It's not what it seems

Chapter 1 (Her)

It had been exactly 4 days since it had happened.

She could still feel his hands all over her, roughly pushing her against the wall and silencing her with an unrequited kiss. It had happened a million times before, but this time it was different. This time her silent pleas were ignored. This time her futile struggle made no difference. They had had angry sex before and sad sex and almost every kind of sex you could think of, but this time something was wrong. This time she felt violated.

She trembled a little as she recollected it. She felt this tight knot bunching up in her chest, making it so difficult for her to breathe.

They had been arguing about something before it had happened. It was the usual couples argument about a little misunderstanding they'd had, but this time something had triggered her. She was angry, extremely angry. These little 'misunderstandings' had happened way too many times in the past and she was fed up.
'Maybe I should just stop taking everything you say literally from now on, right? Like when you say you'll meet me at 4 pm I should just be there at 6 pm since that's what you really mean, right? Or when you say you can't talk to me because you're with 'Rohit' I should just know that you're with some girl instead. Oh shit my bad, I meant to say 'female colleague'.' she said, almost screaming at him. She had begun to cry now. Couldn't he see that she loved him, she thought. Couldn't he see that this wasn't her being clingy but it was instead her caring about him?

'How many times do I have to tell you to stop generalising everything? It only happened twice okay! Sometimes I can't help it if I'm suddenly given extra work with no warning beforehand. Do you want me to just say fuck it and come and meet you? Also, don't you dare bring up what happened with Rohit again. I told you that day that three of us went out and he had to leave suddenly. I fucking told you.' at this point he was yelling at her too, but he more exasperated. Why was she so paranoid, he thought. Why couldn't she just try to understand his situation at least once?

She was sobbing now. It wasn't the pretty kind of crying. She felt like her heart was trying to tear itself out of her chest. She felt so weak and light headed. Her shoulders shook violently as she tried to force herself to calm down. She hadn't even noticed him moving across the room towards her until he was holding her in his arms.
'I'm sorry', he said.
'It won't happen again', he said.
'Please stop crying for now', he said.
She barely heard him though, but then all of a sudden she felt him push her against the wall and pin her hands to the side. All of a sudden he was kissing her hard and it tasted salty. She knew this was supposed to be romantic. She'd seen it in so many movies and fantasised about it. This was how the guy should subdue his girlfriend after a heated fight.
But it hadn't felt right to her in the moment. All she wanted to do was get away from him and his constant excuses. She struggled to force him off her but this only encouraged him to hold her in a vice like grip. She tried to say 'not now, please' but it came out as a whisper and he either didn't notice or didn't care. She turned her face away, but this didn't deter him and he moved on to kissing her neck instead.

She woke up the next morning on a tear stained pillow. It was late; almost 11 am. She was alone. Akash had left to go to work. Usually she would wake up early to make him breakfast and kiss him goodbye, but he must not have wanted to wake her up after yesterday's ordeal. Thinking about it made the knot in her chest tighten again and it was difficult to breathe.

She refused to think about it over the next few days and he refused to acknowledge it. Everything was back to normal. But here she was now, almost disgusted with herself for letting it happen. She was livid. She made her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. She knew husband's did this a lot. She knew it was something completely normal, but deep inside she knew what happened was wrong.

It had been exactly 4 days since it had happened...