Always Is Not Forever (Breaking Myself - Part II)

13. The One Where I Cut

[ A L I N A ' S P O V ]

Yawning, I placed my head between the pages of the book and stared at the words entering my mind. Words could be good, words could be bad, words could cut deep, worlds could heal. What if healing was becoming tougher than you thought of? What if no words were helping to heal the void spreading in your heart? What was happening? If I lapsed to take my medicines for a week, is that what would become of me? The old Alina, dark and silent, or maybe I was still the same.

Maybe I couldn't see what the reality was. What if I was living in a dream when in reality I was still in that room, hiding under the bed? What if I was still cutting myself to forget the mark of his on my body? What if I was under the influence of alcohol to curb my protests? What if he was still punishing me for trying to tell anyone? What if Kabir never existed in my life and I was imagining it? What if everyone was right and I was telling lies about my childhood? What if I had imagined of it?

Did I even have a proof of what happened?

Imagining.

Hallucinations.

What if I had some other mental disease and my therapist thought it was post-traumatic stress disorder? What if she was wrong? What if I was wrong? What if he was innocent and I was a culprit?

"Bookworm." Without turning from the bed, I nodded slightly to know I was listening. He entered without knocking. I wanted to scream at him, but everything felt too tiring, too surreal. "I knocked three times, you didn't answer."

I answered nothing, staring at the cream wall. I hated that color.

"We're getting late for college."

College. Yes, I had college. But why I had to go? I was so tired. Everything pains. Everything hurts. My mind hurts. My body hurts.

"I'm not feeling well. I'll stay here."

"Are you okay?" I felt a hand on my forehead. "You seem fine. Is there anything else?"

I shook my head. "Just not feeling well. You go," I said in a tired voice.

Too tiring. Too hurting. Too confusing.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Just go," I said forcefully. "Leave me alone. I want to be alone."

I closed my eyes to stop the pain and hurt of the thoughts entering my mind.

It had been a week since I was living with Kabir, and suddenly out of nowhere, I felt so empty from the inside, so tired from everything. What to do? How to end it?

"Alina-"

"I want to sleep. I don't want to come. Go." I heard a beaten sigh and closing of the door.

Sleep.

Hurt.

Everywhere.

Nowhere.

What was happening?

I wanted to scream, something was building up, crazily going over the mind and subduing the feeling of calm. Too hurtful. Too crazy.

What if I was crazy? What if I felt nothing? What if I felt too much? What if he leaves me?

But Kabir was real. He stood beside me, he talked with me.

You're a liar.

Was I?

Sleep.

Sleep made everything okay because no longer I had to face my mind.

And suddenly, I felt a pair of eyes staring into mine, soft, too soft. Why was he too soft on me? He was supposed to get angry at my behavior. He was supposed to scream and yell at me for being this weird and sending different signals. I was closing him again, shutting him out of my life.