Emotional Ramblings: MaAn

Threads of Fate

"Chod kar chaligayi thi, kya farak padtha hain tumhe?" Anuj lashed out.

In the fading embers of the last streams of sunlight that they would witness of this waning year, Anupama shuddered backwards into the dark folds of the isolated room; eyes shuttered tight against the memories of years past. Memories that forever haunted her, never to leave her since that fateful day. She had donned a cloak of pain and had worn it as a shroud since that day. That shroud now forever dissolved into her meek form as if to become one with her being. A cloak that had become her identity. One of pain and regret. And most of all, despair.

As Anuj closed his eyes, fists clenched in a standoff with her in the restaurant, she trembled and took a step back. In the darkness, she let the memories rise with a practiced ease that beget memories of pain and solitude, bubbling to the top of her mind. She painted the pitiful picture of a woman whose name itself had been erased with the passing of time. Forgotten to the cruel twists of destiny; trapped in a self imposed punishment; forever to relive a day of regret; a toxic cycle that was designed to cut at her every essence until she withered away. Hoping to finally conquer a battle of wills against morality; a battle to disappear without a trace into the wind.

With her eyes twisted shut in anguish, a silent cry threatened to bubble up within her and burst out. She shuddered with the truths she recanted to herself daily. The truth and knowledge that she had wronged them long before the final and ultimate betrayal she had committed. 

Abandoning them.

She twisted her hands into the folds of the soft fabric, one that she garbed carelessly around her form, as she sought a way out of this. This confrontation threatened to push her over the edge. An edge she had teetered on dangerously upon these past five year. Unable to face the shame of her decision but also steeled with the resolve & belief that it had been for the greater good. Forgoing all reason & sanity to take a step that had changed their destinies all together.

~

Upon hearing yet again prolonged silence from her, Anuj whipped around. The contours of his face were set in a dangerous controlled anger that threatened to break free. It was a similar high of emotions she had faced that fateful day. Charged and crackling energy filling the room once again. It was an intensity that only they brought out in each other. Whether that emotion had been love or lust or anger or sorrow. Or perhaps even hate in this case she wondered. But there was something odd in the lines of his face this time. It appeared to her that his rage was filled with something besides spite & bitterness, emotions that she had naturally expected to be directed towards her. 

There was a deep sorrow betraying him that shone in his eyes. Eyes that threatened to spill out tears that he had locked away within himself for years as he looked upon the face that had betrayed him and his gaze pierced straight into her soul. She could see in his gaze that he demanded answers. And he wouldn't leave till he squeezed them out of her. There was almost a madness to his demeanor. A madness that was akin to the one she had felt that day when she had left him alone in their home and walked out of their marriage.

Her eyes shifted back and forth in the dark towards the door and her inner anxiety pleaded her to make an escape from the world and to hide herself again. She wished she could escape to the peaceful bliss and quiet of her darkened room. A room similar to the one she had exiled herself into all these years back home. Lacking warmth and comfort, a meager encampment meant to sustain a pitiful existence and little else. A room which resembled the state of her shattered mind, filled with darkness and a cowardice to reflect upon the current state of her being or her past actions. Repeating the forced narratives she told herself daily. "They were better off without her. She provided no value to their lives. She had ruined their lives. She wanted no more relationships. She was done being hurt by rejections. She was better off alone." She had told herself these "truths" for the last five years and lay awake at night recalling her every action from the day she had nearly killed them all. Stuck in a repeated loop as her mind crashed around her recalling everything that had happened.