I Belong to My Bully

6. Saccharine Fantasies

MIA'S POV:

After saying what I have to say, I started moving. I didn't bother to look back. What was there to look back? They didn't leave anything for me back there. Owen was trying to help but he was not the first one who tried. Whenever someone has tried to help me, Elijah and his dummies made sure that they won't be in the condition to even help themselves for the rest of their lives. And I don't think he would follow me after knowing whose daughter I was.

Life is not fair. Life is never fair. You have to live with what you are given. Life is not a blank canvas that you can paint according to your wishes but it is a painted mural that you have to adjust according to your needs. But my life is a fresco painted in black. Whatever and however I try to change it remains black.

I was walking on the pavement with steady steps, life was whirling and running around me but my world stopped when I met Elijah, My Elij. He hurt me every day and even when he is not there, his friends hurt me. What I have ever done to deserve such hostility? They punch me, slap me, beat me, and when they couldn't find anything they humiliate me.

I am well accustomed to beating as Natalie would occasionally beat me whenever my mom was not around. So that I can submit to her wishes and start working for the club. But I was okay being crushed rather than to work for her stupid club. Where she can earn money by selling my body. But I was not okay with the humiliation, the hostility, the enmity I was facing. The biggest card life has played with me is that Elij is the one bullying me. The one and only Elij. Who I have loved from the age when my naive mind couldn't even understand what were the tingling sensations I felt in my stomach when he touched me and smiled at me.

 After walking for an hour, I reached my apartment in the slums. Where even in the daylight women were standing wearing glittery, shimmery, and seductive clothes, barely covering their bodies. Their untrimmed long nails painted in blood red colors. Their faces painted with layers of heavy makeup but the cracks were visible when go went near them, describing the quality of makeup they used, which was cheap and mostly handed to them by someone. Their beige coated faces were hiding their true identity.  As if they were trying to cover the stinging reality of the world behind it. I never loathed them but I felt pity for them, as they never had a choice. They never had a choice to go to school or choose a respectable source of earning for them. They were needy and helpless. Some of them had families to look after and some of them had greedy parents like my mother's, who sold them for the sake of money.

I was walking in unstable steps towards my apartment when someone called me from behind. "Hey, honey what happened to you? Who did this?" Aunt Caroline said from behind. She was my mother's only friend here. She helped my mother occasionally and she was very nice to me too.

"Nothing," I said blankly.

 "Tell me who did this. I am going to teach those sons of bitches a lesson" She said hugging me even I was a mess. I couldn't keep my tears from falling and soon I was crying hard on her shoulder.

"Ohhh, honey…shush shush. Don’t cry. You are a strong girl like your mother," she said trying to hold her tears.

"I….a...am…not…st...strong," I said while hiccupping and crying.

"Yeah, you are and now wipe your tears. You don't want to upset your mother with these tears," She said cupping my face in her hand and wiping my tears off. "I am going to take you to your apartment and get yourself cleaned up. Now be a good girl and smile for your Aunt. Who just had a very bad day after seeing Natalie," She said mockingly and I laughed with tears in my eyes. I quickly wiped the rest of them with the back of my hand.

Then she took me to our small apartment. This apartment only had one room me and my mother could use as our safe haven. It was rusty and old with water dripping from walls and floor dented almost everywhere. Natalie barged in our little home any time she wanted and even tried to bring customers here. Which my mother told her not to. But she never listened. According to her, we are her dogs on leash. So we had to do whatever she says.

I showered and wore the clothes Caroline picked for me and sat by the small window from which only a diminutive ray of sun was coming, same as the pint-sized ray of hope in my heart to get out of here. Which was getting dimmed day by day.

"Now here you go, honey. I have made you sandwiches and these are medicines for your headache due to all the crying session," Caroline said, coming in the room with a tray. "Thank you," that was the only word I said looking at her and then again started looking out of my escape route.

"Come here honey and sit with me. So that your aunt can knock some sense into you, "She said patting at the bedside. I looked at her with swollen blank eyes and I knew seeing me like this was hurting her too. I slowly crawled to her and sat beside her, keeping my head low looking in an unknown direction, like I was trying to find a direction that would lead me to get out of here.

"Honey, don't do this to yourself. Look at me and tell me do I look like someone who can lose hope? "She said looking at me. I looked at her wrinkled face with makeup on it but I could feel that something has keeping her moral up to fight.

"No," I said, she was the strongest person after my mother that I knew. Even much stronger than my mother. She was the one who would fight Natalie occasionally for different girls out here. Even sometimes the bit*he’s goons would hit her but she would rise again and fight with much more passion. I never knew what drived her. She was a fire fighter and fierce little old lady. Making every day of her life count by fighting for the right cause.

"But I did honey. I lost myself," She said looking in my eyes.

"I want to tell you something. My husband was a heavy drinker and a gambler. We had a precious little daughter just like you my pumpkin. But you know what he did," She said holding her tears. I nodded my head in no.

"He bet our daughter at gambling and then lost. Those people were thugs and they came to our house. I was furious, I fought him, and I tried everything. But I didn't had anything at that time to give to them. So in the end I sold myself for my daughter. But when my daughter knew she became quiet and when day when I came home, she was hanging by a rope to the ceiling. She committed suicide. She couldn't swallow the fact that her mother had to sell herself for her. I lost hope that day when her lifeless body was in my lap and I was staring into her brown eyes void of life, emotions even anything. She was gone. I lost myself. What was there for me to live for? But I decided to live. For girls who were like my daughters sold here every day," She said with tears rolling down her eyes.

"You know when I saw your mother. She was 17 back then and I was 38. I saw myself in her and when you were born I saw my daughter in you. Don't stop Mia, keep fighting and keep struggling because struggle less life is not for people like us. We have to strive harder every day to make our tomorrow less harrowing. Promise me you will fight for yourself, for your mother, and your old aunt. Promise me Mia," She said looking with her brown eyes that were seeking only a promise to be content with the life.

"I promise you. I promise. I will fight and I will not lose hope. But you know when Elij hurts me, it hurts like hell," I said hugging her tightly and pressing my head into her bony shoulders. The translucent pearls of sorrow were running down like a waterfall, flushing every feeling that deprived me of struggling.

"I know my pumpkin. I know. But if he loved you, he would have never hurt you. Your mother has nothing to do with what he is facing these days. He is in denial and hurting a weakling like you is his only way out," She said codling me.

"Tell him to stop aunty. Tell him to stop, please. I can't take anymore," I said with sleepy eyes. My eyes were getting drowsy. She was rocking me back and forth, while I was hugging her resting my head on her chest. This was soothing after a day of torture I spent. The last thing before giving myself to the valley of sweet dreams, I saw someone entering the room in a rush, and then I gave myself to the saccharine fantasies of me and my Elij being together.

Yeah, I loved him that much, with all my heart, soul, and everything. In my dreams he never hurt me. In my dreams he was the Elij I met for the first time after thirteen years. Those were good days and those were the only to be remembered.