Ruination

15. Accusations and Misunderstandings

-Some people hurt the hands that help them-

Sila

Pain...there are moments where you see others breathing in smiles and you realize that not everyone gets a taste of depression. Everyone has their share of tales, scars behind glittery facades, but in your pain, you just see others living fairytales, floating. When drowning, every floating one is noticed instead of focusing on the sunk ones. 

I was drowning.

Breathless, pressure so gripping on me, hands reaching out in desperation but finding no hand to grab on. This is what depression felt like. Bitter. insane...retreated to the anxious parts of my heart. And strangely,  my moments of smiles arrived when I would get to meet Nabeel. The little baby had the sweetest smile-so innocent and pure. It was a gift. 

"Hush, sweetie," I gushed, allowing him to hold two of my fingers in his tiny fists. 

It was lunchtime, and I had slipped out of Hall B to visit this baby. Any moment, he would be taken away from this place. In fact, he hardly stayed at this place for an hour or two. I knew that Eliyas won't let Nabeel stay in this place for long; this is how horrible minds thought. 

Everyone was a threat or danger for crude people. They believed that everyone had the capability to stoop low. I was actually surprised why Eliyas was even allowing Nabeel to stay at this place for an hour or two. It was quite confusing. 

Anyhow, no matter, what Eliyas was thinking, I knew that I could never stoop down to his level of nastiness. 

This was my husband's son.

Sighing, while taking in broken breaths of vulnerability, my days turned into a routine-a routine that I was again following today. 

The babysitter had brought Nabeel out for a walk in the gardens and I had intervened. There were hardly a few people outside. Somehow, it was a lonely part of me that sought out for longed emotions. This baby's father had hurt me. I wanted to remain in the bubble where I had an upper hand, where I did good in exchange for bad. 

"Nabeel..." I pinched the baby's cheek, as the babysitter allowed me to hold him. The sun was blazing hot. The babysitter handed me Nabeel's milk bottle and then moved behind some bushes to talk on her phone. So many employees did that here. 

If this was how reputed daycares managed things, I wonder what the condition of the low-level daycares was. It was horrible to think how insensitive people could be. Yet, this time, I wasn't surprised.

Rocking Nabeel and caressing his cheeks with the palm of my hands, feeling my tears tickle down on his cheeks every now and then, I watched as he simply gave me smiles, gargling randomly and making happy noises.

He liked me.

"Aww...Nabeel, you are the cutest baby ever." I was having a heart-to-heart confession with a baby. "Your father...he has hurt me so much." It was like a catharsis to me; rant it all out to the son of my oppressor. "He has hurt me, and he has you. I wish I had you! Sweet baby...I wish no harm comes to you, that you never have to pay for your father's actions." People were cruel for contaminating children with toxicity.

Sweetest beans crushed by some monsters of our society. No child was a killer, murder, etc..it was society that turned innocent minds into sinister beings. It was the society that didn't even spare children/

I didn't want that to happen to Nabeel. I didn't want yet another innocent person to become a victim of Eliyas's viciousness. I knew Eliyas would raise his son the same manner he had been raised. Those moral values, customs...this little baby would be told to break and snatch, and it was just painful thinking about how this sweetest baby would soon be breaking hearts and destroying homes.