A Four Letter Word

Sometime in the morning...

A four letter word had damaged her body!
And...
A four letter word could destroy her soul!!

It was now or never!

Riya felt a chill as these words repeatedly maundered round and round inside her head. She was swaying to and fro in her swing chair, in her balcony, as she sat thinking about that terrible incident that had ruined her life.It seemed as if, she had lost everything...

Her happiness to bloom, her strength to carry forward, her dignity to move on, her will to live!

That monster who was her so-called uncle had cajoled her at first and had later assaulted her, when the coaxing didn't work. She had become like a statute. Desperate, he ran away before anyone could connect him with the crime, secure in the knowledge that if not threats, the familial and social inhibitions would keep her mouth shut.

How very wrong he was!!

Riya's body was shattered, her spirit was not. It took her some time to come out of her misery. But, come out she did, with a vengeance!

She confided in her parents. They were stunned, shocked to the core. The unthinkable had happened. The transgression, they never ever even in their dreams could have envisioned, had been committed and the culprit was family. They were rendered speechless. How could they console their child when they themselves were inconsolable?

For the sake of their daughter, they tried to come out of the trauma as quickly as they could. There were practical considerations to be taken into account. They were afraid of the skeptics, they were scared of the whispers behind their backs, the disparaging looks, the snide remarks and most importantly the future of their daughter that would surely be ruined if the truth got out.

They advised Riya to forget the past and carry on, assuring her that they would make her uncle apologize and promising her that they would never let him set foot inside the house again in any circumstance.

Riya had expected this, still she was disappointed. At first, when she was sunk in her sorrows, she had experienced every feeling that existed; terror, horror, apprehension, anxiety, self-pity, self-loathing so on and so forth. Not anymore. Now she only felt one emotion, courage.

Uncle or not she had no intention of letting him go scot free to torment other hapless girls!