"She smiled softly. But this time it was different.
Her face smiled but her eyes didn't."
- D. A.
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Anisha turned her face to the left so Andrew's lips brushed against her cheek.
She pulled away, instantly and looked up at him. All traces of hope disappearing from his face and instead replaced with rejection. She hadn't let him kiss her.
She bit her lip to hold the tears in, the tears that followed her around everywhere she went. She opened her mouth to say something, to say anything but the words were far beyond her grasp.
Why? That was all she could think about. Why was he trying now?
Her eyes clouded with tears and her lips trembled. Her face filled with misery and desolation. She wouldn't let him kiss her.
She gave him one last look, a look of despair, and rushed to the bathroom.
She needed to get away, from all of it. Everything was consuming her.
It was hard, it was fucking hard. To go around and pretend to be happy? It was a near to impossible task for her.
To stand and see everyone else around her, laughing and dancing the night away. To see people casually sipping wine with smiles on their faces. To see married couples all around her, who were content with one another and in love.
To see everyone else enjoy life while she was miserable and broken. To see everyone else be so fucking happy while she had to stand and watch as life took every single thing away from her.
The hardest part of all the pain was being forced to hold it all together, to act like she wasn't in pain. And that was hard.
Especially now, now that everything was slowly coming to an end. It was fucking hard.
She was slowly seeing everything slip away from her grasp.
Andrew had slipped away from her years ago. She was an utter idiot, a fucking fool to hold on for so long but she did.
Ryan didn't care about his mother, he wasn't concerned with her. But she was his mother, she still cared and she always would, at least until her last breath.
And with Mira? It hurt the most. Anisha wouldn't be there to watch her little girl grow up into a beautiful princess. All those mother-daughter moments would be taken away from her.
It all fucking hurt. How was she supposed to act like she was okay with everything when she knew it was all coming to an end? When she knew her days were numbered and all she could do was watch as everything, every single thing, slipped away from her grasp, forever.
And that was why she couldn't give him hope. He couldn't fight to save her or their marriage anymore.
He was too late, too fucking late. He had fourteen years, fourteen fucking years, to regret everything he had done to her and to try to fix her shattered heart.
And he never tried then. And now? Why now? She wouldn't let him.
She wouldn't give him false hope. It was too late. He was late. Fourteen years too late. He couldn't save her.
Their marriage was long over. It was nothing but a few words on paper. And soon, that paper would be annulled. At some point, those words had meant something to the both of them. The 'I love yous' and 'forevers' had given her all the happiness in the world. But that it was in the past. Today, the marriage certificate meant nothing, it had no value.
It wasn't worth fighting for because they both would be fighting to save nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing to be saved.
She couldn't give him hope. He needed to move on, to forget about her and their broken marriage.
She couldn't be saved. She was letting things go, no longer holding onto any hope. She had accepted it all. This was it.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She wasn't beautiful. She was never that special. Average. She was average. With dark brown eyes and black hair, a light skin tone and soft Indian features. She was average.
She was easily forgotten about. She wasn't the kind of girl people quickly noticed. She was shy, at first. She was observant and curious. She was kind, too kind and she let people walk over her. She was naïve and always saw the good in people. She was too forgiving, still willing to give the ones who had broken her a second chance. She wasn't insecure but then she wasn't too confident either.
Average, that's all she ever was.
And she was never the kind of girl guys like Andrew went after. It was only time that he got tired of her.
Even in college, she had always been the girl who sat in the front, quietly, and scribbled away every word the professor was saying. She spent her Friday's reading a new book or baking cookies. And her Sunday's stressing over the next exam.
She was average. She was happy. She was enough.
She still dated here and there but never found anything special.
Until Andrew. It was always him. He was so different from her, he was confident and smart. He was the kind of guy everyone wanted to be around, the kind of person whose name people would remember.
He was everything she wasn't.
But no one could ever make her feel as special and wanted as he once did. Still did.
The way he could take away her breath with a smile or the way he would hold her in his arms, letting her forget about the cold world around her. The way he looked at her, making her stomach dance with butterflies.
He smeared her lipstick. And her mascara.
And she hated it so fucking much. She hated how he could make her feel so good one minute and utterly useless and unwanted the next.
And that was she wouldn't let him kiss her anywhere. There was nothing there anymore.
It was simple: they just weren't meant to last. And that was reality. No matter how much she loved him, the truth was the truth and their marriage wasn't one that lasted forever. That's just the way it was.
There was nothing left to hold onto.
Amanda was the type of woman he should've married. Confident, beautiful, smart, happy and lovable.
Anisha was never that girl and would probably never be. She was and always would the kind and nice girl, the girl who gave in too easily and always put other people before herself. And despite all this, she would never be enough.
