FLAMES

3.

Nora loves gossiping. And I'd be lying if I said gossiping wasn't my thing, because it was. I'd spend hours reading verbal-war between two people on the internet under somebody's post. It's always good to gossip about someone we don't even know. Talking about something funny rather than doing our jobs silently is fun.

I loved Nora's spirit at work. She never treated work like work. She enjoyed everything she did. She even washed dishes like she was finding entertainment in it. They say everyone teaches you something or the other about life. And Nora taught me to live life to the fullest. Though it was hard in my case, I tried to live the most outside my house.

I tried to keep both of my lives separate. The Reverie Kinsley in her house is a helpless woman who knows nothing but obedience. She is a coward who gave up trying after getting caught multiple times. But the Reverie Kinsley at college and restaurant was different. She was free-spirited. She smiled more. She gossiped about celebrities. She had friends. And this Reverie Kinsley was not vulnerable. She was not abused in any way.

I wished to be Reverie Kinsley from the restaurant forever.

"So, that guy who got stabbed outside our restaurant decided against filing a case." Rhea suddenly brought him up, making me snap my attention towards her.

"What? Is he for real? He literally got stabbed. How come he doesn't want the police to get involved? If I got stabbed in real life, I'd literally start living in the police station. I'd even be scared to walk home alone." Nora said, shaking her head as if her imagination scared her.

I bit my lips at Nora's words. If I got stabbed in real life, I'd literally start living in the police station. How easy it is to conclude that police can solve everything. You find the law and the government of your country promising until you become a victim and get offered no justice or protection. Your bubble of law and people burst painfully. You realize that no matter how elaborately the laws are led down, you won't get justice when needed.

After getting no help from my mother or police officers, I also stopped seeking for them. I don't know much about the unnamed man but his reluctance with the police had only two reasons. He was either running away from the police or he knew the police couldn't help him. When the authorities fail to save someone, the degree of abuse increases. And who can testify it better than me?

"Maybe involving the police endangered his life." I added my thoughts, cleaning the dishes. Rhea raised her eyebrows at me.

"And what made you say so?" She asked me curiously, making me bite my tongue.

"Sometimes the abuser is someone powerful and dangerous. And when the abuser is as powerful as the victim is powerless, the police are always reluctant to help. In that case, it's a threat to the victim and his family. I am not sure what is his story, but all I can say is we never know what one is going through. We should keep ourselves from commenting anything wrong." I added the last statement with a small smile, making them sigh.

Nora draped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards her. I rolled my eyes at her actions. She bumped her shoulders against me, leaning against the counter.

"Sometimes you make me wonder if you're really safe, Rev. You speak as if you experienced the incompetency of the police." Nora joked, but I just laughed with her, not making any effort to correct her.

I, indeed, experienced the incompetency of the police.

The rest of the shift went normally. By the time we were done with work, which involved washing the dishes, all of us bid our goodbyes and went our ways. I was running out of sanitary napkins and a couple of more things, so I decided to stop by the supermarket before going home.

Sometimes, a sudden change in our plans can change our destiny. A small change can lead to a different future. I wonder if things would've been any different if I had never stopped by the supermarket that evening. But knowing how stubborn and relentless destiny is, we would've met again. You can't run away from your fate. You might think if you run any faster you can outsmart destiny, but you can never run faster than time. Nobody can. You can take different routes, you can change your directions but you'd end up at the same destination, no matter what road you chose if it's bound to happen.

Imagine my surprise when the wheels of somebody's cart touched my feet, making me turn around to meet the familiar grey pools of eyes, looking at me with an equal amount of surprise. I always found it strange how two people meet again and again in different places, unaware of what the future holds for them. We were still strangers, met in an unforeseen situation.

My eyes scanned him unintentionally. He looked fine. He didn't look in pain. But then again, it had been days since he got stabbed outside the restaurant I work in. He was walking fine, with no hint of pain.

Seeing people in pain pained me. Maybe I try to see the same misery in people's eyes that I often carry in mine surreptitiously. I don't know what that made me, trying to find myself in people's eyes and trying to mend that broken part. Maybe it gave me a sense of relief that I saved someone like me from demons that are always surrounding them because I was a lost cause.

Not knowing how to react to people you meet for the second time holding no connections but just a memory, I bent down to grab myself a pack of cookies I wasn't even planning to buy originally to get myself out of misery.

But embarrassment attracts embarrassment.

Not paying attention, I stood up abruptly, causing my head to bang against the protruding edge of the display shelf, making me hiss. The moment I reached to hold my throbbing head, the back of my palm met the sharp edge of it causing my skin to split and blood trickle down painfully.

My sharp wince must have caught the stranger's attention because he turned around and cursed under his breath. My breath got caught in my throat when he stepped into my personal space, causing my heart to pound against my chest in fear. Unaware of the panic he was causing me, he grabbed my injured arm and looked at the blood seeping out of the open cut.

