As Long As I Live

Informed Decision

Eid Mubarak!!

I thought I'd surprise you guys by updating on Eid itself but I got delayed by a few days!! :(

Lol, Enjoy!!

*****

"Mayra, please understand. You need to talk about it. Keeping everything bottled up inside of you is in no way healthy. I need to know how you felt when Aamir abused you. Even if you've buried it all deep inside your heart, I need you to resurrect it so that we can deal with it now."

Silence met his plea for answers. He was growing impatient, frustrated even, but he was a professional. He would keep his calm and his cool.

Moments passed and he simply looked at his client who stared at the painting on the wall. He had no idea what was going on in her head for her face was like an emotionless mask.

Both of them battled it out. Mayra refusing to speak and Gaurav refusing to let her remain silent. She had insisted that she wanted the time of abuse out of their sessions. She only wanted to speak of before and after it, skipping the most important part completely. Gaurav had refused to comply with it instantly. He told her that dealing with the history of abuse was going to be the crux of Mayra's recovery and that she had to be able to talk about it.

No amount of explaining on Gaurav's part seemed to have worked as she sat in front of him, adamantly against his requests and demands. And yet being the professional that he was he wouldn't back down.

He stared at her, his gaze unwavering, till he saw the barely perceptible slump of her shoulders. She then sighed, turned away from the painting and looked down at her hands.

"What do you want to know?"

Mentally doing a little sigh of relief, he kept his face straight and said, "How did it feel when Aamir first struck you?"

She flinched at the question but then took a deep breath in and said, "At first, nothing. Just pure shock. I didn't even register that he had hit me. I was on the floor and he was pacing the room in anger. Then it started to hurt, physically. Even then I was in shock. It didn't make sense to me that I had been hit. Abused. If it had stopped there, probably it would've been easier to forget I guess. It didn't though. I was called a 'whore' and a 'gold-digger'. That's when it started to hurt really bad in my heart. Like someone was squeezing my heart in their fist. Can you imagine, Mr Singh? When the man you've sworn your life to calls you that? On your wedding night? When the first day of your new life is horrible and it scares you to death thinking that your entire life is going to be the same? That your parents have given you up and the man promised to you won't take you in? Where do you go from there?

"I learned very soon in my relationship with Aamir that I had nowhere to go and that nobody was going to come to my aid. I could neither go back to my old life, because my parents had disowned me and neither could I move ahead. Divorce was out of the question. I was stuck, and the situation I was stuck in just deteriorated everyday and every night. It went from physical to brutal.

"I remember each and every time I was hit by him, Mr Singh. I remember the force with which his hand would strike my face. I remember the feel of his shoe when he kicked me. I remember the sound the belt would make when he lashed me. I remember the look on his face when he would strike me.

"But most clearly I remember the look in his eyes. The fire in them, the hatred, the disgust. That spark of achievement when I cried out in pain. I can never forget that. It still gives me nightmares. I know you expect me to try to reconcile with him because he regrets it and claims to love me. Everyone wants me to do it. You know what? I will reconcile with him, right now if you want, but you'll have to erase those memories from my mind. You'll have to make forget so that next time I see him smiling at me I won't look into his eyes, scared to see that look ever again. If you can do that for me, I'll reconcile with him in an instant. Can you?"