Made for each other

1

'Can you and your partner talk together?'

Tara giggled to herself. The therapy session was boring than she expected. If Arya knew about it, he would not have agreed upon visiting a therapist. "It's a waste of time, honey. Let's order a pizza, watch Netflix, and forget that you are ever depressed." But this time her depression was different. It was deep, edgy, and relentlessly haunting. So, she decided to meet a therapist, at last, named Imaan in the city.

It had been three years since Imaan started his practice. He precisely knew how to make people comfortable around him. They were in a tiny room, which he attuned to his patients. It had a cushioned chair, a medium-sized sofa facing opposite to the window, Bluetooth speaker in one corner, and a bookshelf mounted on the left side to the wall. The orange sunlight made its way from the window, highlighting the outline of her shoulders.

'We are close.' She answered.

Imaan smiled and noted it down in his handbook. It was the first time she responded positively to one of his questions. Tara's uncle, Ramesh, recently consulted him and made the appointment for her sessions. They already had six sessions together. She was one of his obstinate clients—almost silent throughout her first two sessions and barely said anything during the other ones. He let her settle down and waited for her to talk.

'How are you sleeping these days?' His words were steady.

Tara's response wasn't quick. The question stole the smile off her face. She recalled the night the day before and a quiver ran down her body. The screams were still echoing in her ears.

Her face reddened when she replied, 'Not good enough.'

Imaan fell silent, but he was attentive observing how cooperative her mind and body were. He noticed her bruises above elbow which she was hiding behind the scarf but chose not to mention them. He guessed someone might have hurt her in more than one place. She crossed her legs and sat crumpled into the edge of the sofa.

'I am having bad dreams,' she said before Imaan could ask anything.

'What type of dreams in particular?' he implied.

'They are just meaningless and random—like someone is dragging me away and I would be screaming my heart out. No one comes to rescue me—something like that.'

'Okay, anything else?'

Tara shook her head. 'I remember so little.'

'It's okay,' he ventured.

A Beethoven's melody was still playing mildly over the Bluetooth speaker. The sun was not orange anymore and an austere blue evening light filled the room.

'So, you mentioned in the last session that there was an incident.' Imaan came out of the comfort zone.

She nodded.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'It happened two weeks ago.' Her voice shuddered. 'We were attacked in our own house. I am okay, but they hit him pretty rough. He's in the hospital now.' The tears were seconds away to fall out of her eyes.

'Do you have any idea who'd hurt him?'

'No,' she moaned, 'why would anyone want to hurt him? He's so...' She took time considering the word to end the sentence, '... childlike.'

'How long have you been together?' Imaan duly asked.

'Eleven years.'

Her answer startled him. She mentioned in her details that she was twenty-eight. 'When were you both married?'