Running dreams.

Queen Meera

Three years can pass in a blink when you are young.

They can also pass like a prayer.

By the time Aarav and I were finally married, I was twenty. Old enough, everyone said. Old enough to understand marriage. Old enough to make decisions. Old enough to leave my mother's house and become somebody else's wife.

The wedding was small.

Almost embarrassingly small, according to my cousin Rani.

"Meera, this is a wedding, not a school assembly."

I laughed. "What do you want? A palace?"

"I want lights."

"We have lights."

She pointed at the three strings of yellow bulbs hanging across our courtyard.

"Those are Christmas lights."

"They still light."

But secretly, I loved everything about it. There were no enormous flower arrangements. No grand stage. No hundred-piece band. Just marigolds. Yellow and orange. Strings of them hung from the doorway and looped around the old neem tree. My mother had spent three evenings making them. Her fingers were sore by the end.

"Don't worry," I told her. "It's beautiful."

She looked at the courtyard. Then at me. "Yes."

She smiled. "But you are more beautiful."

I rolled my eyes. "Ma."

"What?"

"You're supposed to say the decorations are beautiful."

"They are." She touched my cheek. "But decorations are replaceable."

Something about the way she said it made my smile fade. Before I could ask what she meant, someone shouted from outside.

"Meera! The groom's family is here!"

My stomach turned. My hands suddenly became cold. I was getting married. Actually married. To Aarav. The boy with the broken umbrella. The boy who remembered I hated coriander. The boy who had once promised to follow me anywhere.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My red sari was simple. Not the kind brides wore in magazines. It had a thin gold border and tiny embroidered flowers. Ma had borrowed the jewellery from her cousin. The necklace was slightly too long. The bangles were slightly too loose. My shoes were new and already hurting. My hair had been braided and decorated with jasmine.

I looked like myself. Just brighter.

I touched my reflection. "Queen Meera," I whispered. Then I laughed.