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Raj

"Leyla?" I try to get her attention for the hundredth time today. She refuses to acknowledge me staying in the same position she has been in for the past four hours, curled up in a ball with her back to the door on my bed. I chew my bottom lip. It's been almost two and a half months since Brody hurt her and she is still ignoring me, ignoring Anderson, ignoring everyone. She refuses to eat, sleep, talk. I go to touch her and she pulls away mumbling excuses about leaving before she hurriedly leaves the room. She won't let me sleep next to her and even if I go to check on her at night it's like she can sense me in the room.

"Kya hua?" I ask slowly walking towards her, perching on the edge of the bed resisting the urge to place my hand on her thigh. Leyla doesn't respond just keeps staring forward at the wall, her hands folded underneath her cheek. Sometimes when I walk past my room at night I hear her crying. I so desperately want to go in and wrap my arms around her, hold her close to me and tell her everything is fine because Brody can't hurt her now. When he had come round from my beating I shoved a gun in his mouth and blew his brains out. I didn't give him chance to explain himself, there are no excuses for his behaviour. I would do anything for Leyla and what Brody did to her that was something so monstrous and unacceptable that he didn't even deserve death.

"Leyla?" I carefully place the word in the air between us, watching her expectantly for any sign that she has heard me. All she does is blink. A long slow methodical action which to any other person would have been quick and nonsensical. I try to hold back my sigh but in the end it falls from my lips. Now that entices a response. Leyla rolls onto her back sliding carefully up the bed until she is sat up, her back resting against the headboard. She folds her arms carefully across her chest like any sudden movements will shatter her into a million tiny pieces.

"I'll go... I'll leave," Leyla mumbles keeping her eyes trained on her feet. The words... Her words, they are different. Why does she want to leave? Where will she go? Leyla has nobody in this world who could ever possible care for her as much as me. I love her so much that I have killed for her, I would do literally anything to see that smile on her lips again.

"Kya? Why do you want to leave?" I breathe trying to hold in my emotions. Yes, emotions. Ever since I took her to the hospital she has changed. I know what she went through was a traumatic ordeal but I still love her. When we returned home Anderson stopped badgering on about bringing Aisha to the house. It felt as though we had been infiltrated when in actual fact nothing like that had happened. Brody had been working for himself when he decided to force himself upon Leyla. I wanted to show Leyla how much she means to me. I wanted to hold her at night, comfort her when she cried, loved her but she just pushed me away. In the first few days she would speak but her words were lost and empty, the fire in her eyes had died and only embers burned. Then days turned into weeks and she became lost and empty. Her words jumbled together, her tone turned monotonous, her eyes died. She refused to be in the same room as me and would do her upmost to ignore me and avoid me. It killed me on the inside to see her slipping through my fingers. She felt like sand. No matter how hard I tried to keep the cracks in my fingers closed the grains still found their way from my palms.

"I... I... I just need to Raj," Leyla mutters her eyes darting from her feet to the bathroom door. There is no possible way I can change her mind if she won't tell me why she came to the conclusion she needs to leave. She is being irrational, crazy, stupid. She needs me and I need her. She wants me and I want her. We are a team, Leyla and Raj together forever. Leyla is my forever girl!

"I love you," I say carefully placing my hand on her leg. It's like I've touched her with a hot poker, she tenses before snatching her leg away, pulling them to her chest. She looks at me and all I can see in her eyes are dying embers of the girl I once knew. I tried to get Jas to talk to Leyla but she refused to see anyone. Slowly the weeks became a month and she cut everyone from her life. She would only venture out of her room when she thought nobody was around. I honestly thought that speaking to Jas, who also went through a similar ordeal, would make her open up. I heard and googled that it is best from the victim to open up, be honest with themselves about what happened in order to move on.

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