The Outcast 22

However, despite being so confused and conflicted, I was missing those memories..missing those emotions, which further tangled my heart. If I hadn’t grown attached, then why was I missing HIM? Why was Carmen’s betrayal hurting so much? And why did I feel so envious of Aisha? Why did I feel like I would never recover from this pain?  It seemed like something more than just falling out of a beautiful dream.  Despite, how that dream had started, it had been beautiful, so mesmerizing.

Mostly staying in my room, I would only come out to have daily meals with my family.  They were all giving me space, time to recover from all that I had been through.  They were content in having me safe, now, away from the psycho.

Often, Mama and Papa would have long, heated conversations over how they wanted to throttle Carmen, how that psycho deserved to be given life imprisonment, and even Mr and Mrs Nishaan would often visit our house and join those conversations.  Mr Nishaan claimed that it was Carmen that needed to be in jail instead of his beloved son ‘Bradley’, and the police needed to pay compensation money for all the incompetence they had shown. It’s funny how people who had previously hurt me so much were suddenly so concerned about my well-being.  I actually felt slightly disgusted.

Also, I believe my dissolution with the ways of the society had increased due to finally having something to compare my depressing feelings with. Previously, I had been living in depression and self-pity for so long that I had forgotten how it felt to be taken care of, adored and chased after.  Carmen had revived all those emotions, just like a true psycho would.

However, despite, how many people called Carmen a disgusting criminal, a psycho maniac, I couldn’t help but hurt over,how that wasn’t Carmen, he wasn’t a psycho torturer.  For some time, he had been more than that, yet suddenly he wasn’t. How utterly crushing.

I actually hated how my heart was still willing to defend someone who had made a complete fool out of it and still refusing to believe that it had been fully toyed with.  Why couldn’t I just let it go and accept that Carmen had lied, he had faked all of his intense emotions and used my naivety as a perfect ploy to chase after the usual lead, someone whom the society cherish? In fact, why couldn’t I just accept that background 'wanne-bees' are meant to stay as background cast, there is no space for them on 'white horses'. It was Aisha all over again. First Bradley and then Carmen, always her, always. I felt so hurt.

Slowly allowing my thoughts to deteriorate, I soon had my parents intervening and registering me in some nearby knitting classes. They claimed I needed some fresh air, a time out of the house.  Dealing with being kidnapped seemed to have seriously weighed on me, so they thought that it was best if I kept myself busy. I desperately wanted to cry my heart out in their arms, tell them that It wasn’t the kidnapping but the agonizing betrayal that I was destroying me.  I had never felt so lonely.

Sometimes, even in huge crowds, you feel so alone and lost which makes you feel so guilty because you have people who adore you so much, but the heart, 'it wants what it wants'.  We can’t change that.

Anyhow, my first day at the knitting class had been so similar to my college days.  There was no one truly willing to treat me as  a visible soul.  The news of my kidnapping had spread across my town, so many were avoiding me like a plague; being so afraid to deal with anyone who had been targeted by the Mafia. My story, it had turned the invisible back - bender into a feared specimen. Everyone just avoided me.

However, there was one girl who would sneakily pass comments about me, whispering comments to her friends about how I was actually part of the wrong crowd now and supposely into the Mafia gang too.  The rumours spreading were just so disgusting and heartbreaking.  I felt hiding in  a shell.

My knitting classes were taking place in a commercialized house, so with it being only two doors away from my house, I would often choose to escape the daunting whispers of girls, whose whispers seemed so loud and clear in the white and small congested rooms, and spend my afternoons in a coffee shop.

'Mona Coffee Shop' was known to be the best in town. It was small, woodsy and extremely homey.  Also, it had stuffed and brown floor-sofas placed right next to its tinted windows, and anyone who didn’t prefer to occupy its long tables could sit on these couches to enjoy coffee. I would often find myself sitting on these sofas sipping on tea and just thinking, feeling how anyone truly couldn’t really understand what I was going through.  There were no heart-to-heart discussions, no consoling, just healing, mending and constant thrashing of Carmen, which seemed appropriate, but they, people were hating Carmen for all the wrong reasons.

Sighing as the emotional bullying continued and people grew harsher with days, I realized how much I had wanted Carmen to be a hero. People like him, Bradley, they didn’t get the pain of being weak and miserable.  They didn’t get how one could seriously need a helping hand for simply breathing.  While always being thrashed, hoping for a hero had always been my 'supporting branch'.

In fact, while being kicked on a daily basis behind the school by Jasmine in 3rd grade, my tears had only dried up when I thought that someone would accept me in the future, someone would come around.  Even after Bradley, I had stayed calm because I believed one of those twists in the way of living my fairytale. It wasn’t that Carmen didn’t know what exactly he had destroyed for me, how lonely he had made me feel.

My family, I was such a fool to be willing to live away from them. I actually felt so ashamed whenever I had them fretting over my well-being. In my attempt to run away from all the hurt, I had completely forgotten what my absence would do to them.  I had been so foolish and selfish.  Had I been this desperate to live a fantasy, chase after a supposed 'here' that any suave words could do the trick, any fake promises would make me care, grow so dependent and attached? Had the subtle rejection and belittling attitudes of my peers been that painful? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that I had to stop being so selfish, stop worrying my family.  They treated me as their world. I couldn’t let their kindness get overshadowed by my own insecurities and suppressed hurt.

Thus, now sipping on a cup of coffee while watching the rain trickle down the coffee shop’s windows. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my soul by the brewing scent of coffee beans. Mona's coffee was the best.