"f*****g hell! This needs—" He stopped when he looked up, noticing the panic in my eyes. I was breathing harshly when he touched me, evoking flashbacks of uncountable nights I was touched forcefully.

Fear knows no comfort.

Fear trusts no one. It didn't let me trust my own family, and this man was still a stranger I happened to meet only once in my life before.

Sensing my fear and panic, he immediately took a couple of steps back. I looked away, the pain in my hand getting numb as I concentrated on breathing normally. I closed my eyes after a minute of failing to calm myself down. I counted for God knows how long, but when I opened my eyes, I was finally calming down and the stranger was still looking at me, waiting for me.

I had no idea how to feel about it.

"I'll call a lady worker here, she'll help you with the cut. Are you okay with it?" He asked me once I calmed down. His deep voice was echoing inside me.

It was strange how he was raging like a fire when we first met despite him being in a hospital bed. But at that moment, his voice was soft, almost like he was toning it down for me. It was still deep, resonating inside me, laced with authority, but comforting.

I swallowed the thick lump forming inside my throat, shaking my head. "It's okay. It's just a small cut."

"It's not." He interrupted, shaking his head at me. "If you don't want anyone holding you, I'll call the help right here. They'll clean your wounds and bandage your hand. but you can't leave an open cut untreated."

Have you ever felt time stopping in your life? Have you ever felt like this can't be real? People like him, whose name was also unknown, sounded too good to be true. All my life, I lived with a man who never cared about me. He didn't stop when I cried, pleaded, or tried to kill myself. He didn't even stop when I fainted due to panic and fear. My own father used me my entire life. Why would a stranger care so much?

No matter how genuine his concern looked at that moment, I was taught not to trust anyone ever again.

When I nodded my head, he called a lady working in the supermarket. She took me upstairs, to the emergency room, and made me sit on the chair. The stranger followed me upstairs as well. He was standing at a distance, but still present in the same room. My eyes lifted from the floor to meet his grey ones, only to find him looking at me.

"It's good that you don't need stitches. But it will burn a little." The lady said, making me shake my head. It was just a small cut.

I looked away from the lady when she removed the disinfectant from the first-aid box and held my arm gently. My gaze met the familiar eyes once again. Like flames igniting in his grey orbs, I saw fire lurking in them.

While the lady was cleaning my wound, I took my time observing the man in front of me. Dressed in a black shirt and a pair of black pants, he looked dangerously supreme. Have you ever met someone who exudes power without doing anything? He was one among them. His grey eyes were sharp, holding depths that hid dangers and secrets worth destroying someone. His dark hair was combed back, except for that one strand that kept falling on his forehead. He was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossing against his chest, watching the lady clean my cut carefully.

It was funny how he was injured when we met for the first, and in the second meet, I managed to injure myself. It was me who waited with him when he was getting treated in the hospital a few days ago, and now he was waiting with me while I was getting my hand bandaged.

"You're done. Make sure you won't wet your cut." The lady gently advised, making me nod my head. I forced out a smile, getting up from the chair, and tracing the bandage on my hand.

"Thank you so much. And I'm sorry for the trouble." I thanked her, and she smiled back at me, shaking her head softly.

"It wasn't a problem." She assured me.

When I turned around to leave, I met the stranger who slowly lowered his arms and stuffed his hands inside the pockets of his pants. Swallowing the saliva down my throat, I looked at him once again.

"Thank you so much—" I trailed off, not knowing his name. I didn't really need his name to thank him. But I was curious. I needed to know the name of the man who didn't touch me seeing my panic. Men like him didn't deserve to roam nameless.

"Alastair. Alastair Blaze." His name was beautiful. It suited his attractive frame. Nodding my head, I lowered my head a little to express my gratitude. It was more of a nod.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Blaze. I appreciate your help." I said, and he shook his head, not speaking anything at all.

Like those moments I like reading in fiction, he called me from behind, halting my steps. Reality is far away from fiction. My reality is horrifying, written with blood I shed every night. I wasn't expecting him to call me after not responding to my thank you, let alone call me by my name. I didn't know how he knew my name, but he knew.

"Reverie," he called me. And I stopped. My feet obeyed almost immediately.

Obedience is scary. When you start obeying in fear of getting punished, you become submissive to everyone in the world. You stop questioning people. It was only when he called me, and I stopped at his command, that I realized that Reverie Kinsley was Reverie Kinsley, no matter where she was. No matter how hard I tried to pretend, I feared men everywhere.

"Are you okay?" He asked me, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. It was like someone had pushed me into a small cage and kept squeezing my throat, stopping me from breathing.

