Seasonal Scrawl | Collection

(03) Part 1

It had been precisely just a week since she had returned from her trip to Paris. Just a week since she met him. Just a week since that one night of bliss they had shared. Yet there hadn't been a single day that she had not thought of him! Everything seemed to connect her back to him.

But why, she couldn't figure out. They had made it clear to each other that it was only for that one night. There would be nothing between them ever. There could be nothing. What then was the cause of these feelings?

"It's love" her heart whispered making her face harden.

"It can never be! I can never fall in love! Never!" she said to herself.
She was not going to consume that poison called love. She wasn't going to fall prey to the torment called love which broke people to pieces so fine that a lifetime couldn't suffice to gather those shattered pieces. Love was destructive. The thorns disguised which would injure you in the worst way possible! She had seen it right from her childhood. She had seen it around her -the stark reality of "love"!

She closed her eyes even as flashes of the past flooded her mind.

A 12 year old Sai stood hidden behind the curtain in the bedroom of her parents. She had lied to her parents that she was going out to play but was now hiding to find out what was such that her parents were hiding. She had seen her mother cry the other day but her mother had instantly wiped her tears and refused to divulge what was hurting her. And the next day, she was sent to her granny's house. When she returned, she saw her mother limping and looking pale and lifeless but when asked, she again put on her fake smile and caressing her face with love assured that there was nothing wrong, just that she had had a fall and wasn't feeling really well. But Sai was smart enough to see through her lie. From then, many a times she would be sent out of the house at some pretext or to her granny's house. And each time she returned, she would see her mother more weaker and lifeless. Having enough of it, she finally decided to find out the truth. And that's why she stood behind the curtain.
Her body stiffened when she heard the door open and she slightly peeked through the curtain. What she saw left her utterly shocked. Her mother had entered the room followed by a man which wasn't her father! She saw the lifeless expression on her mother's face who just stood by the bed, clutching the bed post in her right hand. The man smiled at her father who was outside and closed the door. She stood shocked as she could not figure out what was actually happening. And then she saw it! She saw something which she would never forget. She saw something which brought her as much pain even today as it had at that moment. The lights were dimmed but she saw everything, endless tears pouring down her eyes. How was her mother enduring all this? Why was she not opposing him? Why was her father not doing anything about it? And that's when she recalled that he had smiled at this man. How could anyone smile at a man who was going to sleep with his wife? And that's when the bitter and harsh truth hit her! It was him! It was her father who....her mother had suffered all this while because her father was the one who had so.....she couldn't get that word. She stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to muffle the sobs she could no longer hold back and managed to slip out stealthily through the window just as she had sneaked it. She ran out continuously wiping her tears and reached the spot where she came whenever she wanted to be alone. And there she broke down completely! Her parents were her idols, an example of how people truly in love would be. She had always dreamt of a prince charming like her father who would love her just like her father loved her mother. But now, within one moment, her being shook with the realisation that all of it was false! Every bit of it was a false world full of lies. All her dreams lay shattered at that one moment!

Her hands gripped the tap tightly to get a hold over herself. It had been years yet the the pain felt just the same. Stabilising herself, she stepped out of the shower and dressed up. Resting her head against the bed, she closed her eyes intending to get some sleep so that she could escape the invasion of those painful happenings of the past but remained unsuccessful as she remembered how her mother's life had been worse than hell and how her mother had died a miserable death, all because of love! All because she loved her father so much that she couldn't leave him despite what he was doing to her. Love had made her mother so weak that she couldn't even take a stand for herself!

She had so many times tried to get justice to her mother. She tried convincing her initially but Alka refused all of it. Her mother loved her father so deeply and blindly that she even refused what actually was reality. Her mother refused to testify against her father or file a complaint. But Sai wasn't blind. She was determined to get justice for her mother. She was determined to get her father punished. And so she approached her friend's mother, a lawyer by profession and discussed the case with her. But nothing much could come out of it as without her mother's statement, their case would have fallen weak.

Disheartened she returned home and saw her father in the hall. She had been avoiding him from the time she discovered the truth, afraid that she would do something to him due to the immense rage surging through her veins. Without casting a glance, she proceeded to move when she heard his voice call out her name. But she dint stop and literally ran to her room. Locking the door, she crept up on her bed and hugged her teddy, all the while trying to come up with something to save her mother and punish her father.

But before she could do anything, her father had her sent to a hostel faraway. Due to her talk with her friend's mother, the police had invaded their house. But her mother had denied any such thing stating she was alright, just down with fever and body ache. Prateek and Alka had managed to put up a clean front infront of the police. But as soon as they were gone, Prateek had angrily pulled Sai out of her room and was about to beat her when Alka intervened, pleading him to stop. That's when he took the decision of sending her to a hostel far away, which was a prison more than a hostel!

This was the first event in her life that shattered all her dreams and put in a notion within her that love was cancerous and destructive!
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Love,
Pratyusha