The house was a powder keg, ready to explode at any moment. Ever since Arohi entered my life, nothing had gone according to plan. At first, I believed she was the perfect match for me—a graceful, quiet woman who fit into the family like a missing piece. But now, I wasn't so sure.

I replayed our fights over and over in my head. The harsh words, the anger, and then—the slap. My cheek still tingled with the memory, but the real pain was deeper. It cut into my soul, forcing me to confront truths I had spent my life avoiding.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling as memories flooded my mind. When Arohi first joined our family, she seemed like the ideal daughter-in-law. My family quickly embraced her, or so I thought. But then, she started changing—growing more assertive, more vocal about things that didn't concern her. Now, I wasn't so sure. Arohi had become a source of constant disruption, challenging the very foundation of what I had been taught to value, especially when it came to Amrit and Kavya.

That night, when Arohi intervened in the situation with Amrit, I was furious. How could she call the police on my brother? He was a difficult man, but he was family. I was torn between protecting our reputation and my growing realization that what had happened to Kavya was wrong. My father and I worked together to manipulate the situation, protect Amrit, and restore order. It was what we had always done—preserve the family name at all costs.

But Arohi's actions didn't end there. She got a restraining order against Amrit and even brought in social workers to take Kavya away. My mother was livid, and so was I. Arohi's defiance was unprecedented, and it felt like a betrayal. Yet, somewhere deep down, a small voice questioned if what she did was truly wrong.

The night my mother tried to throw Arohi out of the house was a turning point. I stood there, watching, doing nothing as my wife was humiliated. Arohi's words echoed in my mind, words about her rights as my wife, about her power to make a bigger scene if we tried to silence her. The family was stunned into silence, and so was I.

In our room later that night, we had the most brutal fight yet. She was right—I didn't know how to handle her, and I didn't understand the depth of the issues she was fighting against. In my anger, I lashed out, saying things I didn't mean, hurtful things about her being an orphan, about not understanding family values. The slap she gave me was the final straw. But even in my anger, I couldn't ignore the truth in her words. My family wasn't perfect, far from it. I began to see the cracks, the toxicity that Arohi had been pointing out all along.

Days passed, and I started to notice things I had ignored before. The way my father subtly manipulated situations, the way my mother enforced traditions that stifled the women in our family, and the way Amrit's behavior was excused time and again. I began to see the way Ridhi hesitated before speaking her mind, the way Arohi's fire was slowly being extinguished by the weight of our expectations.

And today, when Arohi stood up to my father, I had seen something in her that terrified me—conviction. A conviction so powerful that it shattered the very foundation of my beliefs. I had always thought that following tradition was the right thing to do, and that it was my duty as the eldest son to uphold the family's honor. But now, I wasn't so sure.

Arohi had made me question everything. Was it right to force Ridhi into a marriage she didn't want, to strip her of her dreams just to maintain our family's reputation? Was it right to let my father's harsh words and actions go unchallenged, even when they were clearly wrong? And was it right to let Arohi bear the brunt of this fight alone, knowing that deep down, I agreed with her?

I remembered the look in her eyes when I tried to console her after my father slapped her—pain, betrayal, and a cold determination that cut me to the core. I had let her down. I had let Ridhi down. But worst of all, I had let myself down.

The truth was, Arohi's arrival had stirred something within me that I had long buried—a desire to break free from the chains of tradition, to live my life on my terms rather than in the shadow of my father's expectations. But fear had always held me back. Fear of disappointing my family, of disgracing the Singhania name, of losing everything I had ever known.

Yet now, as I sat in the darkness of my study, that fear was slowly being replaced by something else—resolve. Arohi was right. This was no longer just about her, or even about Ridhi. This was about all of us, about breaking the cycle of control and oppression that had ruled our family for generations. It was about choosing what was right over what was expected.

But that didn't make the decision any easier. I knew that standing up to my father would come at a great cost. It would mean going against everything I had been taught, everything that had defined me for so long. It would mean facing the wrath of a man who had never tolerated dissent, and it would mean possibly losing the very family I had fought so hard to protect.

But what kind of protection was it, if it came at the expense of our happiness, our dreams, our very souls? Arohi had made that clear to me, and now, I couldn't ignore it any longer.

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