He looked into her eyes. He had always liked looking into them, whenever he got the chance. It was not as if she didn’t let him, it was just that she was very shy, terribly shy. He would coax her for hours to let him look into his eyes for a minute. And then she would. Like she always did. He always won with her. She could never resist him. She, of the iron will, just melted whenever he was around. She had weathered a lot of storms in life. She said that's what had made her strong. He said, I don’t think so. You were not meant to be strong. God didn’t create you that way. He created you with a soft core and then he sent me take care of you. To guard you, shield you, hold you close and tight. Hold you in my arms and look into your eyes.

He held her close that night. He looked into her eyes. It had again taken coaxing since the morning for her to finally agree to meet him in the evening, after work and let him look into her yes.

He had parked the car under the streetlight, two lanes away from her house. The yellow light cast a warm glow on her face. It made her look breathtakingly beautiful. But then he never looked at her face. He looked into her eyes. They always looked like pools of a thousand myriad whirring emotions. But today was different; He could see that something was amiss. That her eyes had one predominant emotion, which drowned out all the rest of them. And what killed him was he didn’t know what it was. Or maybe he did and he didn’t want to face it. It was in that very moment, he could actually feel his heart turn into a deadweight. He could feel it turning into a drowning mass of stone. He could feel it choking him. He could feel life slipping out of his lungs. He started grasping for air. She sat there paralyzed. She just kept looking at him. It was guilt now. He saw it. And he knew the time had come for him to die. The time when all he had ever dreamt of, all the dreams he had ever seen, the very reason of his existence would come crashing down and would take him down with them. He kept looking into her eyes still, it was the last thing he wanted to d before he closed his. And then he smiled. After all, this is how he wanted to die, looking into her eyes.

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.