The Broken Tale

Confronting me

The small cell was no more than twenty feet squared and dark. Very dark. Only a small lightbulb illuminated the tiny room. There was no window she could spot, not even a small cranny she could spot in the walls. He looked unrecognizable. But she grinned. He was not the only one who was unrecognizable, she herself was unrecognizable.
She was not the same little girl she had been. It had taken her an entire lifetime to grow from the helpless victim she had been to Layla.
Layla Elanore Morain.
She was not the helpless girl crying in his hands, shivering in his shadows. Now she was towering above him. He was the one curled up against the wall and her watching, free to walk out that door while he would be left alone in the shadows.
Black.
Layla took a step back as his black eyes locked in hers. Even though he was rendered defenseless and harmless, fear caused her stomach to turn. But now it was not him himself that scared her, now it was the memories. The memories of the endless nights she had spent begging to get out of his clutches, of the countless bruises and blows he had inflected on her body, the blood that covered his hands.
Layla flinched as she felt the hand on her shoulder. She was met with Chanel's reassuring smile as she turned her head. Reminding her that it was okay, that she was safe, he no longer had the upper hand.
"Looking better I see, ladies?" Ali said.
Though his voice was husky, he still had his intimidating charm.
"I wish I could say the same to you." Chanel replied, matching his charming smile, "Maybe I should tell the staff to give you some hair gel with that porridge?"
"I'd appreciate some wine or whiskey, Babe, but I wouldn't say no."
"I'm sure you wouldn't."
Ali's attention shifted to Layla. His black eyes pierced through her like a burning dagger like it always had. Layla tried stepping back, half ready to run but Chanel held tightly onto her hand. Allowing her to step back as much as she wanted but not to run. She had been running for too long.
"And how's my beautiful wife." He stopped himself, laughing slightly, "Sorry, I meant ex wife. You know I can feel you thinking of me when you're buying those expensive shoes, Laili?"
Layla's grip around Chanel's hand tightened so much that she felt the circulation being cut off.
"So with nothing to do in a little room, you're starting hallucinate?" She replied as confidently as she could.
Chanel sighed and knelt down right in front of Ali.
"I'll leave you two alone to have a little talk before you'll have to get to your new home." She said with a small smirk forming in the corner of her mouth, "I'm sure the trial gave you a few things to talk about."
She stood back up.
"Mister Elmar, I'd suggest you make the most of the last few moments you have with your ex wife. It's the last you'll have for a long time. Although I can't say you have the right to do much talking." She patted Layla's shoulder gently and her voice dropped down to a whisper, "I'll be watching from the cameras so don't worry. Just like I told you, Laili, this is probably the last time you'll have to see him so let it all out. You're safe, I'm watching and so are the guards, alright?"
Layla glanced at the feeble man crouched by her feet. It felt surreal to believe that weakling could ever do anything to hurt anyone. He looked so...harmless. It fascinated her to think of how easily he had been reduced to what he really was.
"Thank you." Layla replied slowly without breaking her eyes from his.
"Behave, Mister Elmar." Chanel said cockily one last time before she left.
Slamming the heavy iron door behind her, only silence followed afterwards. They were left alone as they had been innumerable other times but now countless many things were unmistakably different.
But as Layla knelt down in front of the man she once called her husband, she realized that everything was different. Different from how it had been and how she thought it would be.
"Recovered well, I see." Ali finally broke their silence.
She scoffed, "It's been six months, what'd you expect? Your kicks would keep me on the floor for life or what?"
"Your attitude's gotten worse. Your boyfriend ain't keeping you in line or you've learnt how to bend his mind from that posh whore friend of yours?"
"You know, Ali, it's bastards like you that literally disgrace other men."
He laughed, "I'm the disgrace? Honey, you'll never know how much men like us are worth until you get in with pussies like Brian."
"Why? Because he doesn't beat my ass for the smallest things?" Layla questioned ironically with crossed arms.
