Chapter 5: The Other Woman

Following the scrolling comments’ clues, I found the Instagram of Rohan’s nightingale. Only then did I realise she’d shown up under my nose many times. Her name was Sneha—a minor influencer under Rohan’s media company. Her account was called “Duo Rohan Sneha.”

In the reels, she posed in pastel salwar suits, hair always perfect, pouting for the camera. Sneha, with her sugar-sweet accent and eyes sparkling for likes. I remembered her now: at the Diwali party, standing too close to Rohan, always giggling at his lamest jokes.

The latest video loaded slowly—thanks to the building’s erratic WiFi—while the pressure cooker whistled in the kitchen. It showed a London street view, hands clasped tightly, a dusty embrace. I saw the tiny mole on the man’s thumb joint—no one would know it better than me. The caption read: “That year of purest love, he left his well-matched fiancée behind and crossed ten thousand kilometres to find me. The wind that missed you finally blew from Kaveripur to London.”

It felt like a slap. My heartbreak was a plot device for their romance. The comments scrolled faster than I could read. I recognised the watch on his wrist, the way he squeezed her hand. Their so-called love, vulgar and public, played out for strangers to cheer.

The video went viral, and the comments gushed about this beautiful love story.

“After the nightingale escaped, the CEO chased his wife in real life, arrey wah.”

“I know this plot! Your rich uncle type actually loves you, sis. The fiancée is just a stepping stone to push him to chase you~”

“See? Only the rich and powerful can afford to be so infatuated. Please share the big-shot boss’s Insta, sob sob~”

Scrolling comments:

[Is everyone in this comment section fake? This isn’t nightingale literature, it’s mistress literature, okay?]

[Fiancée, huh. Sure knows how to make the scoundrel look good. The heroine’s ex-fiancé was obviously the big villain in the book.]

I wanted to fling my phone against the wall, to scream loud enough for even those in London to hear. Instead, I just sat there as the air grew thick with the smell of agarbatti from the pooja room. What a world—where your heartbreak is content, your tears part of someone else’s viral reel.