The tragedy of their story wasn't a lack of love. It was the slow, agonizing friction of two worlds that refused to merge.
Neha came from a family where tradition was a cage lined with gold. Her father, a high-ranking official, saw Alax not as an artist, but as a "drifter" with no pension and a messy studio. Alax, fiercely independent and allergic to pretense, refused to play the part of the submissive son-in-law.
The arguments started small, like hairline fractures in a windshield.
"Why can't you just wear a suit and act interested in my father's business?" Neha would ask, her voice tight with exhaustion.
"Because that's not who I am, Neha. You fell in love with the guy in the paint-stained hoodie, remember?"
By the third year, the distance between Shimla and Delhi felt like an ocean. The "Goodnight" texts became shorter. The "I love yous" started to sound like a habit rather than a confession.
The end happened on a Tuesday. It wasn't a shouting match. It was a quiet, hollow realization.
Neha had called him from a balcony in Delhi, the sounds of a party humming in the background. "They've found someone, Alax," she whispered. "An architect. His family knows mine. My father... he looks happy for the first time in years."
Alax sat in his dark studio, the blue light of his tablet illuminating his pale face. "Are you telling me this because you want me to fight, or because you're saying goodbye?"
There was a long silence. The kind of silence that changes the molecular structure of a room.
"I'm tired of fighting, Alax," she breathed. "I love you. I will always love you. But I can't be the reason my mother stops eating and my father stops speaking. I'm not strong enough to be your hero."
The line went dead.
Now, six months later, Alax was in Shimla. Neha had returned to her ancestral home for the ceremony.
He shouldn't have come. He knew that. But a heart is a stubborn organ; it demands to witness its own destruction to believe it's actually happening.
He found the venue—a sprawling colonial estate decorated in marigolds and white lilies. The scent was nauseatingly sweet. From his vantage point behind a stone wall, he saw her.
Neha was a vision in red and gold. The heavy lehenga seemed to weigh her down, or perhaps it was the gravity of the moment. She looked beautiful, yes, but to Alax's trained artist's eye, she looked like a masterpiece trapped in a frame that was too small.
He watched as the groom—the architect, the "right choice"—took her hand. He saw the way Neha smiled for the cameras. It was a practiced smile, the kind she used when she was hiding a migraine.