"It's called correcting, Layla. Pussies like him don't have the balls to keep their women in check chase they're too busy eyeing your curves to realize how badly you're messing up. They want one thing and one thing alone. Because you little sluts can give it to them, you have them wrapped around your finger."
Layla sighed. Chanel had already told her what replies to expect and that was one she emphasized a lot on.
"Men like him believe they're right because the societies they grew up in drilled it in them that they had divine right over their women. It's not them, it's the cycle of destruction they grew up in."
Chanel's words were engraved in her mind.
She sat calmly right across from him. Her face was just inches from his but not because he had yanked her hair to be but because she wanted it to be.
"Be calm and confident because that's how he doesn't want to see you be. Once you're calm, Layla, once your rage and fear aren't blinding your eyes, that's when you'll see what's really happening."
"Ali, the men that you call pussies don't hurt us but it's not because they can't, it's because they love us too much to imagine laying a hand on us." She explained calmly.
"That's why you become tramps. There's nobody to correct you."
"Maybe we're not always the ones who need to corrected. Maybe you aren't the ones who have to correct us all the time."
"So your tiny minds will correct us?" He snorted disbelievingly.
She shook her head, "This is what got you here, you know? Maybe if you had just accepted that you're not a piece of God himself just because you have a dick then you wouldn't be here. Maybe I wouldn't be either."
"Maybe I should've listened to your Mom and cuffed you up in Arbil where you belonged. This western bullshit really did find a way to your little head."
"Ali, as much as I didn't want to, Chanel insisted that you shouldn't rot in prison. It was her idea to get the lawyers to get you into her reform prison program instead of just a life sentence."
He rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Gee, bless that whore." He mumbled under his breath.
"Now, now, honey, be a little nicer to her. That 'whore' is the one who fought to give you a second chance in life." Layla answered a little more easily, "It's because of 'that whore' that you have a chance to learn and get back into society in a few years."
"I never needed her pity." He lamented.
Layla shrugged, "Well, she honestly didn't care. You got it anyway. To be honest I told her you don't deserve any kind of help but she insisted that you did."
He opened his mouth to shoot back a reply but stopped himself.
"Oh really then?" He started after a pause, "And why did you agree? Couldn't you have testified despite what Chanel wanted? Or gotten your lawyers to just listen to what you want not her?"
She nodded idly, "Yep. I could."
"Then why, hm? Why did you help the man who beat you for years? Why'd you help the same guy that killed your baby?" He asked.
Layla smirked to herself. Chanel was right.
"Deep down at this point, Laili, he's probably accepted what he's done. He'd probably always known it but the thing is that he believes he did it for the right intentions."
"Because I'm not like you." She replied, "But I'm going to be honest, Ali, I didn't want to at first. For years, my one goal in life was to watch you and scoundrels like you behind bars. I can't even fight the strong urge easily now."
"Layla, you can pretend like you hate me all you want but we know that's not true. You need me, babe, and it's not me that you hate, it's discipline and correction that you hate."
Layla shook her head slowly, "Nope. Ali, there's so much to learn that I never had a chance to. So much to learn that other people don't want to learn, taking their opportunities for granted. If I hadn't met Chanel then I don't think I would've learnt them. You know, in a way if you hadn't hurt me enough for me to get Chanel's help in the first place then I wouldn't have learnt anything."
He raised an eyebrow in rather shocked amusement.
"Come on, Babe, you can't just give me the credit for your new knowledge and not tell me what that damn knowledge is."
"Ali, there's no reason to put people like you in prison. It won't give the years you took away back to me. It won't give my baby back to me. It won't give my damn sanity back either. The one thing it'll do is just add another ruined life to the pile and what good is that, Ali?"
He laughed, "That whore really has gotten to your head. Can't blame you though, she can get into a saint's head."
"She's way too great of a person for you to understand anytime soon. Let's hope that reform can change you because letting you get away with this wasn't an easy choice to make."
