Passion & Dilemma

31. Coward and Courage

Prerna's POV

I did not look back after walking out on Sarthak. Tears streamed down my face like waterfall. The ache in my chest intensified when his words began to echo in my head.

"Your coward self would rather watch your mother die, than stand against your father."

How dare he blame me for me and my mother's sufferings. What does he even know about us other than that my father is abusive? What does he know about what I went through? Nothing.

I should've told him what fathet did to me when my engagement with Ashish was called off because Sarthak's spy betrayed him.

It was him who appointed the spy. ICT who played their dirty politics. Ashish who broke the engagement. But I had to bear the consequences.

If I had told Sarthak, he would've drown himself in guilt. And that would be fucking amazing.

But instead, I just let myself lean towards him because the silly little part of my brain told me that he wasn't that bad.

The sound of car's honking dragged me out of my thoughts. I was on the footpath, outside the resort. Tears had stopped by then.

I wanted to clear my head after the lovely interaction with my fiancé. Note the sarcasm.

I stopped a rickshaw. 

"To where, madam?" The rickshaw driver asked.

"To lake Pichola."

When I reached the beautiful lake, I found a cute café and decided to have a breakfast. Good food might calm me down.

Truthfully, I was searching for Sarthak, in the morning, because I wanted to come here to the lake with him and have breakfast. Until I saw him admitting that he scarred my father's face.

And then he had the audacity to blame me.

All my life my parents have blamed me for my brother's death. They manipulated me into thinking that I was the root cause of every problem in their lives. And I began to believe them too.

How could I not? After all, I was a child. I had no thoughts and opinions of my own. My parents cultivated my thoughts according to them.

And today, Sarthak also joined them in the blame game. That my mother and I were suffering because of my cowardness.

The man who stalked me from the shadows for seven years was suddenly preaching about cowardness and courage.

My thoughts recalled the time when I did try to be courageous. Atleast I pretended to be.

------

"Maa," I called for my mother who was applying an ice pack over her swollen jaw after father punched her and beat her to pulp.

"What the hell do you want now?" She snapped at the twenty-two year old me.

I sat before her, on the ground, to treat her burned calves. Trying to control my tears and rage after witnessing my mother getting abused by her husband. Again.

"For how long are you going to bear with father." I gritted through my teeth in an attempt to stop myself from yelling. "Why don't you leave him now? I make enough money to take care of us and we can put father behind the bars. We can—"

My words came to an halt and a hiss escaped me when Maa picked the nearest metal vase and hit it on my head.

"Shut up, bitch!" She roared, resembling a wounded lioness. "How dare you say that, huh?" She fisted my hair with one hand and clutched my jaw with the other one.