"Why do you look so sad today?" He said.
"Maybe it's because we all fall in love too easily and get heartbroken too easily. Or maybe it's because some people don't get love at all even when they deserve love the most."
- jwfeelings
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Anisha didn't say a single word. She simply stood and stared at Andrew, realization slowly setting in. The quiet silence that followed was heartbreaking. But nothing hurt more than the question he had just asked.
The cup of tea slipped from her hands and fell to the floor. The shattering of the cup was the same as her broken heart.
She still couldn't understand.
Mira? What was he even trying to ask? About whether or not Mira was his?
Here, she had thought he couldn't possibly hurt her anymore.
But again, he proved otherwise.
He always proved otherwise.
A dry, pathetic laugh escaped her lips.
She didn't even know what to say. She watched as guilt and anger highlighted his face.
Maybe their relationship was never meant to be. Andrew, her husband, the man she had been wed to for seventeen fucking years, didn't have the smallest bit of trust in her.
Never. Not a single bit.
He didn't trust her when it came to his sister. And apparently, now he didn't even trust her when it came to his daughter.
Anisha gripped onto the counter, holding on for dear life. She tried to control her anger. She had been mistreated her entire life.
Being accused, she was used to. Being lied to, she was used to it. Being used, she was all fucking used to it.
It was nothing new.
But her daughter. No. she wouldn't let anyone treat her daughter like that.
She took a small step towards Andrew, waiting for him to clarify. She wanted him to clarify.
Maybe it was the pills. Maybe she was hearing things. That was why needed him to clarify.
"How dare you?" Her voice was low. And Andrew couldn't help but flinch from the coldness in it.
The minute the question had left his lips, he had regretted it.
It sounded so fucking stupid. He didn't mean to accuse her. He really didn't.
"I...I just." He just didn't know.
And whether or not Andrew would admit it, his naivety was his biggest weakness. He acted too quickly, always. He took things too directly, always.
Before Anisha knew it, she stood directly in front of Andrew. She was a few inches shorter than him; her eyes level with his jaw.
Her eyes slowly fell on the fading mark on his neck. A love mark. On her husband's neck. And she wasn't the one who had left it there.
Everything, right there and then, faded away for Anisha. It all came crashing down. All of it.
"Anisha Hayes, it has a nice ring to it. Doesn't it?"
"Um, I...I...wwas wondering if you would like to go out. Like on a date, with me. Only if you want. I mean there's the cafe downtown."
"I want this. I want us, Anisha. I want me and you."
"I love you, so fucking much. I mean it, Anisha. I really do."
"I'm working late tonight. Don't wait up for me tonight. Tell Ryan that I love him."
"Because I do Anisha. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you."
"Fuck off Anisha. Keep your fucking concern to yourself. We both know you don't care."
"I regret everything. Everything between us. This is all a mistake. Me and you Anisha. We should've never happened."
"Maybe we could try and work things out, for Ryan. He deserves a family. We could try to see if things work out for his sake. And for us. I promise I'll change. I promise."
"I've been cheating on you. For a while now."
"Fucking hell Anisha, my sister is dead. Cassie's dead. And it's all your fault."
"A little girl. I always wanted a little girl. And I hope she grows up to be just like you. You're perfect, Anisha. And I want our daughter to be just like you. I love you Anisha Hayes."
She started hitting his chest, repeatedly, as hard as she could. Anisha Hayes finally dulled. There was no saving her now.
"How dare you. How fucking dare you." She banged her fist against his hard chest. "How. Fucking." She was trying to hurt him, trying to make him understand how much he was always hurting her.
"Dare. You." Surely, she knew her small slaps against his chest wouldn't hurt. How couldn't he understand how much he was hurting her. Over and over again.
Her heart, it was already broken. Her heart, it couldn't take anymore.
And she wanted nothing more than for him to just tell her he had loved her. As pathetic as it was.
Anisha knew she didn't have a lot left. All she wanted was to hear him tell her that he really had loved her. She wanted to know, to feel, to understand that at some point he had. It would finally set her free.
Instead, he still accused her of being unfaithful.
The cries that escaped her lips were loud and filled with every bit of anger she felt. And the agony.
How dare he. After everything she had given him. After everything she had done for him. After everything she had gone through, just for him. For them.
For years, she had acted like the good wife. She had spent years trying to save a one-sided relationship. Because there was always this little bit of hope that maybe Andrew would change. He would finally see how much she had suffered, for him, because of him. And then, just maybe, she could be happy again. Anisha Hayes could finally be happy again.
But she never was.
And now, she was finally going to be free of the pain.
But she still wasn't happy. Everything was being taken away from her. She didn't want it to end. She wanted to get better. She wanted to fight. She wanted to get better. But she just didn't have it in her.