Layla let out a satisfied sigh off of her chest. She rose to her feet and looked down at the man for one last time.
"I spent too long thinking that you're a monster. I used to think that you raped me because you couldn't control your sexual impulse. I've been horrified of you for far too long." She said as she crossed her arms over her chest, "But now I realize that you're not a monster nor a horny dog."
"For heaven's sake, Layla, cut the pep talk in half, would you?" He interrupted.
"You're a small, small man who needs to hurt and dominate other people to make yourself feel better. I'm just hoping the next few years of reformation will help you built up some level of self esteem. You know, maybe you can actually meet someone who you can love without hurting a few years down the line."
"Yeah? A fallen socialite with a criminal record for rape and violence?" He asked rhetorically, "I don't think so."
"Chanel's reformation progrma's offering you more than you can ever imagine, Ali. Believe me, if you're willing to change then Chanel has that part of the problem taken care of for you too."
"Go to hell and take that stray dog of yours with you."
"You really can say whatever you want, Ali, this is the last time I'll see you anyway." She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, "I'm just saying. Don't prove Chanel wrong because she really does wholeheartedly believe even bastards like you can change. You're not doing it for anyone but yourself now."
"That's easy for you to say, you fucking bitch! You're not the one who has to be under lock and key for who knows how many damn years to come!" He bellowed angrily.
"And you aren't the one who had to wipe your own blood off of the floor everyday. Your dreams were torn away from you. Your husband didn't violate your body every single day. You didn't spend hours crying and trying to scrub the dirt from your body."
His eyes filled with tears. But tears for what, Layla wondered? For what he had done to her or for what the consequences of his actions were? If it had been six months ago, Layla would have easily said that the only thing he regretted was being caught. But now, Chanel's words over the past few months had warped her entire view of perpetrators like Ali. Now she was unable to decide anything.
But even despite the tears in his eyes, his features didn't flinch. He stared at her indifferently.
"You weren't locked in one house for months! You weren't accused of murdering a child you loved! You didn't give birth alone with no help! You'll never taste as much death in your entire life as I did in one fucking day!"
Her voice rose louder and louder as each memory flashed by every moment. She gave up on all effort to keep the calmness Chanel had emphasized so much on. If this was the last time she was going to see him then she would say what she had desperately wanted to say for nearly six years.
"You have seen nothing! You fucking asshole, you've scarred my reputation for life! People will always be scared of me, some will never let me around kids thanks to you! You've broken my body so many times that I can't even walk a few yards without crying in pain! I'm scared every time someone taps my shoulder! Sex scares the living shit out of me! You didn't just violate my body, Ali, you violated every cell in my goddamn mind and every part of my life! And for what? For what? What was so valuable that you ruined so many lives for? Just so you could feel powerful? So you could feel better? What you did to me was not tradition or relgion! Niether religion nor Iraqi traditions make you strip your wife and whip her like the Christ in front of her family! Your traditions never said rape your wife in front of her family! You ruined me just for your own ego and nothing else!"
He looked away, "Then why did they do it?"
"Are you fucking dumb?" She shouted back, "That's why you're not going to fucking prison! You're being given something you never gave anyone, a chance to heal! Use it, Ali, because neither I nor Brian will ever give any thought to you ever again! I've had enough abuse in my life, I don't want any more!"
Enough.
She had had more than enough.
This was the moment she had been dreaming of for so long, the moment that had been driving her to fight past everything that happened to her. Yet even as she was at the door, her body refused to obey her. Frozen at the door and feeling Ali's eyes glaring through her skin, the room was closing in on Layla. Ali was taking in all the air, leaving Layla with none. Her hands froze on the button.
"Press it. Press it already, Layla, goddamit!" She forced herself to keep her thoughts silent, "Press it, Layla!"
"What's wrong? Can't leave?" He asked mockingly.
She clenched her fists. The teeth that countless dentists appointments had finally fixed were crushing together but her body refused to move.
"He's right! You can't leave him, you're not strong enough! You can't leave those demons behind!"
