Dark clouds forming in front of my eyes should have been the only indication necessary to stop him. But I didn’t. Or did I? It’s hard to tell when you have tears in your eyes and blood on your hands.
On the verge of sounding cliché, I dare bring this nightmare of a memory to life by trying to put it in mere words. Starting from the beginning might not be the best route, so let’s fast forward to the ‘blood on my hands’ part.
The obvious line of thinking of an average human will now go to picture a body lying on the ground, soulless. To be honest, I, too, went over this very achievable thought many times. But it’s not true, obviously (not that I would ever admit). The blood was mine. It was dripping along the side of my neck in a very straight, thin line of red droplets. Fine, maybe I may have exaggerated a little. Guilty!
The scars still haunt me, though. I was lucky and succeeded in hiding them behind my not-so-long hair, but not for long, and not from everyone. My roommates from that time were quite the Sherlock-Watson pair with me. The instant I ran inside my hostel room with tear-stained cheeks, they knew. They suspected another ‘light quarrel’, but it was the first time something like this happened, so they were not to blame for guessing it wrong.
Before that dreadful day, I was quite the genius at hiding every little tear from them, behind the dimple-laden smile I possessed. But everyone falls from the high horse eventually. It was my time to be seen with my bare emotions. And that was the best thing I ever did in my life, if you ask me. Now, what was happening in front of their eyes was not what they had imagined, but worse. The reason behind this moment was a 4-inches-shy-of-6 feet human male menace.
I applaud myself for being a real-life example of the infamous Stockholm syndrome. Yes, you guessed it right, I was in love with that person, truly and fully, Cliché, right? And the worst part was that he knew what he was doing all this time. What started with hurtful strings of meaningless words I was forced to listen to, was now in the deep end of being called a full-on mental and physical assault.
Too dark? Let’s dial back a little.
I must give it to him, though, for standing up for himself on the obvious wrong side of the debate. He dared to dig his lady-like long fingernails and pierce through my neck and still beg me to stop screaming! I assure you, I am a feminist; it’s just that there are no other words to describe the heinous length of nails on that boy’s hands. Hence, the scars.
It was not just the curses or the scars I got. Most of it all, it was betrayal. What he led me to believe was far from what he showed when his true colours emerged. And he didn’t even give me a chance to disregard the incident as a mistake, because mistakes don’t tend to happen more than once. I might be delusional, but I was a weak-minded human with little to no self-esteem left to say that I was a victim. Oh, stop with the pity already! I, too, had my fair share of strengths, my two lovely living companions.
They went straight to the authorities, the college ones, not the legal ones. Then a dramatic play of the back-and-forth dialogues started. I was summoned and directed to enlighten my parents about the recent joys and horrors of my campus life. I would not have imagined that this would be the way they got to know about a ‘special someone’ in their daughter’s teenage life.
When that happened, I may have omitted the mention of the very clearly visible scars decorating my skin. In my defense, lying by omission is not technically lying. Moving the process ahead, I was sent to an office and was told what a good student I was. The authoritative man in front of me was clearly trying to boost my ego, and it worked. I then described the multiple incidents I was unfortunate enough to be in, and to my surprise, earned a chocolate in return.
It was good to get it all out of mind and know that something, although very little, will happen to right this unjust behaviour. So, I started trying to forget the feeling of being caged by his strong hold and the ringing I heard inside my head when the palm of his hand collided with my face. I was clearly in defeat pursuing that, as I still jolt up at night, hearing his voice and feeling his hands clutching my wrists tightly, restraining me from fleeing.
Whoever said, ‘time heals everything’ might not have been on the receiving end of anything like this, because nothing heals entirely. The last 4 years might have taught me to be more careful in my judgment of people and skilled me in developing severe trust issues, but all this time has never diluted the effect of the nightmares I have been having.
The boy in question was called in the office soon after I left, and I am pretty sure whatever happened did not get him a chocolate from the man on the spinning chair. In fact, what he got was the chance to let his parents know the turn of events in their golden boy’s perfect college life. And an interesting thing I got to know later was that he allegedly gave a written apology addressed to me (which I never received).
I was not sure what was going to come after the humiliation he suffered, but I was right to expect something. And he came, tears-first with his signature dramatic flair, completed with wails of a child deprived of candy. He was in dire need of something between forgiveness and consolation from me, which I was not allowed to provide by the laws created by generations of victims. So, I did the best I could, I feared the existence of him till I diminished the chances of being in the same vicinity.
Being the introvert I am, I did not at all like the situation my peer-turned-bodyguards put me into. Suddenly, I was somehow put in protective custody of them and was not ‘permitted’ to stroll in peace to the dreaded classes alone. But that was what I got in return for wanting a happening college life!
Not to sound too hopeful, but I do dream about what adventures lie ahead if only this would end now.