Until I Find My Star

Chapter 33

Past

Author's Pov:

The college campus buzzed with life as students hurried between classes, laughter and chatter filling the air. For Anu, however, every step through those gates felt like walking into a battlefield she never signed up for. She was at the end of her second year now, her books clutched tightly against her chest, her eyes trained on the ground as though it could shield her from the gaze she felt burning into her skin.

She feel disgusted about her own self. So much disgusted that it burns everywhere. 

And his presence not at all helping. Even if he's not there physically, he was always there... in her mind, or his so called friends always hovering with that unnerving intensity. He practically shadowed her days, his voice dictated her nights. Every smile she forced, every nod of agreement, every silence she endured became another chain he bound around her.

But the cruelest wound hadn't come from him. It had come from home. 

Her world felt divided between two places—home, which no longer felt like home, and college, which had become a cage she couldn't escape.

She still couldn't get over the fact how her dad reacted. The day she told her parents about Vikram had been the day her world shifted. She had stood before them, trembling but resolute, voice cracking as she poured out the truth... every single thing.... the control, how he took away her dignity in the most cruelest way and those bruises, the suffocating obsession he carried for her.

And her mother had gasped, her face pale with horror and that was it... nothing else and for a fleeting moment, she thought she was finally safe.

But then her father spoke, even now the words he uttered are running in her mind making her clenched her jaw.

"Don't talk nonsense about that boy," he had said coldly. "Do you realize how you sound? Don't shame us with these stories."

'Stories?' her heart clenched at his words.

Still she had begged again her father to listen. But he had silenced her with a look so sharp it cut her deeper than any wound Vikram left on her skin.

"You're exaggerating," he had said flatly, his brows drawn tight. "He's a good boy from a good family. Stop dramatizing."

Exaggerating.

Dramatizing.

The words had crushed her. Her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. No matter how much she tried, her father refused to see Vikram as anything other than the well-mannered young man he presented himself to be. How could he even trust that vulture even after seeing her state. Her mother, though shaken, could not rise against her husband's verdict. 

From that day, the rift between her and her parents grew into an unbridgeable chasm. Her father's gaze turned cold, distant, as though she had become a stranger under his roof. If anything she was the one who was supposed to show tantrums.. attitude but he ignored like a plague. Her mother, too, she tries to talk but she's making her feel like a broken fragile glass or impured soul... and god she hated that look... her eyes haunted, guilty, and pity which are only making her feel unworthy.

Then a week later when her mom came to her room and asked her to show those bruises, her fingers had hovered over them, trembling, before she withdrew, muttering, "You mustn't say these things outside. People will talk."

Her heart broke when she listened to her words. She didn't know whether her mom realized her words or not, but it hurts her more than anything. Fear of society, of whispers and shame, had chained her tongue and clouded her mind that she was not even ready to protect from the same Satan she once disliked. She did believe her... she had seen it in her eyes but belief without action was as useless as denial.