Warrior

88

Unfortunately and fortunately, my time with Dr. Leela came to an end and she had another patient waiting. So she scheduled another appointment with me, and I'd be seeing her again tomorrow after work.

I must admit, I felt slightly shaken from my own words and emotions. All this time, I've been doing nothing but toughening myself up because I didn't want to hear the constant ridicules from society, simply because of my divorce. I didn't want to hear the trash talk because I had sent my ex to prison even though he had sexually assaulted me. I didn't want to hear the taunts and teases that people spoke towards me and my family, and I never wanted to be taken advantage of again, so I had strengthened myself up.

But the reality of it all is that behind the rough and tough exterior, I was nothing more than that scared woman who was cowering in the bathtub, scared for her life. No matter how much armor I placed over myself, I was still that girl who was so terrified, that she fainted and had to get rescued by the cops after they broke the door down.

I'm no warrior.

The voice was right - I'm an insecure coward.

When I got back later that day, my mood was a complete bust. As soon as Shalini Singh Raizada saw me walk through the door, she knew something was wrong. It's funny, Amma is pretty much the same, but that's mothers for you, I guess. I simply told her that I was too exhausted and wanted to sleep so she let me be, but let me know that she'd send up some soup for me later.

Heading upstairs and going into the room, once again I spotted Arnav sitting in a chair, on his laptop with headphones covering his ears. For whatever bizarre reason, I pictured myself going up to him and wrapping my arms around him, hugging him from behind, and apologizing to him. Even though I was only picturing it, I slightly felt it in my being. 

Oh sure! Now you wanna hug him! Couldn't you have done that after he revealed that masterpiece of a tattoo?

Glancing down at his arm, I couldn't see all of it since my view was blocked by the chair from the angle I'm at.

At the very least, you could've not been a bitch to him!

I felt my heart thud in my chest and I didn't like the feeling at all. Over all of it, I quietly went into the closet. Since I had my therapy session with the doc, I showered prior to going back at the academy so that I wasn't a stinking sweaty mess at my session. So I simply changed and washed up, wearing fuzzy peach shorts with a matching fuzzy peach tank top, and stepped back into the room.

Arnav was nowhere in sight.

Not even his laptop or headphones were on the table which means he took them with him.

Someone's definitely upset with you. That's twice he's left after you've entered the room.

I took in a deep, shuddering breath, my eyes still on the spot where he was just sitting.

Ouch!

I deserve it. Given the way I behaved towards him, I deserve it. I was rude to him when he's been nothing but kind to me, I deserve it! I deserve to be treated this way because there's only so much he can take, right? I'm the asshole, I deserve to be punished, I'm the bad guy! I'm bad to him, I'm bad to his family- heck, I'm bad to my own family! All the aunties in town see me as the bad guy, so yeah, I deserve all of this! I deserve to have Arnav mad at me after I blew up in his face when he was nothing but nice and concerned of my feelings.

I. Deserve. It!

Tears streamed down my cheeks, though I have no idea when they even started pouring in the first place. All I know was that I was pulling out a sheet - the very same bedsheet that was on the bed when I had my drunken incident, laid it on the floor, grabbed my pillow, turned off the lights, and I put my pillow on the floor and laid on it. I pulled a light duvet over me since I felt slightly chilly from the AC, and faded into sleep, my last thought being that I deserved it.