Prologue
If I concentrate really hard I can manage to control my breathing. I learned over the years that if I pretend to lay still in the dark nothing will happen. The monster will stay where it is, even if my heart is beating loudly in my chest. I am always afraid he’ll hear it.
I wait until his breathing slows. My eyes stay wide open. At least the one that isn’t swollen shut. It’s moments like this I wonder how the hell I ended up in a situation like this. How my life turned upside down and pushed me into this corner.
In the dark, it’s easy to blame everybody but myself. But here is another thing I have learned: It is always my fault.
When I was younger, my dad always told me I could be anything I wanted to be and I wanted to be a prima ballerina. I wanted to dance on the big stages of the world and I was convinced I could conquer it all. My dad told me I could and I believed him. And then he died and everything changed.
I am still trying to pinpoint the exact moment everything went down shit creek for me. Was it when our home line rang and mom broke down crying on the kitchen floors? Was it when I realized I would never see my dad again?
An accident killed my father. Coincidence. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As if life would ever be that simple.
I made the mistake of being naïve enough to believe that everything was going to be okay. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that sentence. It can be deceiving though.
Mom and I were struggling so badly that she saw no other way out but to turn to her family. We needed money and we needed it now. They gave us a choice and to survive mom agreed to their terms.
I wish I had known back then that it was my life she gave away willingly just so that she didn’t have to “suffer” through the hardship of working two jobs at a time.
The solution seemed easy. All I had to do to save my mom was give up everything I was. Everything I dreamed of and everything I longed to be.
“Arranged marriages are common in India! It’s a tradition, Ambar. Don’t worry. Your groom will be carefully picked. The rest comes with time.”
I always hear her voice in my head, wondering what good time has brought me. Nothing! Absolutely nothing but pain and suffering.
I got married when I was barely eighteen to a man that was eight years older than me. It was strange at first, but he seemed nice enough. He was great in the beginning. Back when we still lived with my mother. But then he slowly but surely isolated me from my old life. I still talk to my mom, but not as often as I used to.
It’s hard not to blame her for my situation. It’s hard not to feel betrayed by her. I have asked her for help so many times, but she never listens.
Amal is not a good man. He hid his true face for about a year and a half, but that’s when his patience slipped and he started to yell at me for random stuff. The yelling quickly turned into violence.
“I’m sorry, darling,” I try not to flinch at the sound of his voice. He has a strong British accent because he grew up in the UK. I thought it was charming at first. I called him my Indian James Bond and I found it hilarious. “But you need to learn,” he adds and wraps his arm around my bruised ribcage.
Tonight I accidentally dropped a plate after cleaning it. It broke into a million pieces and while it fell, I already knew he would turn a simple mistake into an excruciating lesson.
“I love you!” he adds and kisses my shoulder.
I close my eyes, pretending to sleep so he won’t make me have sex with him. He says it’s my duty as his wife to please him and to bear his children. Luckily that didn’t happen yet. I don’t know why, but I know that his patience is dwindling in that department as well.
If I look back on our wedding night, I never thought he could be such a monster. He was so gentle and understanding. He gave me the time and space I needed to adjust to our marriage and him.
But I guess people change. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life like this. I can’t imagine having children with him. How am I supposed to protect them? How am I supposed to protect myself?
I wait for his arm to go limp and his breathing to slow before I carefully sneak out of bed and downstairs.
We live in a nice neighborhood. His house is pretty and probably every girl’s dream, but it turned into a nightmare for me.
I wanted to be a ballerina, I wanted to dance my way across the seven seas. The only chance I get these days to dance is when he’s not home and my body isn’t too battered.
I wrap my woolen cardigan around myself as I stare out of the windows, overlooking the neighborhood. In the daytime, I can even see the ocean far back on the horizon.
I used to be a different person. I was young, but I always knew exactly who I wanted to be. I am a free spirit trapped in this house. Trapped in a marriage that is slowly killing me.
What if I just packed my bags and left?
I never do, because I am afraid of what would happen to my mother, but as more time runs down the river and she keeps on turning a blind eye, the more I feel like I don’t owe her anything.
I am wasting my life for a cruel man only so that she doesn’t have to work. This isn’t fair. This is certainly not what my father wanted for me.
What the hell do I have left to lose? If Amal catches me running away from him, he will kill me, but at least I have lived. Even if it’s just for a brave, impulsive moment.
