In Sunshine or In Shadow ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 8.2 - For Whom My Tears Have Made Me Blind

Riddhima was doing the only thing she could do nowadays, flipping through the channels on TV. Occasionally she would pause to give one show a few seconds of consideration before simply switching to the next program. She really wasn't seeing anything in front of her, not the talking heads that were lighting up the screen or the stupid commercials that no one paid attention to anyways. All she felt now was a deep frustration that showed itself by her pressing the button on the remote as hard as she could.

That day she'd had to go down to the hospital to get her test results back. The news was good, her blood work was clear, there were no indications that she had any STDs which meant either the medication had done it's job or her rapist was clean. That wasn't what bothered her; she'd actually all but forgotten about the tests, she'd been too busy focusing on her rapidly deteriorating sanity.

But the cheerful doctor had been happy to report the news. She'd smiled happily and said probably the stupidest thing Riddhima could remember. "You're lucky."

Lucky? She was lucky?

How about those women who hadn't been raped? What about those women who didn't know what it was like to have someone beat the shit out of them and then violate them? Those women were lucky and Riddhima could no longer count herself among them.

She wasn't pregnant or had HIV so she could count her blessings…but she didn't really think about her "blessings" anymore. Maybe it was the fact that just because the physical legacies of her attack were quickly going away, she couldn't work past the parts that people couldn't see.

The anxiety, the nightmares, the absolute terror she lived in now…those scars were still with her at every moment and as far she knew, they weren't going anywhere.

Riddhima noticed that she'd paused for several minutes on a news channel where some reporter was talking about some new big scandal a politician had gotten up to his eyebrows in. Fed up, she simply turned off her TV and grabbed her laptop, ready to indulge herself in her new hobby.

She went to her favorite search engine and continued her research into rape. It wasn't just reading about Lavinia and other fictional victims but she found herself compelled to look up the history of it too. The number of articles written on the subject surprised her; some were feminist reporting injustices; others were simply comparing what the significance of rape in some mythologies and legends meant.

Vansh hadn't reacted well to her current subject of research, she couldn't help but remember what he'd said, 'These are fictional characters, Riddhima. They aren't real, their pain isn't real'. He was right, the stories weren't real but Riddhima wasn't convinced that their pain was too. 'Why put yourself through this torture?' He was right, it was painful for her to look through all of this, it hurt every time she found something that reminded her that she was a part of this exclusive group of damaged women. The truth was that she didn't know why she did this; she just knew that she had to. Maybe she wanted to see that it would get better…or maybe she wanted to justify her feelings of failure.

A knock on the door startled her. She quickly slapped her laptop screen down so that her visitor wouldn't see her search history. Riddhima did check to make sure her books were hidden away too; she had a feeling that her visitor was Vansh and she didn't want to get into another argument about her new obsession.

But it wasn't the man nuisance that was quickly becoming the most important person in her life.

It was her old boss.

Vikrant Bose looked awkward standing on her doorstep, as if a part of him wished he was anywhere but there. She couldn't blame him; she didn't really want to be here either. It took her a moment to collect her thoughts. "Vikrant, hi! It's uh…nice to see you again." She hadn't seen him since they'd had lunch a few months ago, even though he was no longer her boss she hadn't wanted to lose touch of the mentor that had always felt more like a father figure to her over the years.