Tears streamed down my cheeks as I collapsed on the hard, cold floor. I silently prayed for everything to end as soon as possible because now it was crossing my bearing limit.
His harsh words had cut through me like a knife, leaving wounds that felt as raw as the ones he had inflicted on my body. The bruises and marks were a painful reminder of his cruelty, but his verbal assault felt like an attack on my very soul.
Emotional, physical, and mental pain are now getting too much for me to handle.
I knew that he could hate me so much. Every time, it is like a bitter pill to swallow realising that the person I had once looked up to, the one I believed night understand me, was capable of such cruelty.
My cries echoed in the room as I cried my heart out. The door of the room was still open, but I didn’t move from my place to close it, nor did I think about wearing my clothes back, the pain inside was far more overwhelming.
All the clothes that he has provided me are so exposed that I don’t like wearing them. I prefer wearing my jeans and the T-shirt in which I was brought here.
But at the moment, nothing mattered. I want to go out of this hell.
God, please send someone to save me. Please!
I wished for someone, anyone, to come and rescue me from this nightmare.
Hugging my knees, I placed my head on my arms and cried. My voice died, but my tears were not ready to dry.
Despite all this, I still have a thin hope that someone could save me from this darkness, which is now threatening to consume my whole existence because I am losing confidence in myself.
After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity I felt a presence in the room, which forced my head up, and to my surprise, I found Desy standing there. There was sympathy and small tears in her eyes. A sharp gasp escaped her lips as her gaze moved downward, taking in my exposed and vulnerable state.
Though her lips trembled with unspoken words, here eyes spoke volumes. They held a mixture of sorrow and empathy, a silent understanding of the pain that I was enduring.
Maybe because she has gone through the same or even worse.
She herself has told me that it was my brother who did all the cruelty to her, but still, my heart is not ready to accept it.
A raw, wrenching sob tore through me, echoing the depth of my agony. With my eyes tightly shut, I let the tears flow freely, I felt like each drop carried a fragment of the pain I couldn’t put into words.
And then suddenly I felt a soft cloth wrapped around my naked body, giving me warmth from the cold air that was making me shiver like a leaf.
My eyes opened slowly, and I found Desy helping me over my body with a thin duvet.
Our eyes locked a brief moment, a silent understanding passing between us before desy’s arms enveloped me in a warm, comporting embrace. I felt safe and at home in her arms.
I had never met her before, but she exuded the positivity and homely vibes I was looking for right now. I had been missing my mother a lot lately, and her touch felt motherly, even though she was only four years older than me.
I couldn’t keep from crying as she patted my back.
I cried, and cried some more.
I let out everything that had been building up inside of me since the day Ansell had taken me here.
She patted my back while I sobbed, and all the things that he had done to me in the past few days replayed in my head like a movie. I am not sure what crime is. What did I do to deserve all of this?
“I can’t believe Ansell could do such things to someone he used to adore so much” she said with tears twinkling in her eyes.
“He never liked me” I sobbed, my voice chocked with pain. “If he had, he would have never done this to me”
“I also accept the fact that whatever he is doing to you is very wrong, and I do not support him in any of this” Desy reassured me, her voice gentle and understanding. “But I cannot deny the fact that he actually used to adore you” she paused, “a lot”
It was a difficult pill to swallow, a reality that seemed to contradict everything I had come to believe about Ansell. I wiped my tears from the back of my palm.
“You were in his head all the time, and that’s why he didn’t date anymore” she sniffed.
I locked my lips as my brain tried to process her words.
“I have seen him staring at your photo for hours. That’s why, in our first meeting, it was a bit difficult for me to accept the truth, but now that I have seen his behaviour towards you, I am ashamed of him” Desy’s voice was soft, her words heavy with regret as she averted her gaze.
I could see how she was for her brother’s deed. While I still haven’t apologized to her.
“You know” she began, her voice trembling slightly as she looked up, her lips moistening with a nervous kick, ”
He was never like this. Our father was a part of the mafia, but Ansell didn’t want any of it. He resisted that life. He dreamt of a simple life someone he adores, and that someone was you”
She paused for a second. If this was the kind of life he dreamed about giving me, I would be glad if I stayed single all my life.
“He had a gallery full of your photos. There was even a separate folder with your name. He used to spend hours just looking at those pictures” she blinked.
I gulped as my eyebrows drew together. I could not believe what she was saying because now I could see nothing in his eyes other than hatred.
She sighed and drew a deep breath.
“He had a crush on you since he saw you first, but he never approached you because he was afraid it would jeopardize his beautiful friendship with your brother, and he was too shy to confess his feelings for you”
My mind was racing, trying to piece together the puzzle of Ansell’s past actions and his current behaviour.
“He never liked anyone hurting you or touching you, and somewhere I was aware of his possessiveness over you. He never missed any chance of helping you and just used to stare at you from afar and click your pictures without you knowing about it ” she chuckled, her eyes lost as if she remembered those days.
“One day I caught him staring at your picture on the phone, and that was the day when I became sure that he liked you. That was the first time I witnessed my stud brother melt like wax”
I still couldn’t believe what she was saying. I am sure she has some misunderstanding. I also know that he protected me, and I also thought of it as his love, because of which I fell for him like an idiot, but now I know his reality.
He was and is a sadist who was deadly obsessed with me.
And even if I believe her for one percent, it still doesn’t matter anymore how he used to feel about me because no amount of beginning or forgiveness is going to change my heart for him.
“But your brother never considered his friendship with my brother. He didn’t even think once that he had a beautiful sister at home before doing this to me” she looked down, “and this is the reason why Ansell changed completely. He has changed so much that now even I cannot find my old brother in him”
My eyes flicked to her wounds. I was surprised to see that she was hurt by a knife.
I had no idea we were sharing a home with a monster.
He was acting like an Ideal son and brother to us.
I would never have let him come home if I had known his true intentions, which were to kidnap a girl and do unimaginable things to her. I would have asked him to put himself in her shoes. But I was completely unaware of anything.
Everything was going on around me, and I wasn’t even aware of it! In what world am I living now?
A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I rested my head back on the bed, trying to stifle the flow of tears that lingered in my eyes. The weight of the truth was crushing, and I struggled to come to terms with the enormity of the situation.
Everything was too much for me. Though my heart still couldn’t accept the truth, she could not be wrong and had no reason to lie.
“I want to apologize to you on Ansell’s behalf” she murmured.
“There is no needed to apologize to me. If he is not guilty of his deeds, then all of this is pointless, isn’t it?” I said, as a lot tear escaped the corner of my eyes, “And it’s his fault, not yours ”
“Still, I am ready to do anything that could reduce the burden of my brother’s sins” her shoulders slumped. “I am truly sorry for what he has done to you, for not being able to stop him when I was right here”
“If you really want to help me, then tell me the way out of this hell”
I hoped against hope as I met my eyes with her.
“Show me the path to escape this nightmare”