"Shut up! I can! I can! I can! I just..."
"You just what?"
"I-"
"Layla?"
Her voice cut through the ice solid air. Layla looked up from her shoes and groaned as cold pain shot through her stiff muscles. Chanel's stone cold glare stared back at her.
"Are you okay?" She asked, glancing over at Ali.
Layla nodded quickly, "I'm fine."
Chanel stepped to the side, "I think that's enough talking."
"More than enough." Layla replied, "I was done long ago."
"Then I think we must go." Chanel sighed, "Brian and everyone else is waiting."
Chanel's smirk reflected the unease on Ali's face so precisely that Layla needn't even look back at him.
Chanel navigated through the busy highways as she tried to navigate through two phone calls. Layla was left to tremble in her seat. Digging her fingers into the seatbelt, she watched as Chanel muted one call to answer the next all the while texting on a different phone and driving. She wanted to warn her to stop but was cut off each time with another buzz of one of the three phones.
Finally, Chanel stopped the car. The roads ahead were barely visible underneath all the cars and traffic ahead. With a click of a button and a few scans of the license plate, the car was lowered into the underground tubes. Chanel finally was able to take in a breath of relief. She relaxed back into her seat and selected their destination on a small holographic map.
"Are you okay?" She asked as the car slowly started to move.
Layla nodded, "He couldn't really do much."
"Layla, words can hurt more than actions sometimes."
"Not when you're used to the action part being a pain." Layla snorted.
"I just saw you getting a little worked up in there that's all."
"I just...I had to let it out. I know you said I shouldn't but I couldn't help it. It's been six years, Chanel, six damn years. I couldn't hold back."
She nodded, "I get it, Layla, it's totally normal to feel like that."
"Can I ask you something?" Layla asked.
"I'm all ears."
"When I wanted to leave, I...I didn't seem to be...I-"
"Couldn't bring yourself to leave?"
Layla nodded. Keeping her eyes away from Chanel's as she lowered her head in unexplainable shame.
"Like I've said before, Layla, that's normal. Given enough time, we all may begin feeling safe in our suffering. It's subconscious. You can't just expect to wake up and suddenly be free of everything. You can't just step over the boundary between your old life and your new one in the blink of an eye."
"Gee, Chanel, that makes me feel so much better." Layla murmured sarcastically.
Chanel chuckled, "Layla, I'm not saying you can't get out of it. I'm saying it'll take some time and you need to be patient. You babe to allow yourself to grow out of your old life. Nobody can just snap back to your feet in the blink of an eye. Be patient and allow yourself to grow and heal because you're still human."
"Where's at strength you keep talking about?"
"Being strong doesn't mean magically jumping back to your feet. Being strong means that you heal and grow intelligently not quickly." She placed her hand on Layla's shoulder, "I think you've gotten to your body and mind being iron strong when it's being attacked. But let me tell you, Layla, healing is different from fighting. Fighting is simultaneous and requires nothing more than strength. Healing needs time, patience and perseverance. Take your time."
Layla sighed and raised her gaze to meet Chanel's grin.
"Thank you."
"Always, Layla."
The baby's face glowed into a smile as she caught a glimpse of her mother. Layla jogged across the balcony and quickly scooped the baby up in her arms.
"Did you miss me, little one? Did you miss me, Alondra?" She asked as she placed kisses on the baby's cheeks.
Layla gave Brian a quick peck on his cheek and hopped up on the table and set the baby down on her lap.
"I want to kill anyone with energy." Talya moaned tiredly.
Layla laughed, "I didn't tell you to have a baby!"
"You're just over dramatic sissies." Brian added, "Raising a kid is really not that hard."
"That's because that moron's given you nannies!" Alexander shot back.
"Don't pin your laziness on me." Chanel replied with her eyes stuck to her phone.
"Oh please sleep already, honey." Talya pleaded helplessly with the baby in her arms.
