at the back of her skull, bringing her in to share a passionate kiss.
Coraline would learn on her wedding day to not find it in herself to indulge in emotions such as the one she had felt to her husband.
They went back home. She arranged any men's clothing she had in her possession to be Armaan's, and wrote crappy letters of her dedicating all her love to her husband solely. And sealed them with a red lipstick kiss.
Vivianne was unable to accompany her seeing her husband off, Mama not making a discreet appearance as she waited for Armaan to depart.
Coraline felt an independence surge into her as Armaan finished murmuring sweet nothingness to her and waving theatrically at her.
Armaan never asked her for an address. Given proof of one of the many empty promises she will come to experience in her new life as a wife.
'Is this what it meant to be married?'
Tears she had fought off began to overwhelm her, making Coraline lost any power she had that was keeping her standing. Older women that were close by assumed she was depressed by seeing off her husband, so they rushed to her side. Sweeping her hair from her face and to the back of her ear.
Hugging her close to their warmth, soothing her with their words of advice on how to continue without a strong man by her side.
Some assumed she had already shared a kid with Armaan and that was the reason for such hard tears streaming down her face.
They cradled Coraline in their arms and massaged at her temples.
In their eyes, they were comforting a now stranded married mother.
When in reality they were hugging a little girl who never got the chance to be held like so by her own mother.