I've Loved Him Before

Chapter 5: Just the beginning.

Katherine had all but given them a start, a place to begin with. And that's all the media needed to rip that small corner that she opened to reveal that lay below the perfect wallpaper.

My miscarriage, my rape, my child, my break-up (the fucked up version of my ex), and me stealing Nils and making him leave his marriage. The internet painted me black. And I hurl backward and only manage to catch myself as not to fall right on my back. I walk to the couch and keep my hands on its canvas backing to keep myself from rocking side to side, I could hear my heartbeat rushing to my ears slowly and steadily thumping right in the middle of my head dulling my senses as I tried to catch my breath which I couldn't locate, I couldn't feel the air in my throat, I couldn't feel it brush the tips of my nostrils. And my mind hurled me backward making me blackout into a dream.

flashback

I sat in the front of my screen leaning on the desk back in India at my parents' home. I was staring at a design scholarship in Germany. They had accepted me, I could leave it all behind. All behind for all and once.

I go back into a deeper slumber.

I wake up into another dream of me packing my bags and saying goodbye to my parents at the airport. I sit down on the airplane as it takes off I remind myself what I was leaving behind. The reputation I won't have anymore, the clean slate I was headed towards. The one heartbreak that defined who I was in front of everyone. It made me feel so very stuck that everyone had this opinion of me that wouldn't change no matter what I did to change myself. That I wasn't the same person I was during a freaking difficult time. I was better but whenever they saw me do something new, they would always conclude that it would end the same way it ended up all the while ago while I was trying to move past it. That I was trying to make it different but their comments never changed. The feeling of not being able to breathe.

I took a sharp inhalation to remind myself that I could breathe again and I opened my eyes in the present.

"Hey, hey I got you." said a male voice pulling me closer, I touched his t-shirt. Nils, I sighed into his scent. I let everything that happened to my catch up to me.

"Time to do damage control," I said standing up. I walked to my laptop again. I opened my Instagram, oh god so many mentions and comments.

I clicked on the camera button and clicked on live. 3...2...1.. I was live.

"Good Afternoon everyone. Let us just wait till everyone joins in and something tells me there are going to be many people joining." I said interlocking my hands in front of the laptop when Nils appeared behind my laptop on the other side of the bar table, just looking at me waiting like the people who joined into my live. I breathed straightening a bit of my hair, I hope I can make it a better world for my daughter to grow in without judgments made about her before she even grew up.

I noticed the articles' Instagram pages had started to join in. Oh god, give me courage my legs shook from the anxiety. "So, a lot of things were said about me today. A lot," I laughed looking down, "My daughter was pretty shaken up about it too." I said looking back up, "Let me tell you a story, there was this girl 12 years old, she fell in love. Sounds funny, doesn't it? 12 year old? In love? At this point in my life, it sounds funny to me as well, to be honest, but it was true I was totally invested in that relationship and as we grew up we realized we weren't the same two people. One of the reasons to not love young, another one being how can you even begin to love someone when you haven't even learned to love yourself. So he broke up with me. And I was devasted, I couldn't take it. I couldn't imagine my life without him and I was miserable but I had to, I had no choice and in the process of finding myself, to define who I am I made many MANY  mistakes but in the end, I found myself, finally !" I said throwing little hands up in victory with my eyes brimming with tears, "But everyone around me started judging me from those mistakes, the lessons I had to learn in order for me to find myself. They started defining who I was by what I had done while I wasn't that person anymore and that hurt me so very much and that made me feel so very utterly stuck because no matter how different I tried to be they had the same comments and the same conclusions about me. So I left for Germany." I completed taking a breath.

"And we all know what happened after, I started studying at Uni and I met Nils while I was still studying. We were going well, engaged with a baby on the way until we realized that we weren't happy. We were compromising a lot from our lives, I was letting go of my studies and of the stellar career that he had in front of him. Unluckily and luckily for us the same day within the same argument I lost the baby and the love of my life. We never met after that day. We were the right people at the wrong time. I moved on and build my career, a company you now know as Lavender. And for the record I have more net worth than Nils, do not call me a gold digger," I say laughing into the camera.

"After so many years of not knowing what was happening in each other's lives aside from what was uploaded on the internet, I got an invitation to his wedding and I decided to attend. I met him before the ceremony, to give him his gift and leave right after the ceremony. The gift was a pair of baby shoes, a wish for him to find our son in his life again. He never knew about my daughter." I say sniffling, "I saw them do their I do's and I crossed the road over to the park, the same park we said I love you for the first time. And after a while he came after me, he kissed me. And I looked at him all confused. I didn't understand that a man married to a beautiful woman after six years would still love me knowing absolutely nothing about my life. And I smiled to myself knowing I'd do the same thing but maybe I wouldn't have had as much courage as him. The courage he has shown leaving his wedding for me no matter what people would say. So I bring up the courage to sit in front of my laptop, in front of millions of people, and do something for the people I love. It is quite unfortunate that Nils' wedding had to end and in all honesty, it will never be fair to Katherine that it did and I sincerely apologize for that. But finally, finally," I say relief filling my lungs, "The time seems to be right for us," I reach my hand out across to Nils who had been watching me intently and he comes from behind the table to beside me, "And I will fight the world for him," I say and he stands beside me with his hand on my shoulder, "Another person I love who will be affected by this is my Daughter. Don't judge her before she even decides who she is, give her the freedom of defining herself through her own mistakes, she is just 5. Don't make her run away from her mother as I ran away from my home in order for her to be happy. I have made my own decisions; let her make her own. I request you of this humane demand." I say and as if on queue Ender walks in with sleep still in her eyes and tugs on me to pick her up and so I do. Nils leans in to whisper to her good evening and that she is on camera and she whines while looking at the camera, "Again?" And we laugh.