The Things We Love and Lose

Chapter 7

*Very Triggering Chapter*

Pain.

It could be related to different variants in our life. Pain was abstract in its form. It depends on how we perceive it and in which context we prefer to put it in. For me, pain had been of various forms. Mental, physical and emotional. Mental pain remained to its boundaries of thinking about a problem and finding a solution for the same. While physical pain left a burning essence in the back, the reminder of how the reigns of my life were in somebody else control, and in its abstract sense, it depended on how he wanted to treat me. Slap, leather, kick or a punch? No doubt he never meant to punch because it would leave bruise and people could see it.

People needed to believe the act I had been pulling up from the six months. A gorgeous smile on my face, the glow of the bride radiating on my skin, the hazel eyes representing the delight whilst the skin beneath the cloth reflected the harsh red lines.

Five would do.

Six.

Count them.

You owe me an apology.

However, more than physical, emotional clutched my neck and throat. Emotional pain could never be reflected in the outer body. You secure it deep into your heart, allowing it to break you bit by bit, shatter the inner self into its tiniest pieces but leave enough space to let the person breath, to allow them to realise the contraction of their heart, to make them see how pain was all you could see and feel, and you were nothing other than a host for the pain to reside and command you.

Pain was abstract in nature.

And yet my paintings represented the concrete view.

How could they?

Here I was dying.

I was going to be married tomorrow.

My hands were filled with a name I didn't want on my skin.

Closing my eyes, I tried to avoid the ladies running around my body, the happiness bouncing in my house, the cold tube falling on my hand.

You will not paint after marriage.

"I don't want to give it," I cried, clutching mom's hand. "Ma, please."

However, she refused to look at me, the canvases being carried out whilst the paints were being stored in the box, the brushes were thrown on the floor as if they held no value. From the back, I tried to beg my brothers but they could do nothing as dad broke the canvas, the fresh paint splattering in the broken pieces.

"I will not paint. Don't do this," I argued.

"You went again today!" Dad shouted. "Why don't you see the house you are marrying wants a domestic girl? You will rule like a queen." I don't want to. "You don't need to worry about working."

"Papa, please. It's paints. What's the harm?"

"As long as it is here, you will be in problem," He dared, threw the glass paints in the box and they cracked in pieces. I tried to wriggle out of mom's grip but she didn't let me enter. "I am doing this for you. Painting is not a work."

"Please," I cried, the tears ran dry. Why Adirath's sister couldn't shut her mouth and expose to mom and dad that I had put my paintings for selling? Why couldn't they see painting is not a hobby I could let go of? This was the only thing I was left of to cherish. Arnav had left me. Sammy moved to Patiala after getting a scholarship. My fiancé was abusive.