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#yourword

I wanna know what he did.

I don't ever wanna do to you what he did to you.

How do you define emotional abuse? I need to know so that I don't ever have to make you feel that way.

Your words. But not now. It wasn't something you had told me. It was something that you will tell me. Only, you're not a man of your word.

Perhaps I talk an awful lot about how I'm still standing after growing up in a home with an abusive father and feeling like there's no escape. I wasn't looking for empathy, really. I believe I used it as an explanation for my behavior, which wasn't any better. Why I wanted to do things I wasn't allowed to do. A form of rebellion that I would unleash. He wouldn't know about those, but that wasn't the point. Nothing in my life amounted to any man or boy that took away my pieces, I didn't let them hold that kind of stature.

I would dress a certain way because I wasn't allowed to, it gave me a sense of control and empowerment of who I was as a person. But really, what difference did it make? It was so easy to just tell someone to 'ignore', or to go to a therapist and 'let it all out'. It's funny, I read somewhere that 'people go to therapy to fix things that people in their life who won't go to therapy ruined' or something along those lines. But what change does that make when you can't change your surrounding. How does the law require a woman to be bound to a man forever? No sense of freedom. Why do they use religion to disguise their disgusting opinionated culture to downgrade and objectify a human being? Only had me think of the how 'to escape the labyrinth' as fairly quoted by John Green himself.

There really wasn't a way out. There weren't many options or decisions one could make to run away. It's made to sound so easy; call someone to help you. Just take all the money and leave. You're eighteen you make your own decisions. Leave everyone behind. Just report it to the police. Why didn't you register proof? Ugh those words over and over again.

Too many thoughts and memories made their way through my head as I noted down all the topics I wanted to cover in my new book titled The Society [that I grew up in]. My first non fiction about the realities of people and their survival under the pressurized mentality that I had to grow up in. This book wasn't for women. It was for the people. All women and men, those abused and those who weren't, emotional or physical scarring, those who were never aware because the adults in their lives were the winners of creating a new world for the generations to come, and so much more.

I needed to try and isolate myself from my opinions. As an author, I don't get to have my own opinion, especially in non fiction. I get to create people with beliefs and opinions, and all I can do with their beliefs and opinions is narrate them. But as soon as I was finished noting down my fifth point to be covered in the very first chapter of the book, my cousin called.

I made plans with Chloe last minute. It wasn't often that we hung out, but when we both finally made time for each other, we did it for a whole day and spent it to the fullest. We did give up on making real plans though, every time I made one with her we'd end up doing something different and I would get random OCD glitches whenever I wrote it down in my planner with a pen and couldn't make the changes. I wasn't a user of the corrector.

"Are you dresseddd?" My cousin, Chloe, screeched over the phone. I could hear her dog barking in the background.

"Yes." I lied. "I just need to find my keys." Another lie, as I looked at the fluffed up black key chain on my mother's car keys. I was no where near ready, but it wouldn't take me too long. What was there to get dressed up for when you're going hiking.

"How much longer until you're here?" She asked, I could imagine her picking on her uneven nails as her tongue continuously pushed the inside of her cheek. She wasn't someone that could hold still for a while.

"Thirty minutes tops?" It was more of a question, as if I were looking for her approval. She was four years younger than I was, I think the approval seeking had to be done the other way around, but for some reason it was always me running after everyone's approval. Always.

▲▼▲

The perfect day was chosen for hiking, the early December breeze flagellated against my bare skin as the trees crooned a song I was too familiar with. The leaves dancing against each other, a melody for only those who appreciated it. I closed my eyes for a minute and took a deep bre-

"Oh em geee!" Chloe screeched, hugging her jacket closer to her slim body. "It is so cold, how are you even walking around in a t-shirt?" She exasperated. Her face was all scrunched up and she was giving off an angry vibe, but I knew her too well to know that she was enjoying this.

"Could you tone down with the screeching, we've been walking for more than an hour now. How could I possible feel cold compared to you, you're one-third of me! Not like there's anything wrong with that but you're bound to have a smaller tolerance towards the cold. Besides, you're sweating from the hike, how in the world can you even feel cold?"

