Happily Ever After Comes At A Price

Chapter 33: Positions

   You know that very confusing moment in your life when your day is nothing but a blur and what happens in one moment is soon forgotten in the next to come. You turn in all rational thought to your instincts and let your gut choose the words that you'll eventually regret or not. But at the end of the day, when you turn into your bed, you surprise yourself by realizing that you've done exactly nothing. Soon, heavy eyelids droop and you succumb into a dreamless sleep, you remember nothing. Absolutely nothing... Ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly how the first day of my married life went...

  The only problem way that it was yet to dig in that I was nothing longer the girl I was a few months ago. It only complicates matters that I remember nothing...

  Except waking up with dread; fear wrenching my gut. I remember breakfast, feeling confused but comfortable. Then nothing... He left for work or school, I still didn't know. I left for my room, locked myself in. And now, I'm awake to a brand new day. Only the memory I have can confirm that this isn't the same day all over again; that the man I met yesterday isn't real but just a figment of my imagination. Sighing, I drag myself out of the bed and make my way to the small, dusty vanity mirror I discovered in this room. 

   I had once loved the girl that used to stare back at me. I loved her snarky remarks, I loved the way she'd see the world around her through coloured glasses. She had only love to give to the world. But today, the woman that looks back is nothing but defeated and tired. Her world had long since faded to black and white and the thought of colours diluted her eyes with terror. She knows what colours can do, what a little bit of courage and a whole lot of hope can ruin her. Her glasses are broken and she left a them shattered, too scared to cut herself open if she tries to pick them up. Her hazel eyes don't shine anymore. Dark circles have turned to a ghastly purple shade. The once perfectly disheveled dark chocolate curls have lost all luster and now pokes out in masses of dry straw. I see a shell of a person- the body barely managing the hold a crumpled soul. 

   I don't know if I'll ever be able to love any version of me ever again. Yet, I still hold on- holding on because if I die, all memories of my parents will be lost forever. My life may be in vain, but theirs never was. Not to me...

   After a haphazard morning routine, I brace myself and walk out of the room for the second time in my life. I'm careful, snippets of yesterday's conversation floats into my head. What if he's not the person he showed yesterday? It wouldn't be the first time...

   A wave of delicious smell hits me again and just like that, I'm shifted to a deja vu. What if yesterday never really happened? A frown tugs the corners of my mouth. I know it can't be, what else would explain how I know my way to the kitchen. 

   But this time, unlike yesterday, there's no food laden on the plastic table. Oh no, no. It's something much, much worse. Breakfast is sizzling away on the single stove on a tiny kitchen counter. Music fills the room, not the perfected versions you usually hear from songs. It's raw, off-key. Zafar hums away, blissfully ignorant of my presence, humming away songs that I've never heard of - dangerously twirling the spatula in his hand before skillfully flipping the omelet.

   I watch him in horror. Plain, undisguised, jaw dangling open horror. I had never in my entire life seen a man work his way through a kitchen. No man in my life, ever. Unless you count Gordon Ramsay or Wolfgang Puck in the TV, which I don't here. The closest my father ever came was to occasionally drop off the supplies. And here he was, my supposed husband, humming with no care in the world - making breakfast for two. 

   I think I just forgot how to breathe...

   On cue, he turns around. When our eyes meet, he lets out a breathy exhale. I frown.