Paint Me Saved ✓ Book 1

35. Protect me from myself

Zemira

When Einstein said, 'time is an illusion,' the world stood in awe. But for me, that hypothesis wasn't surprising. Since my childhood, I had been a witness to the expansion and contraction of time, of its slowing and pacing up under various stages of life.

Happy, momentous moments slipped faster. No matter how great they were, they only had a compact existence. If only the same was true for its counterpart - despair - that held the power to make seconds feel like centuries.

I experience this non-scientific conjecture since last Tuesday. That day when our live interview passed splendidly. Then on Sunday, I met Leo's friends. Kyle and Debra, the perfect couple, immediately made me feel welcomed into their group.

Those days flew, unregistering its presence. At times it felt like those moments were only a projection of my mind.

Then came the dreadful Monday. 

Poor Monday. It already had so much hate garnered without me having to pile on. That day when I let a predator harm me. When instead of fighting back, I succumbed. That Monday and that memory dragged on for what felt like centuries.

It was like being in a hospital bed in a state of coma where everyone assumed you were unaware of the surroundings. But you'd be awake from the inside, hearing and feeling everything. The TV in the room - playing some news that an idiot relative tuned into while visiting and forgot to switch back - jarred the silence. 

You'd never be able to reach for the remote but you'd be able to hear everything, right from the mundane weather report to the violence around the world or an occasional fluff piece about some monkey wearing a tiara.

You would be stuck listening to the same bland stuff on repeat. You would be rendered helpless to do something about the news, about life.

That was the memory of my sexual assault. That was the dragged version of it in my mind, replaying itself in an infinite loop of torture.

Trying not to underplay the significance of the Monday morning, it was the Monday afternoon that was more turbulent.

Leo's bruised knuckles didn't just abrade Antonio's face, it peeled off the last layers of apprehension in me. His heaving chest and bloodshot eyes may have been from the aftermath of his wrath, it only encased me in the blanket of his comfort.

When I left Leo's office, I assumed to be found dead, killed by someone who Antonio must have sent to finish the job.

In that moment of vulnerability, when the word hope seemed like a cruel joke from the universe, my fake fiancé intervened. He assured me, I was safe.

When he fought for me and calmed me, the pedestal I put him on rose into the stars and beyond. Leo didn't pity, he didn't sympathize. He did what a survivor might have wanted the most.

He gave me space. He let me be.

That gesture tossed up what I felt for him from the dungeons of my heart and stomach. Unchained words narrated my affection and adoration for him, untamed feelings martyred themselves on the sword of love.

I didn't expect reciprocation. I didn't calculate a rejection either.

Had I known he would reject me, would I have still confessed?

Maybe.

Loving Leo was easy. He didn't alter me to fit his requirement. He let me be me. By being himself, he eased me into his company. So the burden I carried in my mind was not about telling him but about how to do it.