Healed By Honey (The Roys, #3)

Chapter 8 - What it takes

25th March

Music speaks to the soul. Whenever life gets tough, surrendering unto music can actually soothes you. It calms your mind. Plenty of times, music can make you forget about your pain. They say, time heals. But time doesn't heal shit. You just learn how to cope with it over time. Music is one of the coping mechanisms.

She concentrated on the lyrics of the song that played on the music app. She was amazed at the accuracy. The song resonated in a unique way with her current situation. Older by Sasha Alex Sloan. Discovering new songs and artists had always been Gyan's thing. He liked exploring Spotify in all his spare time, and whenever a song would match his taste, he'd share it with her.

This song was also shared by him. They still weren't talking explicitly, but only exchanging a few text messages every day. The current age of digitalization wouldn't let you go into seclusion, even if you badly want to.

Last night after her parents vanished into their room, she hadn't seen them till now. Not that she went out of her room the whole day. Dona came twice to give her breakfast and lunch and her physiotherapy session happened in her room alone.

She was able to walk for five minutes straight without any support and according to her physiotherapist that was a huge improvement. She still preferred walking with the help of the stick. But she couldn't really walk around with a stick forever. So, she obliged all his instructions as he walked her to and fro around the room.

She had no idea what happened last night. Because after Jeet and Abhimanyu went to have a 'talk', they didn't emerge even past the dinner time. Shreya forced her to eat before sending her to her room for rest. That precisely summed up, she had not faced anyone except Dona and her therapist.

Her eyes swept over to her drawing pad. She wasn't even getting the pull to pick it up and work on a new design. Suddenly, it clicked. Jeet was talking about something called expressive art. She grabbed her phone and opened the browser and searched for it.

The never-ending search results popped up in an instant.

She scrolled down and clicked on a link. The page opened and the very first line read, "Expressive arts therapy is an integrative, multimodal approach that utilizes a variety of methods including writing, music, visual arts, drama, and dance to help people achieve personal growth. The expressive therapies are based on the assumption that people can heal through the various forms of creative expression." According to an American therapist, Cathy Malchiodi, expressive arts therapy has four general functions—self-regulation, co-regulation, exploration, and restoration. One can heal body and mind through expressive arts.

As a fashion student she had no idea about the psychological aspects of life, but she always loved playing with colors and designs. That was why she opted for the fashion industry. Another reason for her to go for fashion designing was the clash she had with her mother during the time she was about to enroll in college. Priyasha wanted her to take admission in a technical course since her own background was technical. Both her parents had degrees in technology fields. So naturally, they wanted their children to have degrees along the line. Her brothers went for business studies because, according to her father, it was necessary for their business development and expansion. Abhiraj never forced her daughter into anything, it could be because he was partial toward her or maybe because she was a girl.

Ritu always felt sorry for her dadabhai, Abhimanyu, as he never really crossed their parents' decisions; and their parents were really happy about that. However, after unearthing the fact of him suffering from a personality disorder, they learned the problem lying underneath. It was not because he was behaving like the good son that he was, it was because he had difficulty in expressing his emotions: be it delight or displeasure. It had always been Gyan's department to defy their parents, and she would be straight away lying if she said she did not partake in Gyan's misdoings. Gyan although associated with boys above his age, he never neglected his sister. Thus, as her twin brother, his influence on her life did not go renounced. They would share their misdeeds or cover up the same for each other.