I opened up my weather forecast application that took forever to load amidst this forest and the connection, but it showed an approximation of 16 degrees Celsius. I turned back to look at the raven haired beauty behind me and narrowed my eyes at her. "Girl, it's 16 degrees right now. That's practically summer vacation in Russia."

"Unlike you, Lyla. I don't possess any Russian genes. So please honey, excuse me."

Just when did Chloe grow up to be so sassy?

We trudged through the raising, mud filled grounds with leaves scrunching under our running shoes in silence. I did love, and enjoy my silence quite the bit, but Chloe? Not so much. It had me turn around and check on what had shut her up. She was wide-eyed, texting.

"Is it another boy?" I pondered, perhaps he was on her list. She kept a little list in the notes section of her latest iPhone that she had liked and made a mission to go out on a date with. I did not understand this girl, and I mean it in the most non-judgmental way possible.

"Just because you cannot do anything because of your father, doesn't mean we all of have to be little nuns, Lyla!" Her tone wasn't harsh, it was more like she was trying to push me to a point where I would rebel or retaliate. In her opinion, wearing clothing pieces I wasn't allowed to wasn't even on a rebellious level of the pyramid that she had formulated herself. It was a matter of opinion after all.

"It's not like that and you know it." I chastised her. I pushed back a strand of my caramelized blonde hair, as my mother liked to call it. Perhaps cutting my hair into a long bob was not the best idea for situations like these, but I had no regrets.

"I know. It just pains me to see you like this. Your father needs therapy, honestly and no offense. He's not a good man. I cannot imagine what your mother must be going through. I'm glad he doesn't live here with you."

I don't blame her for the comments she's been passing, she's been around my life for as long as anyone could remember. We may not stay in touch on the most often basis but it brought no damage to our strong bond. We looped our arms together as we continued to thread through the lands, heading backwards now. It was 3:00pm and we needed to start driving back.

It was scary that I had to recognize this form of him a lot better than the other. His face was turning a darker shade of red, his breathing loud, as he placed the poison stick between his tainted yellow teeth; or what was left of them.

I tried not to blink or look away as I sat in front of the indignant man, waiting for his response. Do not look away or smile. I chastised myself. He'll think you're mocking him for something that does not even exist.

His thumb was typing away at one of his smaller iPhones on the iMessage screen, perhaps re-sharing one of those videos he'd watched on LinkedIn about positivity and changing your attitude to face the world, or something along those lines. If only he'd really listened and followed what he fed his brain with.

"Papi?" I called out, making sure he had heard me.

"Ah yes," he looked at me and then back at his phone. "You were saying something?" I let out a low sigh, low enough that he wouldn't hear it before he could roar at me for my unkempt attitude towards him.

"Yes, papi. Please, istamae." My arabic was rather rough, but I've picked up a few words from my grandmother that I had spent weeks watching dramatic, odd television shows that weirded me out. They made her happy, and I wasn't going to deny her the simple pleasure.

"I'm listening now." He finally placed his phone on the glass covered coffee table and turned to look at me, his elbows resting on his knees. His eyebrows were constricted, perhaps I should have continued speaking the first two times I had tried to start this conversation without him. It seemed less hair-raising to speak to him whilst he was only staring at a digital device.

"The university that I applied to, in Leningrad, the one I told you about..." I swallowed. "I got accepted." I smiled a little. I couldn't quite believe it myself. I hadn't thought that after everything that has happened, and the way I've behaved during my high school years that I would ever make it out of there. But I did, and I got accepted into one of the best medical schools from my home country.

"And?" He raised one of his unkempt eyebrows as if he did not know where this conversation was going. Wasn't it pretty self explanatory? I have planned this conversation over and over in my head plenty of times. Now that I was sat right in front of him as he watched me like a hawk flying over its prey, I had no idea how to phrase my thoughts.

"I got accepted into one of the best surgical programs in the country, I'd love it if you could let me go." I offered. It was more of a question. Everything with my father was a business deal, you lay the right cards on the table and you get to play the game. Only, he didn't play fair. He was the only one that had the cards and I had no offer to place him on the table. I couldn't even play the losing game.