"Don't worry, Markie, you're always welcome to stay with us." Layla said to the baby.
"And why would he need to do that?" Talya asked.
"In case he ever wanted to get away from the lazy little shits he has for parents."
"Go to hell, prick."
"Will you kill each other if I leave?" Chanel asked, pushing the phone down into her pocket.
"Don't tell me you're leaving." Brian replied, "You literally landed here this morning."
"I have to get to Vienna. Summer just started and we promised Alaya a vacation."
"You've probably spent half of your life in a plane." Alexander commented.
"Probably." Chanel sniggered with a smile, "But hey I gotta make money and raise kids."
"Are you flying back now?"
"No, Alex, I'm waiting till tomorrow." She answered as she rolled her eyes, "Why would I be leaving if I'm not flying back now?"
"Jesus, you and your moods."
"You and your moods." She imitated him mockingly.
"Will you be back in the U.S anytime soon?" Brian asked.
"Probably in a month or two. I've tried clearing my schedule as much as possible so we can be with the kids for the summer."
"A month or two? That's too long." Layla said, "I'll miss you."
Chanel wrapped her arm around her shoulders, "Phones exist, Layla, we'll talk all the time. Plus now that your little girl is getting older, Mom and Dad have a lot to teach her. I guarantee you'll be really busy."
"Doesn't sound bad. I wanna teach her how to swim."
"She's barely seven months old, Brian, be patient." Layla replied.
"Cameron was ticking down days when Alaya was born so he could take her bowling and dancing."
"Cameron can dance?" Brian asked in shock.
"Dude, all three of us can. Cameron taught Alaya so we've agreed that I'll teach Crystal once she's old enough."
"I can't imagine Cameron dancing. I don't know why but I just can't."
Chanel chuckled, "He's actually really good at choreography."
"Can't see it."
"Oh come on!"
The sun was shining in the cloudy skies but Layla did not feel the least bit cold. Alondra twisted in turned in her father's arm as they walked Chanel to her car.
"I really wish you didn't have to go." Layla repeated.
Chanel turned to her with a smile, "I work in the U.S a lot, Layla, we'll see each other again soon."
"We'll miss you." Brian said.
"I'll miss you too."
"If you even have time to miss us."
"Oh come on, Brian." Chanel pouted, "Don't be so hard on me."
"You and your pouty eyes." Brian said with a laugh.
"Alaya must get it from somewhere."
Chanel only laughed fo a brief moment before her expression died down into a more serious tone.
"I know I've said it before but I'll say it again. Patience is the most important thing you can have now. You need to recover not fight."
"We know, Chanel, you don't have to worry about us." Layla reassured her.
"I'm so proud of you both. You've made it this far, I'm sure you can go further."
"Thank you."
"Call me if you need anything, alright?"
"We will."
"Oh and Brian, you can go back to work on Monday."
"Same positin?" Brian asked.
"You'll see." Chanel answered with a playful wink.
"Text us when you land." Layla said.
Chanel,placed a quick kiss on alomdras head before she hopped into the car.
"I will."
        Layla leaned her head against him, tapping her foot in sync with his heart at as Brian's arm rested around her hips. The sunset painted the sky in the same creamy colors that it did that day. The same day less than six years ago, Layla watched the sun set alone, knowing that Ali and a marriage proposal awaited her. She marveled at the thought of how different her hopes were back then. All she had wanted then was to live normally and have a stable relationship with Ali even if they did not fall in love. Yet there she was. Standing before the setting sun with a man who loved her more than anyone else did and a small piece of both their worlds, their child, in her arms. She wished that eighteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than a chance to breathe freely had known what awaited her. She wished she could have told that girl that all the beatings and all the nightmares would someday all be gone. Perhaps that would have made the ordeal less painful.
           But yet again, if she had known at the time that her pain would be over then she would not have fought it as hard as she did. Perhaps it was better that she had felt hopeless sometimes. After all it was those times that had taught her not only strength but how truly precious every moment of life is.