Forbidden Love

ℭhapter 3: A Painful Season

"In the end, this pain will only make you stronger."
–unknown

●●●

In life, we will experience many seasons. Seasons of love and loss, seasons of success and failure, seasons of joy and mourning, seasons of winning and losing, seasons of healing and pain. This is my season of pain, of that much I am certain.

I woke up to throbbing pain and a buzzing brain. I feel different than yesterday. My heart is beating but somehow I feel dead on the inside. Thoughts and unanswered questions moving at the speed of lightning inside my mind. I feel empty, as if, I am drained and left lifeless. Maybe I feel this way because of what happened yesterday. Maybe I feel like this because I went against my own morals and believes. The morals and believes I knew made me different from my mother's husband.

I hit him.

The words repeating in my mind, again and again, like a loophole. I hit Hal. I hit a person, a person I despised nonetheless. Mentally I try to justify my actions,

I was defending myself. I t was self-defence. He would have killed me and probably my dog too if I didn't do something. If I didn't fight back who would have saved me? I don't have a knight in shining armour that could've helped me, that doesn't exist, at least not in my story. My sisters wouldn't have stood a chance against Hal, he is way too big and strong, He could easily hurt them, that is why I shouted at them to go to my room, I knew they'd be safe there. I had to fight back in order to save myself from that awful man that is our stepfather.

I let out a deep sigh, no matter how hard I try to make myself feel better, I still hit him. I hate violence and yet I got into a violent fight with him. While I was fighting him, I was so blinded by fury, and at that moment I felt no remorse, no guilt or shame for what I was doing. Violence is not the answer. Violence should never be the answer. Now, I feel terrible for what I had done. I promised myself that I would never hit someone, I saw the way my biological father lifted his hands for my mother once and I swore to myself at the tender age of eight, that I will never be like that, I will be different. Here I stand today and I have let my eight-year-old self down. I did the one thing I hated the most. I am no better than Hal; I am just as awful as he is.

This is so twisted! Hal made the first punch, he is the one who kicked my dog and yelled at my sisters, he is the one who hit me and somehow I am the one feeling guilty and ashamed because I fought him back. I shouldn't even be shocked, really, it's Hal's speciality. Making you feel like complete and utter crap when he was the one to lure you into his trap. He probably planned it all, that is just how sick he is.

I took a deep and steady breath and turned over, laying on my back. For a while I blankly stared at the ceiling, fighting wildly rushing thoughts in my mind. I am exhausted and I can't stop my mind from thinking a million things at once. I try to fight the thoughts and visions, but it is no use.

I decide to pre-occupy my mind by getting up, slowly but surely I forced my aching body out of bed. I feel like a bus had run me over.

No shit Aleah.

You were abused yesterday, you obviously will feel like crap.

Abused. I took a sharp breath. I hadn't even thought of it that way. I frown at the thought.

I had been abused. No, abused is not the word.

My mind refuses to register this fact. I wasn't abused, I just got into a heated argument with my mother's husband but and maybe things got a little out of hand, yeah, but that is all. I got hurt but I was definitely not abused.