Anisha pulled her hand away from Andrew's grasp just as he reached out and tried to console her.
She had suffered enough.
She placed one hand over her mouth, trying to control her sobbing. But it didn't help. Her sobs just became louder and the tears stained her vision.
She slowly slid down, sitting on the dark wooden floor and cried. She cried. And cried.
That was all she had left.
She didn't even look up at him as he mumbled a sorry and sat down next to her.
She slapped his hand away as he reached out and tried to wipe her tears away.
If he had really cared, he shouldn't have made her cry in the first place. If he really loved, he shouldn't have done the things he had. The things he had done to ruin her.
"Fuck Anisha, I didn't mean it like that." He really hadn't.
He was just curious.
He had seen things between Anisha and Sebastian once. He was more than aware of the things Sebastian felt towards his wife. But when he had asked Anisha about it, she had just said it was a mistake.
But there was a possibility.
"I really didn't mean it like that. I just...Anisha." He awkwardly reached out and held her face in his hands; his thumb brushed away the tears that slid down her face.
This was the last thing he wanted. He didn't want to hurt Anisha. He didn't mean to hurt Anisha.
"You don't deserve her. You don't deserve Mira." Anisha pushed his hands away and scooted a little further. She didn't want to be close to him.
A somber silence took hold. And neither of them spoke.
Andrew was staring at her. Intently, begging for an answer. And Anisha was staring at the floor.
"You don't deserve Mira. And you sure as fuck don't deserve me." She let out a small laugh, it was somewhere between a sob and a pathetic laugh.
She could remember everything.
The slight hint of nervousness in his voice when he had first asked her out on a date. The glint of tease in his eyes whenever he scored a higher grade than her on a Midterm. The way his eyes had brightened and he had smiled at her as her father had walked her down the aisle. The way he used to come home an hour early just so he could cook dinner for her before she came home from school. The way he would place small kisses along her jaw as he repeatedly whispered over and over again how much he loved her. The way he had looked at her when Ryan was born, like she had given him everything he could have asked for.
She still remembered all of it.
The nights she would stay awake, sitting on the couch and waiting for him to come home or when she would wake up in the middle of the night, to an empty bed. The days where he would ignore her and lie to her telling her he was working late again. The ways his eyes would darken and his voice would be nothing but cold as he accused her of being responsible for what had happened to Cassie. The way Ryan had cried and screamed for his mother to come back home, because he wanted his parents to live together. The way she had given in, over and over again, holding onto the belief that he would change.
She was sick of it. Of all of it.
Right now, she didn't want to deal with him right now.
She just didn't want to deal with life right now. She wanted to sleep. And maybe never wake up again.
"Anisha, I'm sorry." His voice held vulnerability. "I'm really sorry." For everything. He really was.
He was always fucking things up. He wanted to fix things, not make them worse. But this is what always happened.
What hadn't they tried? Counseling. Time Apart. They had talked things over and over, again and again. They figured out a way to make things work, at least for the time being.
Because cheating on Anisha had been a mistake. He hadn't meant to. He really hadn't. He was hurting. And Anisha was the same.
She did rash things when she was hurting.
"Why would you even doubt....I just don't even understand where all of this came from." She finally looked at Andrew and she hated looking into his eyes.
Better than anyone, Anisha could read his eyes. She could see the regret, the guilt, the pain, the fear and the loss.
She watched as he awkwardly ran a hand through his hair and looked everywhere but at her.
"I ended things with Amanda. She was mad but I wanted to work things out between us, me and you. Not for the kids, but for us. I want to try and save our marriage."
Anisha snorted as he paused and gave her an intense look, clearly irritated with her and her lack of interest in trying to save their already failed marriage.
Work things out. He wanted to work things out. After years of breaking her heart and fucking her over, he wanted to work things out.
"And she said that Mira...I just don't know." He really didn't. And saying it all out loud made him feel stupid.
He had no right to doubt Anisha. It was all because of the mistakes he had made anyway. It was all his fucking fault.
Anisha smiled sadly and looked down at the floor once again. There were a number of things she could've asked him. There were a number of things she wanted to ask him. There were a number of things she had to tell him.
But she just wanted to sleep. She wanted to forget about everything.
It was all too much. It all took too much energy. Energy that she didn't have. Nor did she even care anymore.
But still, especially now, Anisha always wondered how things would've turned out for her, how things could've turned out for her had just one small thing been different.
She just wanted to be happy. She wanted to be loved.
Of all things she had ever wanted in life, never had she wanted anything more than to have someone love her and only her.
Her mother had been right. Love made people foolish.
And maybe that was why she had held on. Because she had thought that love alone could've been enough.
But it hadn't been.
There were a number of other things. Things that she had simply not bothered with.
Like loyalty. Like compassion. Like acceptance. Like forgiveness. And most of all trust.
