Jasmine.

4. Broken

BROKEN

Notes:

I realised I am going too fast. I might go back and edit the initial chapters. But for now I am slowing down.
This chapter is a bit depressing. But I think I need it to show how Aira recovers.

Aira was discharged three days later. Henry helped her to the car.

" Thank you Mr. Cavill." Farah thanked him as she got into the car. Aira was silent. She refused to speak to anyone. Henry was driving them home. He looked at her through the mirror. She was wearing a black hoodie and a black jeggings. She was playing with the sleeves of the hoodie. He saw her chewing her lower lip. She left the sleeves of her hoodie and started wringing her knuckles. She was bothered. He wished he could tell her everything was fine. But she wasn't ready to accept it.  Nabeel was pulling some strings to make sure her ex and his family would never come near her. She lost the light in her eyes, the very one which called him. There was nothing left inside her. It broke his heart. He didn't want to imagine what the man did to her in the past. 

Aira looked out of the window. Buildings were moving past her. She saw Henry looking at her through the mirror. What did she even do to deserve him? She was damaged goods. Broken beyond repair. Her baggage was heavier than anything. "Do I even deserve love?" She thought. She didn't realise she was chewing her lip and breaking her knuckle till Farah scolded her.

"Sorry," she said softly. Henry noticed her flinch tears were flowing down her cheeks. Farah asked him to stop the vehicle. She hugged Aira. The woman cried.

"Let her cry. Let her do that." Aira's psychiatrist had told them before they left. Henry saw a store around the corner. He got out of the car and went into the store. He got two tubs of chocolate ice-cream and another of vanilla.  He noticed that the store had some canned Indian sweets. He recognised one of them. He remembered her saying once that she loved having them with vanilla ice cream. He grabbed a can of the sweet.

The cashier was ogling at him. She was  twenty year old or so. He smiled politely. The girl smiled.

" Chocolates would help you know." She said.

"What?"

"Whoever you are helping right now with these ice creams would probably appreciate some chocolates too." She said.

"Thank you," he said before going to add some chocolate bars into the cart. He noticed a jar of nutella. He added it to his cart.

'She will probably murder me for making her fat?' Aira usually scolds herself for having too much chocolate. All her life she was told she was fat. In reality she wasn't. Henry thought she wasn't either too fat nor was she too thin. She had a healthy body, she was far too conscious about her body. She was curvy and that was what accentuated her beauty. He sighed the poor woman was always told she wasn't pretty and it affected her confidence. Though she tried to be confident in front of him he could see it break. She was strong, brave. He was sure no other person would have been able to accept it especially when it was her own family who forced her to lose weight.

"My mom and uncle always told my cousin and I to lose weight. We both were on the heavier side compared to other girls in the family. They thought we would never get grooms" She scoffed.

Henry was outraged when he heard it. He nearly felt sick when she told him that this was told to them both when they were just sixteen. He paid for his purchase and came to the car to find Aira fast asleep with her head resting on Farah's lap.