It wasn't easy. It could never have never been. She knew it. She had known it all along.It was as if she could look into the future and know what was to come. Her sixth sense had always helped her, warned her, prepared her. Just like it did this time. Only this time even after knowing, she was just as helpless as she would have been without the knowledge. She knew she had acted weak. Something her mother would have never approved of but then mother doesn't need to know, she thought. She knew she would loath it when she looked back but right now despite everything her mind told her, she despairingly realized she had absolutely no control over her actions.


Her self-respect had vanished completely. It had gone bit by tiny bit. All under her watchful conscience. She had seen it sneaking away slowly, silently, obtrusively. She had seen it and had been too meek to stop it from leaving. She had let the frivolous side of her take charge. She had let the voice of reason in her head go unheard. Even though she knew that voice was right and she would regret it later on but then at that point of time she felt she could take the misery when it came. She just had to hang on now, for her sake, for her sanity's sake. For the sake of her heart.

How difficult could it possibly be? Wasn't she the one who her friends looked up to because she was never down? 'Cause they said her spirit was reinforced with iron rods. That she was one of those rare strong-back-boned ones. The ones who stood straight even in the storm and came out unscathed. Wasn't she the one they all leaned on? So, it possibly couldn't take her much to rise from this fall cause she knew fall she would. This time it was a sure fall. As sure as it could ever get. And she had done the worst mistake of her life.

She had underestimated Pain. And that had been enough of a gauntlet.



Because fall she did.



On her face, with her body sprawled out. And it burned her too, singed her to the core. Inside out. It hurt so much that for the first time she wished she were not who she was, not living this life she had so dearly loved. Dearly, hungrily, lustily loved. It hurt so bad she couldn't get up. It hurt so bad she didn't want to get up; she knew it would only hurt more. The pain had only just started. It would get worse till it would get so bad that the only thing she could do would be to accept it. And then it would become part of her. Then she would like it even. Maybe. For the first time she felt afraid. No, it was the not the first time she felt afraid. It was the first time she admitted it to herself. She felt afraid, hurt and lonely. Three words which would change her.



Three words which would change her being, the way she thought, the way she looked at others, the way she reacted, the way she acted.

Her smiles would be no more what they had been. Her eyes would no longer mirror emotions like they once had. Even her touch would change. The way she slept, the positions she slept in it would all change.

The person who she had once been would live on inside her only now subdued and humbled by a new person who had been so painstakingly crafted by Pain.