"To Me Who Left" By Sambidha Bhandari

“I need you. Are you there?”, I wrote with tears in my eyes. 

“For what?” he replied. 

My eyes are getting heavier with every second as I read through the same message. The message is the breaking point. The words break what I felt for him. The words made me question why I spent all these years running in the road, corridors, door to door in the hope I see his face once a day. To see his smiling face as he talked to everyone but me. Was it wrong for me to wed someone who I never loved? Or was it wrong for me to walk away first in hopes that my lover could again spread his arms for me? 

“Stop, don’t touch me,” I yelled as he placed his hands on my thigh. 

We were on a date with friends, catching up with changes we were going through but my sudden scream changed the mood. Everyone was confused, he was confused. I couldn’t bear to look at them. Grabbing my things in a hurry I left all the money I had and left the restaurant, hoping no one followed me. 

That night he messaged me, “Do you still love me?” 

With bowling tears, a hand covered in blood, and a heavy heart I replied, “No. Not anymore. We are done. I’m sorry.”

I blocked his number, deleted my social media, and shut my phone down. I knew I was running away. I knew I could never stop loving him, but this was what needed to be done. This was what I believed would make better sense. Better for him and worse for me. 

Why did I do this? I wonder. 

It was early morning and my mom knocked on my door, “What has been done is done, I believe you did the right thing.” 

I opened the door with tears and hugged my mother who was already crying. “I loved him, Mom. I really do but maybe what’s written is never always what is wanted. I want him but my life has been written by someone else.” 

“I am sorry. I wish I could be stronger to take you away from here. But my love, even I cannot.” She cried with me. 

“It was never your fault Ma. It was...” I shuttered as I heard footsteps. 

A tall dark man stood in the middle of the stairs; he didn’t flinch nor lower his demeanor this was my grandfather. The patriarch of the family whom no one could speak against. 

“Wipe those crocodile tears. He is going to come in an hour. Be prepared.” He said firmly. 

This he was not the one who I loved. This was the “he” who ruined my life from the day he took the stairs to my house. 

He was a family friend who frequently visited. I could feel his disgusting looks at me everytime I walked; I had started to feel uncomfortable in my own household. Every night when he was there, I could lock the door because he could always try to barge in and something in my gut always told me to be safe than sorry. 

“You are so pretty even when you sleep. I cannot wait to feel your insides.” I heard whispers. 

I got up suddenly to myself half naked and this disgusting man on top of me fondling my body. I screamed at the top of my lungs. The warmth of my lover was being eaten by the devil on top of me. The caresses were being eaten by rough grasp, soft kisses on the forehead were eaten by licking tongues, and my dignity was eaten by my grandfather’s back. I saw everyone at the door, my family in the door being blocked by my grandfather. I kept on screaming and fighting the strong hands, the strong body on top of me but I failed when I heard, “She is yours. We will have you guys married by the end of her semester.” 

I stopped fighting. 

Those words by my own grandfather, the muffled cries of my mother, my father’s hands on her mouth as he hung his head in shame. I was stripped of everything that night. 

I don’t even remember the next morning; I just remember my lover’s hands in my thigh and the nightmare flashing in my eyes. I screamed in terror but couldn’t tell him why I did it. The only way I could protect him was by keeping the truth in me, from not letting him be eaten by the horrors that have eaten me. 

On the day I got married to the devil, my lover was standing in the crowd filled with people waiting to congratulate me. My mother walked up to him too and said something. They both hugged and cried. My mother cried her hands were tied by family because her only child was wedded off to the devil and my lover cried because if he could not beat the devil. 

As he approached me, my heart raised. I wanted him to catch my hand raise a gun fire the air and take me with him. But Alas, this was no Hollywood movie this was my family in reality and the written reality of life. He congratulated the devil and then as he held my hand, he gave me a small cheat. 

Today marks one year of my “so-called marriage” and also the one year of the devil’s death. He was killed. 

I am now seven seas away from everything. My family is dead to me and so am I to them. I picked up all the courage in me and opened the unopened cheat while looking outside to the ocean.