This is our story

It is past 1 at night, everybody else's asleep but I’m wide awake. I can hear a familiar sound. Perhaps the sky is crying, the same way it did the day I lost the most precious thing I had like my mothers said, and the greatest deal to men, but it doesn't really matter because I'm leaving, leaving behind those bittersweet memories, those scars and those men without whom I wouldn't have been the person I am today. I’m leaving not just to survive but to live.

The sky reminds me so much of myself. It feels as if his mood depends on me. The sky used to be so much vivacious back then, balmy, full of happiness. I can recall the day my dad kept me on his shoulders giving me a sublime safari through the markets to the park. Oh, how I used to feel alive!

Puny, if I had to define the sky in a word. When I recall the day, I can see something wrapped in white, over the bed made of bamboo carried by some men, they answering yes when I sarcastically asked if it was a dead body. How naive I was to keep on laughing until one of them said it was my dad. What a poor thing to hear being a minor!

On the bank of a river, I can see them carrying out the rituals, I knew nothing about what happened after death or what it meant but I couldn’t do anything about the disappointment that was sinking through my body for they said I would never be able to meet someone after (s)he was dead. They let me know that our dad had been taken to an electric crematorium, I rushed to the room but was blocked because I was too young for it, I whined If I’m too young to see him now why does it have to be the last time? but they seemed to have a heart made of something solid like stone, I remained outside.

Suddenly, I could feel somebody gently rubbing my back, it felt so unreal to be my dad and, it wasn't, it was my Maths teacher: Hari sir. When mom was done with sobbing, she thanked him for handling me for all the while and asked him to look after me for the following 12 days and without a second thought, he got down for it. Mom warned me to cooperate with him and before I could reply, he told her I would never do so, for him I was a brilliant student.

My brother, of 18, was equally ravaged the way I was. He, being the only son in the family was asked to stay for the 13-days work with mom and other members where I was left home being deemed juvenile to swallow it. Therefore, I was left with the teacher and a house to look after.

The same day, Hari sir held my hand and directed the way to home. We were to stay together nearly for two weeks but I showed no prudence because the fact that my father was never coming back again bothered me but somewhere in the corner of my heart, I knew he would come. Hari sir prepared a saltless meal, I ate the best I could and when the plate was not clear, he nourished and fed me with his hands, as a child I felt it didn't require your biological dad to offer you fatherly love. He also passed me some white clothes and asked me to put them on, I knew what it was for – I obeyed.

I went for bed, he lied at my side, as if to hug me. I grumbled claiming how my dad was a superhero and lovelier than my mom, he folded me in his arms, without any cognizance I fell asleep in his arms.

For some days, the cycle continued: waking me up, getting ready for school, preparing the meal, stopping by the same school, helping in homework, regular visits to mom, playing games, helping him in households, suggesting me to rest, meal and then, sleep. I could see the sky getting more vibrant every day, until one day he broke the chain.

The sky begun to be a bit murky. The day had been normal so far until I got to bed and he started to cuddle, it had been a regular thing for him but to me, it didn’t feel good. I told him frankly about how uncomfortable it made me feel and he moved aside for some time, but he resumed, moved his hands and fondled under my clothes, he asks Doesn’t this feel good?. He moves his hand above my belly and squeezes it as if it were made of sponge and then, down, stroking between my thighs, someplace I was supposed to keep sacred. I could hear the sky howling but suddenly stopping completely, I try to scream for help but he is just done with licking my neck, he reaches my mouth, it starts to rain.

In the following days, the sky seemed to be all washed out, very subtle until I decided to rage against whatever was happening and visited my mom, I could see her in a white dress, her eyes inanimate, covered by dark circles as if someone had just hit her, her hands that wore more bangles than it could weigh was now all empty. Whenever she uttered a word, it felt as if she would burst into tears and my brother was no less, so I held my tongue and my complaints deciding to remain with them until the 13th day, no matter what.

Mom started continuing her job, as a teacher and my brother did too also looking after me. Life became normal without dad and hardships of the remaining members.

Ever since that day, I have never felt comfortable in my own skin, never been able to open up frankly with males, not even my own brother. The school never became the same, every time he tried to approach me I ignored and it took no time for him to forget whatever had happened, for him each day was like another, very normal.

Each time a male teacher entered the class, I would see a flashback of the nightmare he had offered. The girl who had to be pleaded to stop speaking stopped uttering even a single word. All my enthusiasm faded in no time, the classroom started to scare me, day by day I was turning antisocial. And in the following term, I failed in a subject: Maths, predictable. Mom was taken aback but she didn't say a word for she thought that it was because of dad’s departure. And because I saw tears in my mothers eyes, I started working hard from that day, for myself.

I trusted no man. I worked, worked and worked, gave best in every opportunity that came to me but I could never feel enough. Years passed by but the scars he left remained with me. Moreover, I let them define who I was.

My body never responded the way I wanted it to emotionally respond. The things that once brought life in me started meaning nothing. Every day, I cried in silence blaming myself for whatever had happened.

It not only made me emotionally weaker but there was a lot more going inside me. Insomnia, depression, and fluctuations in blood pressure were among the deadliest things it had invited.

The moon was the sky’s confidence so was the ‘tag’ I had lost mine when he entered in my life but not really, virginity was like one among billions of stars that adorned the sky’s beauty, my moon was self-love, the more I loved and believed in myself the more vibrant my life would be but it was broken, just in a fraction of time and to understand that and regain my confidence back, it took another toxic relationship where I submissively offered myself to somebody who never deserved it, and I had completely acknowledged that my body was lesser mine than a man’s device to obtain pleasure, I had always let myself down.

My story is certainly not a new one, hundreds of them have been through it and some even worse. Today I am finally able to leave everything behind because I have learned to open up, to my therapists, the family, and even strangers. The first thing it took me to be braver was to be able to figure out that it’s was not me who was supposed to be blamed, I started reaching out to people I counted: my friends and my family, every day I tried to accept the past and ground myself in the present, nurtured myself, networked, meditated, visited therapists and started creating for myself. My survival story doesn’t just complete in this few pages, it took and is still taking a lot more than this, what you read is just a small part of it but to bring it out despite everything that stands as a contrast has only one purpose – make it easier for you to share your story and get through it.

I have finally come to learn that it has certainly shaped me but it doesn’t define who I am. When I picked and peeked inside myself, I could see that I was broken but there was something different, something unique, I had gone through a lot and those were what are going to help me make some difference, those incidents weren’t supposed to be death sentences, in fact, my story has just begun.

P.S. Hari sir left the following year but the memories he left were always traumatic and if lord exists, only he knows how hard it has been to muster myself up as a stronger person.