No Love Lost

Sushmitha rolled over, pulling the sheets closer. She hated waking up early on Sundays. Her mother’s prompts only made it that much worse. She covered her eyes with the sheets, and tried to drift back into sleep. But her mother was all over her in an instance.

“Fine! Fine! I’m up” Sushmitha said.

“Get ready soon, Sushmi.” Her mother said. “Today’s the big day!”

She groaned as she got off the bed. She’s an IT professional, working fifteen hours a day. Sundays were the one day when she could rest. But this was no ordinary Sunday �" it was the day she finally go to meet her fiancé Rahul, in person. She has been looking forward to this day since the moment she saw his profile in the matrimonial website. For some reason, he looked familiar. It was love at first sight.

She quickly freshened up, and got dressed in the beautiful saree she had reserved for this occasion. It would definitely win her points with his family. They were supposed to arrive at ten in the morning. It was five minutes to ten, and the doorbell rang. He was here, and she was ready.

As the introductions and formalities came to an end, the moment she was waiting for arrived; her chance to speak with him in private. They resigned to the terrace, while their families waited down.

Despite preparing for weeks, she was nervous. She couldn’t find her words. Rahul was a reserved guy, hence he held up his end of the silence. Finally she mustered enough courage to speak up.

“The moment I saw you, it was love at first sight.”

“Oh...” Apparently, he was taken aback.

“I just loved everything about you �" your picture, your family, even your name”

“Rahul is a pretty common name”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t suit a lot of people. For instance, I knew a Rahul in college. He was a singer, or something. He was a creepy loser”

“As a matter of fact, I wanted to be a singer, once”

“Oh. Then what made you join your father’s business?”

“I fell in love”

“And?”

“She didn’t”

“Why not?”

“Apparently, she thought I was a creepy loser”

Sushmitha froze, as she finally realized why his face looked familiar.

Epilogue

It has been twelve year since that day in the terrace. Mrs. Sushmitha Rahul has been happily married. She was still madly in love with her husband. She loved the way he talked. She loved the way he smiled at her every morning. She loved the way he cared for their children. But above all, she loved the fact that every time she recounted the tale of how they fell in love at first sight, he played along.

Author's Note

I'm not that good at writing romantic stories, so please review on how to improve

Reviews

[CK_85]

Damn you for exposing me to details about different cultures! But seriously, this was a great story. There were some minor comma errors (Shameless plug: I have a course on commas that can fix all the errors you made). The overall writing style is good, but not great. With an average of 14 words per sentence, the periods are almost too prevalent. If you think of writing as a road, and periods as a stop sign, you don't want to be stopping every 30 meters. Stop signs are important, but when they're placed so close together, it gets tedious. Regardless, let's go to the content. For me, at least, it was hazy as to whether or not it was an arranged marriage by her parents, or she selected the groom herself. The dialogue flowed very well. I loved how each character had their own style, making it unnecessary for you to distinguish in every line who was speaking. The ending really got me, despite the foreshadowing. I was literally gaping (and I mean the OG definition of literally). I do have to say, the whole "father's business" was abrupt and came from nowhere. Why would failed love make him join a business? What even is the father's business? Does she relate to him on a career level as well? While these questions do not have to be directly addressed in your writing, it would be helpful to address them indirectly, as to make the punchline flow better as a whole. I also love the title of the story. It took me a while to get it, but it's a very fitting title. For the epilogue, that, too, was very abrupt. The reader jumps from 6 exchanges to 1.2 decades of marriage, with nothing to bridge the gap (other than the reader's imagination). And, I will say, having the reader make up the rest of the story in their own head is a powerful tool, though you need to give them some direction. It's like the difference between throwing a baseball and shooting it out of an air-compressed gun. Throwing it allows a lot of wiggle-room that the reader doesn't want to imagine, while the air-compressed gun gives them a guide that makes it easy (and even natural) to bridge the gap. Keep in mind that despite all of these critiques, I am being nit-picky more than anything. It was a fantastic story, and I gave a 95/100. If you want to improve, read and write.

[CK_85]

Wow, that's a wall of text. My bad. Though, I hope you don't mind.

[the_gak]

Thank you for your honest review, CK_85. I've started writing again after almost half a decade, so I needed all the criticism I can get.
P.S.: I will look into that course on commas.
P.P.S.: I don't mind the wall of text.