The Twisted Truth (A Short Story)

Some crimes can never be hidden...

Some decisions might be too hard to take, but sometimes, there is no other way.

Sometimes, what we perceive is not the truth.

Sometimes, the truth is too twisted to be seen.

She sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf...

She felt trapped. Lonely and desolate. The blood on the knife had dried up but her heart still bled. Thankfully, none of the people in the cafe could see her blood stained knife. She wondered if they would understand her and more importantly, empathise with her. Would anyone ever understand her? She knew that the day could not get any worse. 

How exactly had she ended up like this? Her thoughts kept running in various directions. Would the day turn out to be any different had she not taken that single decision? She wished for the day to go back in reverse and maybe then, things would have turned out differently.

That moment seemed suspended in time.

It seemed unfair, almost cruel, to her. The biggest irony of life was that the most important day of her life turned out to be indeed the one day that she would never forget.

Looking at her blue silk scarf, she went back to the time where it all began...

Flashback.

“Di, you still aren’t ready! I can’t believe you,” said a beautiful girl in her mid-twenties.

“Just give me five more minutes. I am just coming out.” She replied in a muffled voice. She was busy trying to wear that gown. Ugh! Why did gowns have to be so fluffy and difficult to wear?

“Enough with wasting time Di! It’s the biggest day of your life and you are taking way too long to get ready.” Erika almost shouted with frustration writ large in her voice. 

This time, Erika seemed almost persistent for her elder sister to come out and get on with the festivities. Samantha felt the nerves get the better of her and she felt the onset of a headache. Sometimes, her sister could be so tiresome.

“Okay Okay! I am coming out. Just, don’t be shocked... okay?” she muttered before she stepped out of the washroom.

And there she stood, decked up in a beautiful white wedding gown. The gown was a designer wear from a top label that fitted her like a glove. All her curves felt pronounced and on display. Her hour-glass figure that usually felt disguised under the drags that she wore for clothes, looked absolutely devastating and ravishing. She felt like she had stepped out of Vogue magazine. She twirled around in glee and posed for her sister, Erika.

Erika looked absolutely struck by her sister’s beauty. Deep down, Erika always knew that her sister was a beauty, but today, of all the days, her sister looked exquisite. Her hair was dark brown with streaks of blonde colour, tied up neatly in a bun. Her face was like glowing porcelain, with large dazzling chocolate brown eyes framed by curled long lashes and full, kissable cherry lips. She had a straight nose which went well with her high cheekbones. Exceptional was one word that came to her mind as she looked at her sister, Samantha’s demeanour.

 “Di, you look absolutely ravishing. My brother-in-law won’t be able to take his eyes or hands off you.” Erika giggled and teased.

“Stop teasing me. But, is everything going right? I am praying that nothing goes wrong.” She was terrified that something would go wrong.

“Di, don’t worry. Nothing is going wrong. Anyway, Aarav jiju’s mother sent this blue silk scarf for you along with this blue pendent as something new, something blue and something borrowed. Return the scarf to her later.” Erika told her.

“Thank you. And one more thing, please go and check if Aarav is ready for the altar or not. And yes, make sure that he does take his medicine for anxiety. I don’t want him to have a heart-attack.” She told her little sister as she made sure that everything was in place. 

She silently prayed for everything to go down as she had planned...

Flashback Ends.

Why had the happiest day of her life turned out to be the saddest day of her life? The happy girl seemed almost long gone now. Even if she tried, she couldn’t force a smile on her face. Why had ‘something blue, something borrowed’ turned out to be such a disaster? She actually had loved the blue scarf in that moment. But right now, the evidence of a crime was concealed with it. 

She wondered if Aarav’s mother would accept the scarf back knowing it concealed the evidence for the murder of her motherhood...

Flashback.

Something seemed wrong. Despite knowing that she wasn’t supposed to meet her groom before the nuptials, she made her way towards his room. She had to see her man before the wedding. She just had to make sure that he was okay. She didn’t feel right. Not at all right.

When she opened the door of his room with a smile expecting to see her handsome groom, what she saw, made her gasp into disbelief. The scene before her eyes was too unreal for words. Her love of the life was lying in a pool of blood and her sister was covered in his blood. 

Without a word, she closed the door and with tears streaming down her face, she sat down near her fiancée’s dead body. Erika was shivering in fear, pain and agony while she felt too numb to speak anything. Her Aarav was dead. The love of her life was gone. Forever.

With short breaths and a pain-stricken voice, she asked, “Why?”

Erika broke into sobs and said, “I am so sorry Di. I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear I didn’t. It just happened by accident.”

Controlling her own emotions, she held her sister by her shoulders and asked, “Why did you have to kill him? What did he ever do to you? What did I ever do to you? How could you do this to me?”

Erika broke down sobbing and replied, “Di, I didn’t mean to kill him. It happened by accident. I was just trying to...”