Andrew didn't trust her one bit. He never had.
But for some reason, he trusted Amanda.
"Why do you trust her so much?" And that was what Anisha wanted to know more than anything.
"What?" Andrew didn't trust anyone. He didn't trust anything. He just didn't.
But doubts are hard to remove.
Not once did he trust Amanda. He trusted more than anything that Mira was his daughter.
And even if she wasn't, he'd still love her like his own.
He had raised her. The nights he had gotten up to help Anisha feed her. The days he had made her a deal to buy her a new Cinderella doll if she finished all her veggies. The evenings where he had read her a bed-time story, a Cinderella fairytale to be exact. The times she had easily convinced him to take her to Disneyland just by pretending to hand-write him a business report, demanding that her father take her to Disneyland.
He loved Mira. She was his and Anisha's.
Over and over, he had fucked things up. With his wife. With his parents. With his sister. With his son.
Practically with everyone, everyone, except with Mira.
Mira loved her father, unconditionally. And maybe, maybe it was just because she wasn't yet aware of how much of a fuck-up he was.
Still, whenever Mira looked at him, her brown eyes were always filled with joy and hope. For once, just for once, he didn't feel like failure.
Mira gave him hope, that he could be a better. He had failed everyone in his life. But not Mira. Never Mira.
And now, he wasn't sure if Mira was even his blood.
It was a small doubt. He just wanted an answer: yes or no.
It wouldn't change anything. It really wouldn't.
He wouldn't blame Anisha. Because the only person he could really blame was himself.
Mira, he'd love her the same. Anisha, he wouldn't give up on her.
He'd win her back. As long and hard as it took. He was sure of it this time.
"Why do you trust her so much?" Because that was exactly what Anisha wanted to know. "You trust her more than you trust me yet I'm the one you married. You don't trust me at all. You never have. That's why we are where we are today."
Anisha pulled her hair back into a small bun. Her face felt hot. A fever perhaps, that was the last thing she wanted.
She had managed to convince Andrew to take the kids to Disneyland tomorrow. For Mira. For Ryan. So they could remember that their mother had given them all she had to offer. That she had smiled alongside them.
Mira had been looking forward to going to Disneyland for weeks now.
Anisha didn't want to get sick. Her immune system was weak. She easily got sick, a sore throat or a fever. But now, now she was close to the end.
A small fever and she wasn't sure if she'd get better.
She needed to sleep. She wanted to sleep.
"It isn't like that. I just...Mira doesn't look like me." Andrew gently brushed the hair away from her face. Anisha was pale, she looked extremely pale.
He knew something was wrong. He had known something was wrong. But whenever he asked, she always said she was feeling fine.
That wasn't the case though. Even Ryan knew that something was wrong with her. And Andrew needed to know, he wanted to know. It was one of the many things he wanted to ask her about.
But when Anisha spoke, her voice soft but broken, it tore him apart. It was as if everything from the lies around them to the failing marriage between them had drained her of everything. Her voice was dull and she looked even duller.
Because of him.
"That's because she looks like me. Just like how Ryan looks like you." She looked down at her hands, she had given up. It was that simple. She didn't have anything else to give him. She had already given him everything she had to offer.
"Do you remember when I told you I was pregnant again and you, you were so happy and then when we found out that it was a girl, I remember how excited you were because it was our baby girl." Anisha looked up at him, a soft smiling gracing her lips. "You wanted to paint her room pink. Every time we'd go shopping for baby stuff, you'd always pick that stupid Cinderella bed sheet. It's no surprise Mira's obsessed with Cinderella. We, we were so happy when Mira was born. I thought that things could finally be better."
"And you used to me that you wanted the little girl to grow up to be just like me. You'd tell me you wanted Mira to grow up and be just like me. Because you loved me."
Anisha blinked her eyes, trying to clear the tears that were once again clouding her vision. "I carried your daughter, Andrew. For nine months, I carried your daughter in my stomach. And you have the decency to accuse me of being unfaithful? Do you really think I would cheat on out just out of spite? Just because I wanted to hurt you like you have been hurting me for years?"
She looked down at her wrists, her wrists highlighted with scars that had faded over time. Things she had done to ease the pain.
"Because I didn't. I've told you over and over that I've been nothing but faithful to you. The day I married you, I vowed to be faithful. For you, they may have just been a few words but for me, those few words meant everything. And I've stayed true to those words. Even if I wanted to, I just couldn't cheat on you."
She smiled softly and then reached for his hand.
"This Andrew." Anisha ran his finger along the marks on her wrist, tracing each individual artwork of pain she'd crafted with a razor blade. "This is what I used to do because I was hurting."
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I had midterms this week and needed a little break so I wrote this ;) Sorry if it's kinda rushed. After I finish the book, I'll edit it. Thank you all for reading!