AUTHOR'S POV

She didn't speak much. Not even to herself.

In the three months she had spent inside those grey, lifeless walls, Kriti Sharma had become more of a silhouette than a person—someone who existed in the corner of people's eyes but never in their conversations. Her name was written on a file. Her face occasionally flickered across a news bulletin when a slow day allowed for reruns. Her story, though, had long stopped being anyone's priority. Or maybe it had never been.

Her cell was number 3. Not the farthest from the entrance, but definitely the darkest. The bulb above her head flickered like it, too, wasn't sure if it wanted to work today. On the wall beside her cot, someone had once scratched something—a name, maybe, or a date. But the time and dirt had eaten it away. Like memory. Like kindness.

She sat on her bed, knees tucked to her chest, eyes open but unfocused. A single photograph lay beside her, slightly torn at the corner. It was old. The kind of photo you don't carry unless it carries something inside you. A little girl no more than two, laughing in the arms of a much older child. Kriti—a decade younger, with her arms wrapped around her sister as though protecting her from a world that hadn't hurt them yet.

Now that world had collapsed. And Kriti was behind bars, while her sister—her only family, her only reason—was somewhere out there, free but bleeding.

The cell bars creaked open. The familiar sound, yet it made her body instinctively tighten every single time.

"Get up."

She did, slowly, as if time belonged to her now, because what else did she have?

Constable Seema was on duty today. Of all the officers in this facility, Seema was the only one who didn't treat her like poison. She didn't smile either. But she also didn't slap, insult, or spit. And in this place, that was kindness enough.

"Your lunch. Roti and daal."

Kriti took the steel plate in silence.

Seema lingered for a second, watching her. Then, lowering her voice, she said, 

"You should eat. You look like a ghost."

Kriti gave a small nod. She wasn't sure it meant anything.

The door shut again, and the silence returned. Not quiet—never quiet. In jail, silence buzzed louder than chaos. It had a hum. A texture. Like regret folded into every corner of the cell.

From across the hallway, voices rose.

"Hey, look who's having her five-star meal," someone jeered.

"Murderer bitch thinks she's still a schoolteacher!"

Laughter.

Kriti didn't flinch. Not anymore.

She had learned that bruises faded faster than words. And the worst part? The ones who insulted her the most were the ones who didn't know anything.

But there were others, too. A few who had been inside long enough to understand that stories are always bigger than headlines. Like Rekha Didi, two cells down, who once murmured to her, "You did what the rest of us only dream of."

Kriti had looked up at her then, startled. But Rekha had only smiled and turned away.

She never asked what Rekha meant. She never would.

Time passed strangely in jail. There were no real hours, just a cycle of bells and routines. Morning tea. Midday count. Lunch. Evening round. Night lock-in. The only clock that really ticked inside was the one inside her chest, and even that beat differently now.

Sometimes, the women fought. Sometimes, they cried. Sometimes, they talked in whispers about their cases, their children, their mistakes. Kriti didn't speak much. She listened. And when that became too hard, she just sat with her eyes open and her ears closed.

One night, under the dim glow of the hallway light, she heard two inmates arguing.

"She thinks she's some kind of saint."

"You think killing someone makes her holy?"

"She ain't even said a word in court. What kind of woman does that?"

"A woman with nothing to lose."

That line hung in the air. Heavy. Accurate.

Every week, she was allowed to step into the small cemented courtyard.
There were no flowers.
Just dust, cracked stone, rust-stained pipes, and the smell of burnt dreams—a scent that never really faded.

Kriti would sit on a broken bench tucked in the corner, where the sun barely reached. It wasn't because she liked the shade, but because that spot let her see the sky through a break in the wall.

And she would stare.

At that infuriatingly blue sky.

A sky that never changed, no matter how much everything beneath it did.
She often wondered how it could stay so bright, so endlessly blue... when everything else had turned to ash.

On this particular Tuesday, as her fingers absentmindedly picked at the splintered wood of the bench, she sensed someone approaching.

Not the loud kind of approach—the quiet kind.
Measured steps. No chains on the ankles. No fear in the posture.

The woman came and sat beside her with the casualness of someone lighting a cigarette on a war field. Her skin was tanned, almost leathery, her hair tied back in a knot that looked more like defiance than style. She wore her years like armor and had the tired swagger of someone who'd stopped believing in second chances.

"You the one who killed him?" she asked, flicking her thumb to get something off her nail.

Kriti didn't answer. She didn't blink either.

The woman didn't wait. She just nodded to herself.

"Good," she muttered. "Some people deserve it."

Kriti turned, ever so slightly, to look at her. The woman wasn't looking back. She was too busy chewing on a thin toothpick, the kind inmates used when cigarettes weren't allowed but the need to look in control still lingered.

"My man,"

 she said after a pause, 

"used to beat the hell outta me. Broke my jaw once. Kicked me when I was five months pregnant. Said he didn't want no crying brat in his house."

Kriti stayed quiet. She didn't flinch. But her throat felt tighter than usual.

"I didn't do nothin',"

 the woman continued. 

"Cried to the cops. Went back to him. Lied in court. Lied to my own mother."

She glanced sideways, just once. "You? You did something."

Kriti blinked.

"You probably didn't want to. That's the funny part. The world thinks women like us snap one day. But we don't. We just get pushed. Slowly. Quietly. Until the push ends with someone dead."

"I'm not brave," Kriti finally said. Her voice cracked like it hadn't been used in days.

The woman smiled, toothpick still between her teeth. 

"Brave? Nah. Brave women fight. You? You ended it."

There was no judgment in her voice. No admiration either. Just fact. Like she was reading out a weather report.

"What's your name?" Kriti asked, surprising even herself.

"Most here call me Pooja Didi,"

 the woman said. 

"You can just call me Didi, if that's easier."

Kriti nodded. Not out of agreement, but because it felt like something she could manage.

Didi stood up, brushing off the back of her salwar. 

"You'll get used to this place. Just remember not to forget who you were before it."

And then she walked away, her footsteps steady, leaving Kriti with that final line.

A sentence that felt like both a compliment and a curse.

Back in her cell, Kriti unfolded the little picture again. She had hidden it inside a rolled-up sanitary pad so no one would take it. She didn't trust the world anymore. But she trusted that picture.

She touched the corner of the image, where her younger self was holding her baby sister.

"I kept my promise," she whispered.

It was the only thing she had said in days.

That night, before the final bell, someone slid a note through her bars. It was scribbled on torn newspaper.

"Government-appointed lawyer assigned to your case. Court date in 6 days."

No name. No signature.

She stared at it for a long time.

Kriti didn't ask for a lawyer. She didn't want one. She had decided to spend her days in silence. She had accepted her label. Murderer.

But now?

Now, someone was going to ask questions. Dig into her story. Maybe even try to save her.

She should have been relieved. She wasn't.

Because the truth?

Some stories are not meant to be saved. Some are just meant to be carried.

And hers?

Her story began the day the world stopped believing her.

And it wasn't over yet.

Chapter one of Guilty but His Wife ends here! What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!