Paayal - His Scarred Butterfly ✅

8 - ENDING HER LIFE?!

உன்னைத் தேடித் தேடியே
எந்தன் ஆவி போனது.
கூடுதானே இங்கு பாடுது
கூடு இன்று குயிலைத்தானே தேடுது.
(My soul has gone in searching for you.
Only an empty shell is singing.
Empty shell is searching for its cuckoo.)

The world witnessed five sunsets. Within that span of five sunsets, Paayal's physical pain alleviated a little, but her mental pain persisted. In fact, she was in a pinnacle of psychological turmoil. Before she could recover from the brutal assault, Life had come up with another challenge. Her young mind lacked the mental resilience to cope up with the series of life challenges that stood in front of her. She felt as if she had lost everything, and she could feel only a big void in her life. The indelible emptiness can never be filled, she thought. Instead of living with physical pain, mental pain and the emptiness in her life, it would be better to end her life, she thought, and was waiting for Pranav to leave for his college. But, Pranav didn't have any idea of going to college that soon, it seemed. Impatient to end her life, Paayal approached Pranav who was making coffee in the kitchen. He noticed Paayal who entered the kitchen and asked, "Do you want coffee?"

"No, Dada." She replied, searching for words to convince him to go to college.

Pranav added, "Okay. Wait for just 5 minutes. Your breakfast will arrive from a hotel."

Ignoring his words, Paayal said hesitantly, "Dada, I am alright. I can cook. I can pack your lunch too. You can leave for college, right?"

"It's okay. I will be with you till you feel completely alright. The doctor said that the bleeding will be there for at least ten days. So I will be with you, at least for ten days." Pranav replied, mixing the aromatic coffee powder with milk.

Paayal was not ready to endure such a prolonged period of existence. She wanted to end her life as soon as possible. She was dying inside already. Instead of dying inside slowly and daily, she wanted to end her life in one shot. So, In order to convince Pranav, she almost said in a nagging way, "Dada, I am alright. The bleeding feels like normal periods now. Already you missed the lessons of five days. Why are you missing your lessons because of me? I can be alone here."

He looked at her blankly for a moment in disbelief and added, "Are you sure? If it feels like normal periods, you can go to school, right? I don't want to leave you alone."

Paayal thought for a moment and agreed with a forced smile, "Haa, okay Dada. I can go to school tomorrow. It will help me to divert myself."

Pranav didn't expect her to smile this soon. But she smiled. In addition to that, she was ready to go to her school too. He was pleasantly surprised, a breeze of peacefulness brushing him. He believed that she was on the right path of healing. He believed his sister would bounce back to normal life soon, if she is positive like this.

"Okay then, let me go to my college tomorrow. You too go to your school." Pranav fell prey to Paayal's fake positive words.

Paayal nodded with relief, knowing that Pranav's college is far away from their home and he would depart before her. She thought of pretending to get ready in front of him with her school uniform and thought of executing her plan of ending her life, once Pranav leaves the home.

"Okay Dada, I will be in my room," She said and walked back to her room. On reaching her room, She sat down on the bed and caressed her stomach where a baby was living before a week. "Hey dear, your helpless mother feels like everything is over. My soul has already died when I saw you as blood and clots. My body is only living. This body too was already spoiled by a filthy pervert. Everything is spoiled. Nothing is left in my life. So, I...Your mother is coming to be with you soon. By this time tomorrow, I will be with you." She caressed her stomach, and turned to her family photo which was hanging on the wall. In the photo, her mom was holding Paayal in her arms when she was a two months old baby.