‘I adore Mona's coffee, too.’ a girl now sat on the sofa before me.  She was the book lover from my knitting class. With huge knitting tables covering all the rooms and the staff often busy helping who accidentally got their fingers pierced by the needles, this girl would stay hidden behind the knitting machines and simply read.  She wasn’t interested in rumours, rarely spoke a word with others and just went with the flow.  I envied her oblivious attitude.

‘It works wonders,’ I smiled, lowering the cup and placing it on the floor beside me.

‘I know. I used to come here for coffee in high school,’  she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘But then, I had to move away.’ her voice turned a bit nostalgic and rueful, making me feel curious. It was a familiar pain stinging her tone.

Wanting to change the topic, I then eyed the book she was holding in her hand…

‘What’s that book about?’

‘Oh,’ her sad vibes got immediately replaced by excitement. I guess books were something she loved talking about. ‘It’s about human psychology,’  she beamed, opening her book in excitement. ‘One of my favourite authors wrote it, and I just love how she presented the grave nature of Stockholm syndrome.’

‘Stockholm syndrome?’ I interrupted, tilting my head. I had heard about this problem a few years ago but wasn’t sure what exactly this illness was.

‘Ummm, it’s kind of complicated. Mind telling you about it once my coffee arrives..’

‘Sure, I am all ears.’

Destructive, ruined and completely defeated.  Carmen watched as his pets stayed circled around him, warming him while he stood out in the open fields, feeling the mighty thunder echo across the walls of his vacant heart.  He had let her go, turned her into a wistful memory, and now was breathing because his past, his haunting past, his mesmerizing past.

The wind seemed to be desperate in trying to jolt his soul and drag him out of the void, but he just didn’t feel like going with the flow. Chilled by the cold air, it was his heart that was shivering from the terrifying storm of voidness, aching with the intense cold; he had let her go.  He had allowed himself to sacrifice his air for, her.  He felt completely defeated.

The world seemed so monotonous now, so dull and foreign.  Carmen didn’t know how long it would take before he sank down on his knees and allowed his crushed sobs to echo across the air, allow the powerful wind to carry it away.  It was always him who lost at the end, who had to make choices that would drive people away, trigger them to leave because he was easily able to figure out all the triggers, and hers just happened to be a brutal one, AISHA.

While chasing after the girl, Carmen had found Sarah and immediately discovered that it was time to end his chase, his world had tilted towards a whole new direction. Yet, here, he was allowing that chase to make an appearance again, to be used for manipulating another. He didn’t want to use such a convenient trigger, never meant to make her shed a single tear, but the day he had decided to give up on her for even a minute and allow her to get hurt was the day he decided that he was never going to be enough.  His obsession for her was never going to be enough, she would get destroyed by his worlds, and her world would never allow that.  No matter what, he wouldn’t let her get perished by his malicious mind.

He had to let go, and so he did.  He knew making her believe that he didn’t care would be the end game for her because that’s just what everyone expected from him; it was easy to make others believe he was a heartless psycho than making them think that there could be more be something to his insanity. Even his parents only chose to label him as an insane man, a malicious psycho.

Soon, collapsing down on the floor, he finally let out a wail as one of his pets bit his hands.  He had never done that before, never felt that pain.

‘Carmen, are you okay?’ It was Ouma cautiously wheeling her chair towards him.

‘My pet bit me, Mama, they bit me.’  he wailed, allowing his mask to absorb all of his tears, He didn’t feel like wiping them away.

‘They always did.  So, why are you crying now?’ She cooed, nearing him in concern.

‘Because this time their bite hurt, Mama, it truly hurts..’  That aching confession, the desperate cry for help really made Ouma’s heart twist in agony and guilt, triggering a depressing memory from her past.

She remembered the time when Carmen was three. Hardly managing to walk on his feet, he had fallen near her feet while holding a baby crocodile in his hands.  Horrified, she had picked her baby up and forcefully took the crocodile from his hands.  After releasing the baby crocodile in a nearby river, she had hugged her baby and chastised him for being so reckless.

‘Carmen, do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You could have seriously gotten hurt!! That thing, it could have bit you.’

‘But, it did Mama,’ He grinned, showing him his bleeding right thumb.  The blood seemed like it had been flowing for some time. ‘It kept its teeth stuck in my thumb.’

‘Oh, my goodness, Carmen! Are you okay? Is it hurting badly?’ She immediately wrapped her scarf around his thumb, rushing to get a bandage for him.

‘No, Mama,’ he gleefully shook his head, seeming quite proud of his wound. ‘Animal bites only hurt when they know you are SAD. I wasn’t sad, so I am not hurt..’

‘Carmie’

Carmie, her precious son had gone through so much because of her.

Ouma couldn’t help but regret how the psychotic nature of her husband had led her to become so cruel towards her own messed up son, And now, because of her own past mistakes, all she could do was wheel her chair next to her lost child and pat his head, trying to finally be there for him and share his tears.  She had a deep well of her own tears to cry, wails to express how sorry and ashamed she was, but, for now, she had to be there for her completely lost child.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Her voice cracked as she helplessly watched her son wailing shattered tears.

‘I am going to kidnap Aisha now,’ He tried pushing his emotions back inside his heart and reaching for composure. ‘I am going to save her by choosing Aisha.’

‘She will get hurt, son..’ she sighed, staring miserably at all the snakes that were surrounding them.  These were her son’s pets, this was what her son chose to hang around.  Her poor child.

‘It’s better than getting completely destroyed by my presence. You were right.  She deserved to know about the truth, but I just didn’t have the heart to tell her. It’s better this way now.  She is safe…’

‘I hope you are right, son. For your sake, I hope you are right.’

And with that, the clouds thundered again and a light drizzle started pouring down.  The blessing weather was despite trying to wash away all the tears of agony…