VOID

Prologue

I felt livid, miserable and confused, but most of all, I felt betrayed. Her words rang in my head again and again. What bothered me the most was the fact that how easily the words had rolled off her tongue, almost as if nothing had happened, like she had forgotten what he had done to us. Things weren't going back to normal; she knew that better than anybody else, then why was she ready to make a futile compromise?

I closed my eyes, took deep breaths and counted till ten, something that used to calm me down; it didn't. I felt like somebody was smothering me. Was it the cruel reality of how dysfunctional our family would always be?

I felt the walls of my room closing up on me. I couldn't stand to be here, I needed to get away. I stood up, feeling dizzy. My legs felt numb, I had been sitting in the same position for two hours. I descended the stairs, almost slipping once. I saw her in our living room, looking at the pictures we had up on the wall. She was so engrossed in reviving the stories of bygone days that she didn't even hear me descend the stairs. I know she longed for things to be the same way they were three months back, but that was never going to happen.

I roamed my gaze in the living room. All the beautiful memories we had here, dad, mom and I playing board games, watching movies, telling each other about what happened in our offices and school during dinner, the laughter we had shared, all passed before my eyes. My lips curved into the faintest of smiles as I reminisced. But then all of that came to a screeching halt when I remembered the last time dad was here. I felt stupid because the memories that I had labeled as beautiful were all tainted now.

I shook my head to get rid of the memories and ran towards the garage to get my bicycle, the feeling of wanting to get away from this house stronger than ever.

I dragged the bicycle I hadn't used in almost two years and opened the gate of the garage. She might have heard me because I could hear her calling my name as I mounted the bicycle and paddled away, without acknowledging her. She kept calling me, asking me where I was going.

"Away" I shouted back and paddled harder.

I turned my head to look at her through my blurry eyes. She looked so sad, I could no longer bear to see her this way.

My muscles were now aching from the amount of strain I was putting on them. I didn't have any particular destination in mind; I just wanted to believe even for a few minutes that everything wasn't going downhill.

The conversation I had with my mother played in my mind.

We were eating dinner in silence, it had become this way since he left, the conversations we used to have had faded into nothingness.

"Your father called today, he wants to take us out for dinner." The first sentence she had spoken to me ever since she had returned from her office.

We were eating yesterday's lasagna, upon hearing her, my hand holding the spoon stopped midway, I contemplated what she had just said for half a minute, scrunched my eyebrows and had said

"Is this his pathetic attempt to compensate for being a shitty husband?" I scoffed in the end, my voice holding the bitterness I felt.

"Well, I told him that we'd come", she had said nonchalantly.

I had looked at her with disbelief

"What? Why?"

"He's making an effort, Ava. Maybe we should hear him out once."

"You are kidding, right?, what possibly can justify what he did? He has fed you bullshit and you are going along with it. I don't know about you, but I'm never talking to that man in my life."

"You can't deny the fact that he's your father, you'll have to talk to him someday. And even if you aren't ready to talk to him right now at least try to be civil with him." she had looked at me with wide eyes, wanting me to understand.

"Do you really expect me to act like his dutiful daughter after what he has done to you? To us?" My voice rising a few octaves. I couldn't understand what she was trying to do.

"What was going in that head of yours, huh? Did you just magically forget that your husband a lying piece of filth that had been cheating on you for the last one year?" My voice had risen with every word I had spoken.

She had looked taken aback, like she couldn't believe that I had just said that.

In the six months that had passed, we had never talked about it, not even once. We continued with our lives like robots. Emotionally, I lost both of my parents that day. One left us to give us space we apparently needed because he had been cheating on his wife with an office colleague and the other was so traumatized with that knowledge that her eyes lost all the sparkle and warmth I had become used to seeing for the last seventeen years.

As the anger subsided gradually, I felt empty, hollow, like a huge void was forming in my heart and every passing minute, it became deeper and deeper.

I applied the brakes and the bicycle retarded with a drift. I lifted my head and stared at the night sky filled with stars. I was standing in the middle of the road, without any care of the world. I closed my eyes and tried to travel to another land, away from the crumbling perfection of how my life was.

I imagine myself in a green valley, serene and quiet, the cool wind caressing my cheeks, the soft mud beneath my feet and almost for a moment, I forget how messed up everything has become.

After that everything happens in the blink of an eye, I hear the squealing of tires and the last thing I see is light, so bright and a car coming towards me and then I feel pain, excruciating pain before everything goes black.