'Sometimes I think I fell in love because you are the perfect partner. One who listens and doesn't talk back. Confined to bed, you have little chance to go astray. I can control the length of your facial hair, your hairstyle, so you look like the way I want you to and not go on a no-shave November. Beard's not for handsome boys like you; you have nothing to hide.'
She runs her hand over my face.
'You will be all right. It will be such a waste of a good life if you don't wake up.'
She shakes her head.
'You know what I'm looking forward to most? For you to wake up and photograph me. Naah, not for the 54 followers on instagram. For myself. I want to know how you will see me. Will you hate me? Will you like me? I keep thinking about it every night, imagining various scenarios. In most, you're grateful to me because I saved your life but then you walk off with a nice girl.
She turns towards me.
'You make me want to be nice again. Be good and kind. Isn't that something, Ananth? You make me want to believe in love.....you.....were supposed to be my story. Instead, you changed mine.' She then puts her arm around me and closes her eyes. She whispers 'I like feeling this way. It's been ages since I have felt like this. And I want to hold onto this feeling, hold onto you.'
I feel her breath on my neck. She is close, way too close for comfort.
'You know what? I won't ever let you leave me. You are mine now, forever. But you must be wondering who am I?'
She kisses my neck gently and rests her head on my chest, right above my heart, gently thrumming her fingers on my fractured ribs.
'I am the girl who has always been invisible to you. I have watched countless girls fall for your handsome face, your charming personality and your quick wit. And I have also watched you giving them what they desired. It felt like a knife twisting my dark soul.'
The thrumming stopped and I felt her going still.
'But now my agony has come to an end. Now I can start living my life again. I am so excited for the next chapter in our lives to begin.' She says happily.
Her love for me is toxic and it is suffocating me. I cannot do anything except lie there, listening to her future plans involving me being in a perpetual vegetative state.
My limbs won't move. They are like dead weights lying beside me. My head feels like it would explode any minute. Everything aches and I feel as if I am burning, I don't know if it's the fever or the immense rage I feel listening to the woman talking about me as if she owns me, as if I am her slave.
Suddenly I feel light, like I am floating in air, and I feel it spreading through my veins, that sense of laziness you feel after a trying day.
'Sleep my prince charming. Your Cinderella will be taking care of you.........' are the last words I hear before everything goes dark and the burning subsides.