He laughed. It wasn't a funny laugh, the one that comes from your heart and fills someone's ears with joy. It was a degeneracy. The kind of laugh that made my own heart pick up speed in trepidation. 

"You're funny, eaynay. You think you could go to medical school and become a doctor? After the way you had performed in school?" his terms hit me like a knife scraping at the seems of my skin, it was the kind of pain that erupted from the inside. Him referring to me as 'his eyes', an arabic phrase often used for a loved one; was motioned at me in mockery. His words were outdated and error-full. My performance in the last two years has improved tremendously, I was an excellent candidate.

I realized I was making a mistake trying to please a man that could never be pleased. "Besides," he voiced out. "You're a girl! You're supposed to be here with your family. You're not going to go anywhere. We'll just send you to some university close by if you really want to go. It's not like you're going to do any better." A part of me was glad he picked up his phone again because the tears brimming at the corner of my eyes would have been too much of an insult to him.

'We do not cry in this house'. He would always say. 'Look at you, ungrateful child, you have a roof over your head, your own room, and food. What else do you want?'.

"But, Papi." I persisted, standing up slightly. I wanted to walk up to him and sit by his side. It scared me, to do so but it wouldn't be the first or last mistake that I would have tried to make in this lifetime. "I really want to go. It's all I've ever wanted. Think about all the money I could make and all the friends you could talk about me to when I get to be the doctor you always wanted me to be, the one you yourself wanted to be!" It was definitely not the reason I was going to medical school. But money was the only thing that had this old, Middle Eastern male's attention.

My father stood up, he was now standing right in my face. His gray hairs lighter than ever as they neared the light above us in the living room. He was only slightly taller than me now, but that didn't matter because it had always felt like I was the same seven year old girl he had always towered over.

I refused to look away, afraid that he might make another assumption. I wasn't sure what was on his mind. "You think you going away is a good thing?" His palm slammed against the glass coffee table, leaving it there whilst his opposing fingers grasped my right forearm. His unkempt nails digging into my attenuated skin.

"You think that would be something to brag about? That my daughter wasn't able to behave and wandered off to some foreign country? That she's out there on her own like some little slut who should have just listened?" He was roaring with rage, his face swiveling from red to plummish.

"But I just wan-" I tried to speak up but my own voice betrayed me whilst my tears materialized at the corner of my eyes. I didn't want to cry. I wanted to fight him, but I was just so tired and he was only getting angrier.

"Shut up! You stupid, bitch." Grinning as he once again exposed his adulterated teeth, he released his grip with force and laid his hand flat against my shoulder, pushing me into the coffee table in front of us.

I didn't move, afraid that the shards of glass would dig further into my skin and latch themselves in a way I wouldn't be able to pick out. Not wanting to look at the man that had betrayed his role as a father to me, I tried to focus on the ringing in my ears from the shattered glass instead of his words.

They seemingly haunted me even as he walked away. "You're going to go where I tell you to and you're going to pay me the respect I deserve, you ungrateful, taintful child." I wasn't as angry at him as I was at myself, I could have done better.

Or you could have stayed quiet and spared yourself the drama. A voice inside my head whispered back. And as I waited for the man to walk away, back to his room to continue his extra curriculars on his mobiles, I attempted to pick myself up.

There was so much vexation in my actions whilst I whimpered quietly behind closed bathroom doors with forceps in my hands, picking out the little shards from the valley of my breasts. It was impeccable how much blood could ratchet from padded skin. I used my face cotton pads to wipe off the excess so I could see the pricked skin clearly.

What good did it ever do to want something someone else doesn't? What good did it do to me trying to please a man that could never be pleased?

"Yoohoo! Earth to Lyla!" Chloe was waving her incredibly tiny hands in front of my face. Blinking, I looked up at her dark brown orbs that seemed to be scanning my face as if she were an orbited planet around the glorious star.

