Chapter 1: The Golden Cage

I was Arjun Malhotra's canary for three years. Three years of living in a flat where the AC hummed all night, but my heart always felt like it was perched on a wire—never truly at rest, always alert to the shifting moods of the man whose name I wore like a borrowed bangle.

Somewhere inside, I always wondered what that really meant. Not a pet, not a lover, just... someone's indulgent pastime—a bird in a golden cage, fed and admired, but never quite free. Sometimes, lying on my back, watching the ceiling fan spin shadows in the moonlight, I wondered—if I finally spoke up, would anyone even care?

The day I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant, I overheard his twin brother say:

"Bhai, I pretended to be you and played with your canary for so long. If she finds out, won't she get angry and leave?"

Arjun replied with a smirk in his voice, "She wouldn’t dare, bhai. She knows her place."

"Besides, it's not the first time we've swapped."

"But don't let her get pregnant while you're at it. I find that disgusting."

My phone buzzed with new forwards, the green double-ticks glowing at me like taunts:

[This is too funny, the side character is pregnant and still so cluelessly happy, not knowing that Arjun never touched her—it was his twin brother fooling around with her until she got pregnant.]

[Arjun only cares about the female lead. Even if the side character is carrying his child, he'd still send her and the child away.]

In India, sometimes even other people's drama becomes masala for your own pain. Those taunting WhatsApp messages, the relentless tick of a family group chat—even that seemed to sting sharper than the Mumbai humidity pressing down on my chest.

I didn't cry or create a scene. I just continued being the canary for the fake Arjun.

Secretly, I scheduled an abortion and bought a plane ticket to go abroad.

Even as I did all this, my mind kept wandering to the long queue at the passport office, the hospital smelled of Dettol and stale flowers, and the nurse’s bangles clinked as she handed me the form. Every little step made it real, but still, I moved quietly—like a shadow on the wall.

The day I was caught getting the abortion, he went mad and grabbed his brother by the throat: "Who gave you permission to touch her?"

The echo of his rage cut through me more sharply than the monsoon thunder outside, and for one brief second, I wondered—was that anger for me, or for the betrayal of a toy he thought belonged only to him?