The question took me off guard. And the way his eyes narrowed slightly, looking through my lies, told me that he wasn't asking about the cut on the back of my palm. He knew something. He saw something. He felt something. Something, I had been hiding for the past eight years. Something I tried showing my mother but my mother refused to believe me. Something I tried telling the police, begging them to help me but they refused to believe a helpless girl over a powerful man. Something I stopped telling people for fear of getting judged wrongly.

And instead of answering him, I forced myself to get out of the supermarket as soon as I could. And that's what I did. I walked away from there, not answering Alastair's question. I ran away because that's what I am good at. Running away.

___

That night when my father sneaked inside my room and wrapped his arms around my waist, his fingers roughly touched my bandaged hand, making me hiss in pain. Startled by the bandage on my hand, he unwrapped his arms from my waist and turned the lights on. His eyes looked down at my bandaged hand with a worrisome expression, almost fooling me that he cared about me.

"Did you harm yourself?" He asked me, looking up with pained eyes. His fingers gently traced my injured hand. Disgust started crawling my skin, gnawing me.

Every single time he touched me, it reminded me of the endless nights he harassed me. He never cared for me like a father cares about his daughter. The intention behind his love managed to make me nauseous. It disgusted me.

"Tell me, baby, please tell me my little girl didn't harm herself—"

"So what if I did?" I snapped, my eyes burning in rage. I jerked his arms away from my body as I stepped out of the bed. "So what if I harmed myself? Will you stop raping me? Would that stop you from assaulting me?"

Father shook his head. His eyes teared up as if I physically hurt him. He got down from the bed as well, slowly walking towards me, as if he was trying to calm me down. It was funny how a choked sob left my mouth and he reached forward to embrace me. It disgusted me how he pretended to care for me when he was the one harassing me for the past eight years.

"It's not a r**e, baby—"

"Stop calling me that! Stop calling me that. Please." I yelled, and he shook his head once again. I hated how he ensured every room was soundproof. He soundproofed every single room to keep the screams of agony and pain hidden inside the four walls.

"You're my child, baby. I love you. I love you the most. Seeing you hurt pains me, Rev. It hurts me too. I love you so much." He said, grabbing my shoulders. He wiped my tears.

When I thrashed in his arms, his grip tightened around me.

"Don't f*****g manipulate me! You don't love me, Dad! You just love yourself! No father r***s his biological daughter almost every night and then behaves normally the next morning. Have you ever thought about anyone but yourself? You're cheating on your wife. You're sexually assaulting your own daughter! This is not love. You need help. You are f*****g—" The words dissolved in my mouth when I felt a sharp pain on my right cheek.

He slapped me.

I swallowed the tears that were on the verge of rolling down my eyes. A chuckle escaped my mouth as I touched my face. It burned from the painful blow. That was all he knew. Assaulting me. First, assaulting me in the name of love, and now assaulting me to prove his love.

"s**t! Rev— baby, I am sorry. Look, I didn't mean to raise my hand at you. But you can't talk to your father like this. Does it hurt? I'll get something to help with the pain—" He started panicking, making me laugh harder. Tears were rolling down my eyes and my chuckles were getting louder.

It was a shame no one could hear me getting insane.

"Just leave!" I interrupted him. My voice was soft and broken.

"Baby,"

"Before I really do something to myself, just leave. Please. You force yourself on me almost every night. It won't affect you if you let me cry in peace for just one night. Please go away." I pleaded to him.

I don't know what made my father actually walk out of my room that night, because it never happened before and in never happened later in the future. I watched him walk out of my room silently, looking at me one last time before closing the door. Tears rolled down my eyes without any restrain now. I fell down on my knees and cried for God knows how long. I just remember waking up the next morning on the floor where I might have passed out from exhaustion.

When I walked downstairs the next morning, Mom was cooking as usual. Melody was already downstairs, playing game on Mom's phone. When she turned around to greet me, a gasp left her mouth. She reached forward to touch my bruised cheek, making me wince. I didn't feel the slap last night. But the pain and bruising made themselves known the moment I regained my senses.

"Who hit you, Rev?" Melody asked me, jumping down the chair to get me some cold.

Her panic gained Mom's attention. Her eyes widened when she saw my bruised face. Turning the stove off, she rushed to my side and gingerly touched my face. When Melody returned with bag of frozen peas, Mom helped me placed it on the side of my face.

"Who did this, Rev? I told you to not work at a cheap place like that. Did they hit you? Or was it any customer? Tell me, darling, I'll ask your father to teach them a lesson." She promised me, making me smile almost immediately.

She'll ask the inflictor to find the accused?

"What if I said it was Dad who hit me?" I asked her in small voice, not wanting Melody to hear it, she simply stared at me before brushing it off.

"Don't joke about things like this, Rev. Your father loves you the most." Yeah correct.

"I'm fine. I'll eat something from college." I said, getting up from the chair. Not wanting to stay in the same house, I rushed out as soon as I could.

And they say, a child is safe with their parents.