Tears and bruises

Part 1

I can hear the shower turned off, so it means he is coming outside. I try hard not to look at that direction, but it's impossible, since the infrastructure of the entire cottage is made like this that you can't unsee which is clearly visible. I made my way to the kitchen to fix him something like the dutiful wife i am. I made the breakfast and put it on the table. We ate and he leaves. I finally loosen up. It seems like the invisible leash on my neck is gone for sometime. Being around him is so suffocating . I wish he stay there as late as possible. I m still not used to have him back here. He scares the shit out of me . I wasn't always scared of men. I always stood up to them , always , until I got married to him at 23. I took my bus as I didn't wanted to be late for the university and tried to remember how i ended up like this.

The first time I saw Atharv , was when i was trying to find my timetable in the university. It was total cliché. He was that nerdy handsome senior with all the gentleness you could ask for and i was the ambitious junior charmed by him. I was in the first year of my Phd and he came in our class with his friends to guide us like the true gentleman he was. But the only problem was his pretty girlfriend. I got over him much sooner than I expected to be , all credit to the studies . We never really talked . There were few times I stole glances at him, it was embarrassing. Though they turned into shameless staring at each other when the news of his breakup circulated in the campus. I wish I could have stopped all that. After he completed his studies and our staring contests intensified, He placed a proposal to my parents who were in India and they were as shocked as me. I was the only child of my parents so i was sensitive sometimes. There wasn't any shortage of anything i ever needed in my house. There was just a tiny problem. My parents couldn't see me fail at anything. They instilled it in my head that much that I couldn't bear the thought of letting them down. There wasn't any straight forcible stuff from their side which I had to do but still in some things they made it clear I couldn't fuck their names. They had quite a good reputation . And i was well aware of it. They told me to think about it as the guy was good and had the same field as mine. I thought it to be true as well.

Causal eye flirting don't get you marriage proposals. But it did in my case and i was more than happy to say yes. There was just one problem when the marriage got fixed I thought now we will finally talk because it was not my parents era, where you don't talk or meet with someone who just sent you proposal but he didn't. There started my anxiety. It was small at first but as I tried to talk or meet with him ,he founded excuses to postpone my every effort and plan .I couldn't understand. His mother came to tell me that how surprised she is to know her son wants marry someone like me and how i said yes. I didn't get it and thought she was being mean. His mother was American but his dad might be Indian that's why he had same features like an Indian. But her next gesture made me surprised . She hugged me and cried that she was glad for us. I asked her about our no conversation issues and she said Atharv wants the marriage to be like old school. I was dumb enough to get along with the bullshit he was feeding me and my family because his mother and his stepfather talked to my parents ever since i said yes. My parents were impressed with all the old school theme. They thought it was the sign of a good upbringing. He was quite a player .

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