She gently wiped the tears, taking the Kleenex to fix her mascara-stained face.
Her finger lingered on her lips. Did he really want to try and save their marriage?
A harsh gasp escaped her lips as she grabbed the counter for support, sharp pains pinching her body.
There was nothing to save, he couldn't save her nor their marriage. She couldn't let him kiss her.
She took one last look at herself in the mirror, a fake smile plastered on her face.
How long had it been since she had smiled a real smile? She couldn't think of a single day in the last few months where she had willingly gotten out of bed with a smile on her life, a single day where she had felt wanted and loved.
The tears, once again clouded her vision as she thought of everything life had thrown her away.
Was she really that unlovable? Her own husband was displeased with her and her kids were disgusted with her.
Was it really that hard for anyone to love her?
She wasn't perfect but at least she tried her best. And she didn't want much. She didn't want anything, actually.
She didn't want an expensive house or the fastest car. She didn't need the latest designer purse or white pearls. She didn't need or want any of that.
All she really needed was someone to hold her at night. Someone to tell her they loved her every morning she woke up. Someone to sit and talk with at two in the afternoon or eleven at night.
All she wanted was anyone to love her.
No, not anyone. She wanted him. She wanted him to tell her that he loved her, to show her that he still did.
She rummaged through her purse, looking for an Advil. It wouldn't be enough to completely ease her pain but it would have to do for now.
She needed to go home, fast and soon before the pain got more unbearable.
But she still had to act like the perfect wife, the woman who had everything under control.
She reapplied another layer of mascara and the light pink lipstick. She never wore too much makeup; she hated the feeling of it. But these days, she had to wear at least a little bit, at least enough to cover the pain and emptiness that surrounded her.
She looked at her pale reflection in the mirror, her face devoid of any happiness. The swollenness of her eyes, permanently etched onto her face, was proof of how miserable she really was.
It was good enough. She was good enough.
She went back to the ballroom and looked around for her husband. He was talking to his parents and she slowly decided to make her way over; she hadn't seen her in-laws all evening.
She stopped and froze as Andrew's eyes, colder than ever, gave her a quick glance. And without another word, he turned to leave.
And Anisha stood, glued to the same spot, and stared as her husband left the hall, with his mistress slowly following behind.
But this time, her heart didn't break. Maybe because over the years, it had been broken over and over that it was no longer possible for her heart to break anymore. But then, the pieces were also so small and shattered and she knew she'd never be able be able to pick them up and glue them together.
She was numb. That was all she felt. Numb and empty. Broken and lost.
She couldn't feel anything around her. She couldn't feel the pain. And she would never ever feel happiness again. Her tears were dry and her heart was void. Her days were numbered and her husband didn't care.
Her arms wrapped around her stomach as she tried to steady herself. The only pain she felt was the physical pain that shot through her body and pierced her stomach, the kind of pain that made it clear, she was near her end.
And nothing could save her this time. Not even him.
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N O T E
I know not much happened in this chapter but I just wanted to leave a quick note about Anisha and why she's so weak. She does suffer from depression and she is extremely insecure. She constantly compares herself to Amanda and has a low self-esteem. She uses the excuse that she isn't good enough to justify Andrew's behavior and why he doesn't want her. And she really does hope that he will change. Losing his sister destroyed him and he doesn't really know how to deal with the pain because everyone deals with pain and loss differently. But she still hopes that things will get better between the two of them. And sometimes things do get better. But sometimes they don't.
She doesn't see that people do care about her like Sebastian and Mira because she's too focused on how miserable her past has made her. With the constant references to fairytale endings and Mira's obsession with Cinderella, it's like the only thing Anisha wants is a happy ending with Andrew. But she's slowly realizing how life doesn't work like that. Because people do get divorced and marriages do fail and certain circumstances and misunderstandings do fuck people over.
And yes, there are people who do hang onto hope that maybe things would change and be different. Because even when Andrew does hurt her, she looks for small acts and signs that show that he does care. It is Anisha's choice to stay with Andrew despite the fact that he continuously hurts and cheats on her. Sometimes, it's simply easier to stay than it is to leave. Sometimes, leaving seems to be the more worse option compared to staying.
Because she had held on for so long. It might not be love anymore but he's the only familiar thing she has and she has always craved for his attention. At the current point of this story, she is very ill and weak. And she does not fight back. But over the course of her marriage, she has made many mistakes and she wasn't always so weak. And this will slowly be made clearer later on the story.
Over the past fourteen years, there were a lot of times where they were still happy together and she did feel like things would be okay. But she knows it's far too late for anything now. In her last days, her only hope is that Andrew will say or do anything just so she does feel loved, for once. Because that's all she has ever wanted.
Thank you all so much for reading!