Warrior Hearts

Alone

Although I held myself together with the composure of a dry leaf who's hopelessly holding onto its branch during the middle of autumn - knowing that its efforts are in vain - during my journey to the chambers I previously occupied, I'm unable to do so any longer the second my feet cross the room's threshold and the doors shut behind me.

Collapsing into a crumpled heap on the floor, I lean my side against the footboard of the bed. An onslaught of tears burns at the back of my eyes, but I refuse to let them spill out. Curling myself into a tight ball - my knees tucked against my chest, my arms wound around them - I lower my cheek onto the duvet. And that's when a tear slips out of the corner of my eye, tracing a path over the curve of my nose and onto the bed, soaking it. Another follows. Then another. And a third...Until I'm no longer able to suppress the rivulets that snake their way along the side of my face.

But I'm not crying because of Manik; he no longer wields that kind of power over me after the way he treated me tonight. I'm crying for the dreams and hopes that I harboured which got shattered tonight; smashed into a hundred unrecognisable pieces. Manik wrapped his fist around their throat and suffocated them the way he wishes to murder our child. However, he may wield the power to destroy my aspirations, but not the child who is a part of me.

I never had a proper family, but ever since I found out about our babe, all I've looked forward to is giving it the happiness and home that I never had the good fortune of being a part of during my childhood. Alas, courtesy of Manik, I won't be able to provide it with that.

Although I do know that no matter the situation, the place, or the people who I raise my child amongst and with, my babe will have the very best life that I can offer it. I will never let it look back and harbour regrets or resentments of any sort towards me. And I don't need a man - I don't need Manik - to ensure this.

He may be excelling as a leader right now, but he surely failed me as a husband and the father of my child today. There's so much pent up anger within me towards Manik that I don't have any space left within me to feel so much as a sliver of another emotion towards him, or us. No remorse. No hurt. No disappointment. Nothing.

With this storm of thoughts raging within me against Manik, I allow my eyes to shut with the fatigue of all the tears that they've shed. And just like that, I fall asleep curled into a ball on the floor, ensconced in the raven black veil of nightfall.

*****

Unlike the weeks before Manik left for the capital, the days that follow that godawful night, he and I aren't missing each other by chance; I am making an active, conscious effort to not cross paths with him. On my orders, Celeste leads a fleet of servants into Manik's study, and instructs them to evacuate all my belongings from there, removing every last trace of my existence from that room.

That very same day, I take over the room that is adjoining my chambers and convert it into a personal study for myself. Alas, the lack of proper furniture has the interior of the room looking like a hurricane attacked it. My novels are scattered all over the floor in waist high piles. The scrolls that I usually stack, or store in an orderly fashion on shelves are rolling along every surface of the floor.

Perhaps the only corner of the room that has some semblance of order to it is the little desk and chair that I've set up in the corner opposite the window, so that I may look out at the view of the gardens beyond during the time that I'm seated at it. However, the desk, itself, is painfully small and cramped which makes my life a hundred times more difficult than it should be. More than once, I find myself dropping an ink pot off the corner of the desk, only to have poor Celeste marching in with a mop and bucket to clean up my mess.

Although I adopt a resolve of steel to immerse myself in work all day long, only to crash at the latest hour possible, so as to avoid any wayward thoughts and unnecessary emotions, by the third day my plan begins to fall apart. All the feelings that I was pushing to the back of my mind and locking my heart against, begin to cascade over me in unescapable waves that drown me.

The first emotion to catch up to me is disappointment for the man Manik failed to be for me; for the husband who failed his matrimonial duties, for the father who shirked his responsibilities, and for the human who proved to be an inhumane creature. Perhaps this is my punishment for falling in love with the man I thought Manik to be - for the person I wished him to be - instead of the one who he is. I also feel disappointed in myself for falling for Manik's facade once again, even though he's previously showed me the low level he can stoop to.

Truthfully, I'm unsure of who to blame more for the disappointment that spreads through me like a murky layer of suffocating fog, Manik or myself. All I'm aware of with crystal clear clarity is that this feeling has me spacing out more than once everyday, forcing me to question where I went so wrong as to place Manik on such a high pedestal. Although it is he who has fallen off it, I'm the one bearing the injuries and bruises of that fall; I'm the one who's suffering.

More suffocating than disappointment, however, is the longing that plagues me on a daily basis for my husband. Alas, this feeling refuses to come alone, it's always complemented by pain and hurt that are now so deeply engraved into my heart that I'm unsure I can picture myself without them being a part of who I am.

As much as I hate to admit this to myself, I miss Manik. I yearn to rewind the clock and return to those moments that he and I shared together, in which I've never known a greater joy. It's quite pathetic, though, to miss the very blade that cut you. But maybe that's love. I may not know what the future holds in store for me anymore, but what I am aware of with absolute certainty is that although I may miss Manik and what we shared together, I do not wish to return to it, or him.

I've self declared myself to be a recovering addict. I do miss the drug that gave me pure bliss, but I now know that it can only cause me great harm, and so I have no desire to return to it. If I thought that my self control and patience were being tested while I withheld my pregnancy news from those around me, then these past couple of days have proved me to be blatantly wrong.

Holding myself back from approaching Manik one more time, and giving him one last chance to rectify the mess he created in his study the other night, is the greatest test of my endurance, especially because the days are prolonged and the clock seems to standstill during the nights.

Buried under all these emotions is the resentment that I feel towards Manik as well, for robbing me of the joy of motherhood. I no longer have the desire to impart this news with anyone, and nor do I tell anyone else. The list that I was making to prepare for our child's arrival remains unfinished on my bedside table. All the plans that I had for its nursery remain just that, plans; I don't bring them to fruition because I've lost the will to do so.

And even though I know that I'm not alone during this time - that my child and I are now a team - I have never felt more alone. After all, for now my womb just carries a pea in it as per Bradbury.

Yet, I can cast aside all these thoughts and emotions for a while if I try hard enough, but there's the rotten most debilitating one of them all that is simply impossible to stow away for even the briefest of seconds - hope. In a darkened corner of my heart, a torch of hope still burns daily that Manik will somehow - through some miracle - realise his mistake about just how wrong he is, and come to my door to apologise, wanting to fix it all.

Alas, as the days blend into starless nights, I begin to accept the cold, unfortunate truth that Manik will not come to seek me out. And just like that, the torch begins to flicker, until it is nothing more than mere ash.