Open Heart {Under Revision}

Chapter 16- Women of Red

Seven Years ago....

I was floating in the air.

I was floating in water and air, between them both in a phase which was sublime but never discovered to world. I was cold and warm, I was light and heavy, and I was a dreamer and achiever. I was tired and ready to join hands with the man I desired to follow since I was born. The man who promised to protect me and in end, we protected each other. And now, there was nobody to protect me anymore. Never have been after He left me.

The bathroom room slammed open and my mother's face appeared. For a moment she looked at me, and then at the red water surrounding the pristine white floor of her pristine perfect empty villa. The water, red and light—light and red, crimson red for my pain, ruby red for my love and scarlet red for my innocence. They mingled together and told their stories to her, reaching with water likes waves lapped on beach. When they touched her expensive shoes, my mother let out inhuman scream and ran to me.

I closed my eyes and forgot the world, losing myself in air and water and red.

When my eyes opened to world next time, I was in a sterile smelling room with dimmed lights and an ugly beeping which never seemed to leave my trail. I listened to its beeping, listening to my heart beating and then tried to get up—only wincing down in pain as my thighs burned like fire. I gingerly took off my blanket and saw my left leg cocooned in gauze white.

A doctor came—or maybe she wasn't a doctor. She was petite but hard faced with even harder expression and her mouth drew into a thin line when she saw me awake before marching out.

Then my mother came. Her hair was wild—blonde locks everywhere. Her beautiful face had aged ten years more with deep circles under her eyes. She was concerned. And tired. And worried and scared. My mother's face was betraying those emotions in a single minute which she rarely did in last fifteen years.

"Why?" her posh, perfect heart-shaped lips shook like a piranhas' jaw, "Why? After everything?"

"I did something." Was the only reply I gave her.

She heaved forward, almost doubling over, "I know what you did. I don't care why you did that but what did you do this?"

My mother, my dear mother would never understand me. I tried to move into a sitting position without moving my legs and asked her instead, "How can I live after that?"

"Live after confronting truth? Live after facing your fears?" her eyes flashed, "You will live your damn fucking life and let me live my damn fucking life. How dare you to be so weak? How dare you?!"

The last line echoed so loud that I almost covered my ears. My mother never, ever used those words and since she was using it now, I understood that mom was submerged under water too. I lived underwater and mom was trying to get inside as well. But there was only one problem. After so long, I had adapted to breathe and live but she could never gulp oxygen in my underwater home. She had no place there except like a brazen kelp drifting away with ocean current.

"How dare you after everything I have done for you—" her tone trembled in the whole hospital as she continued, heaving and lurching and gasping, "—you do this to me?"

Even though tears ran freely from my face, I took my anger from my pain and snapped, "You are late. You are always late, mom." I pointed at my leg, "You are not in my head. You don't know what I see and hear everyday, every night. Its all coming back. Its all coming back!"

"What?!"

"She kept them inside me!" I screamed, "She locked them all inside me! That's how she did her work! She tried to make me forget but now? I remember!"