Erika stopped in the middle of her sentence and looking at her face, she immediately asked, “What were you trying to do? Tell me the truth. Now! I deserve to know why my own sister killed my fiancée on my wedding day.”

Erika tearfully replied, “Di, I am so sorry. I just came to give him his medicine. I made sure that he drank it, like you said. After that, I was about to leave the room when Jiju... Aarav grabbed me by my shoulders and told me that he loves me. I told him that he is kidding and the joke is pathetic but his advances grew. I told him to let me go but he told me that he had got my message claiming that I crave for him to make me his. I knew he was lying because my phone is stolen. He was trying to take advantage of me Di. I tried shoving him off but he forced himself upon me. He bit me on my lips and tried to... molest me. He tore away pieces of my dress. My back was nailed against the wall, trying to fight for myself. To save myself, I reached for the knife. I had only intended to threaten him. But in the ensuing struggle, I ended up killing him. God! I am so sorry Di. I didn’t mean anything like this to happen.”

Erika stood up and showed the marks on her body. Her hands were bruised and her lips were bitten. Erika was telling the truth. As much as she didn’t want to believe the truth, it was all infront of her. Her fiancée had tried to molest her sister. The act was one of self defence. She felt torn between her love for her sister and the love for her fiancée.

She was a little too late for choices... Aarav was already dead.

She hugged her sister and said, “Don’t be sorry. I am sorry that I wasn’t there to save you. I am sorry that I could not recognise the guy I was planning to marry. But now, we have to do something. We cannot let anyone see you like this.”

With a sob, Erika said, “How can you ever forgive me? And we don’t have to do anything. I would turn myself in and go to jail.”

She immediately said, “Don’t be stupid. I am not letting you go to jail. Yes, I loved him and I cannot forgive you right now, but you are my sister. We are together in this.”

Erika cried, “Di, I love you so much. I am so sorry.”

Planning quickly, she erased all the blood marks from the floor. She asked Erika to change her dress to avoid doubts. Wiping off the blood from the floor killed her. Digging out the dagger from his body, she wrapped it in the blue silk scarf and kept it in her handbag. She asked Erika to give him poison so that if his body is ever found, the police would think that the poison killed him instead of the knife. She even threw away the medicine to remove all traces of Erika’s existence from the room. She prayed she could remove the existence of this day from her life. With a bleeding heart, she carried out all tasks to save her sister.

After everything was done, Samantha said, “Don’t worry. Everything would be alright. No matter what, I am always there for you. I love you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With precision and finesse, together, they hid the body and told everyone that the groom had ditched Samantha at the altar. Everyone had gone into panic mode and sympathised with her. Especially Aarav’s mother, who claimed to disown her own son for ditching his bride. Everyone felt really sad for her and with an excuse of needing to be left alone; Samantha took the body of Aarav in her car and threw him in a large water body. 

There. 

Now he would never be found and her sister would never be evicted.

Flashback Ends.

She watched people going by and realised how sudden life can turn around. She had gone from happy to heart-broken in a single day. Just hours ago, she was waiting for the biggest day in her life. Well, it did turn out to be the biggest day of her life but not the way she wanted. 

Looking at the knife, she wondered why she hadn’t thrown that away too. But in the hindsight, she knew she could never throw away the knife. It had cut out her heart along with Aarav’s. Like the bleeding knife, her heart bled with pain. What would she not give to forget the traumatic incident and end the ceaseless pain in her chest!

She wished she could share her story with someone. But would anyone understand her? Would they get why she did what she did? Would they sympathise with her? But she knew. They wouldn’t. So, this was her secret to keep. After all, everyone had some skeletons in their closet. 

Some decisions might be too hard to take, but sometimes, there is no other way. 

Sometimes, we have to save our family members before we could save ourselves. She would save her sister at any cost even if it included hiding things from her.

There was no way that she would tell her sister that even before Erika had killed Aarav, Samantha had already poisoned his medicine. Samantha was no fool. She had known about her fiancée’s obsession with her sister all along. She had poisoned it after he messaged her that he was having second thoughts about their wedding. He had been planning to ditch her on their wedding day! Her, the one person who always stood by his side and loved him endlessly! So, she had made sure that his own life ditched him.

And there was no proof connecting her to her crime anymore. She had planned it perfectly. His phone was already destroyed which contained his messages to Erika in which he had claimed to love her and she had posed as Erika and encouraged him to try and win her love by some physical proximity. Even if the body was found, the poison found in his body would be easily explained by Erika as an attempt to hide her crime.

She should be happy. Happy to get rid of a cheating scumbag! And yet it pained, because the twisted truth was that inspite of hating him for double-crossing her, she had loved him. She still did. 

Life was bitter, and so was her coffee. Yet, she sipped it.

                                  

The End.

Also Published Here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/57138726-the-twisted-truth

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