"I'm listening." I scrambled to my defenses. I most definitely wasn't listening, too focused on the fried chicken piece that I had dipped into the god forbidden sauce provided by Cane's kitchen. Though it wasn't the top of my distractions at the moment, it was the conversation I had with her about my father that had me wandering away.

Chloe's dark brown-almost-black hair was freed from the grasps of an elastic as she pulled it off of her head with full force, the volumnous streaks framing her full face.

She brings her annoying little hands to my face and starts squishing my cheeks. Can someone remind me why I was spending time with a seventeen year old again? Right. Family. "Oh yeaaah? And what was I saying?" She raised her perfectly plucked brows to challenge me.

"Let's seee..." I started, tapping my forefingers against my chin. A pretentious act. "The whole drive from the hills all the way to the mall, you were complaining about how your father had caught you kissing some weird guy from your class on your roof top's surveillance and now you're stuck hanging out with people only both your parents know?" I think I nailed it.

"He's not some weird guy, oh em geee!" I really hated it when she oh-ed the god. Her voice wasn't very appealing to my ears. "He's my boyfriend."

"Oh, well then that was the part I must have misheard." I said, shrugging my shoulder unapologetically.

Chloe threw one of her fries at me and muttered, "whatever. Just finish your damned chicken so we can go home and check out the new clothes we bought."

▲▼▲

When I was back in my room, I didn't even think twice about dumping the shopping bags onto my bed and getting started on studying for my Administrative Law exam on Thursday. I knew it would take me a while to work through them. I had four days. I opened up my 17 inch Lenovo idea pad, also known as my second child after my planner being the first of course, and started typing out the titles of the chapters I had to cover in cursive Bromello.

I had everything I needed, my laptop, strawberry scented candles, and my cat; Moscow Vasiliev. He cooped himself in my arms and began to purr. I pulled him in closer and ruffled the top of his head. This little guy was the reason my study session intervals lasted longer than the pomodoro method suggested.

I quickly grabbed my iPhone and decided to send you a picture.

I tried to think back to that date. The twenty fifth of October dated two thousand and eighteen. I had an appointment with my gynecologist on that day, but I wasn't going to admit to that. I had gathered that you were of a curious nature, all of a sudden. It wasn't so when we had met. I used to do all the talking without the questioning. Now there was the questioning and then the talking.

Instead I opted for me and my uncooperative stomach, because everyone knew I had one of those.

My uncooperative stomach rejected the food that I ate so I decided to go home. I texted you back, sipping on the caramel Netto tea that my mom had brewed me. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent evaporating from the hot cup. Mhmm. All my favorite things in one place and you on my phone. What else did I need?

Your response, however, was clearly unexpected and had me choking on my tea. I glared at the screen of my phone as I read the text. You. And your organs. Grandma bones. 👵👵. What a waste of flavorable caramel tea on my now stained, very striped top.

And I had asked you to marry me right then and there. Your reaction to that had me cackling like a child. A child that was in love.

Let me ask the question. Me. I ask. I have facial hair. I should be the one popping the question. You had sent me. It warmed my heart, like hot glue being spilled onto all of my missing pieces. Slowly.

I can actually imagine you being all dramatic and like, getting the Pepsi can thing to use it as a ring or with like a cat or something. I typed out, my thumbs speedily trying to make it through all the letters excitedly.

Do you know how you made me feel in those early days? It was like you were holding my heart in your hands and pumping it with your fingers, and I could feel those rough fingers of yours at the back of my throat pushing, pumping, always leaving me breathless. As if I could come undone as a whole only having you mutter a few words. You made me weak right down to my knees.

My past self didn't know what this was, or where this relationship was going, but it didn't matter. I wouldn't have traded this for the world. I wanted to spend day and night talking to you like that, about all the things that mattered and didn't matter. About all the things that only made sense to us. It didn't matter to me how you felt about me, you were, very slowly creeping into my life; breaking and fixing me simultaneously but I knew one thing for sure. You were my best friend now. It didn't matter that I loved you in the I wanna have seven kids with you and kiss you all night kind of way, all that mattered is that we had what we had now. It should have stayed this way.

Are you happy now, honey? You've taken all of it away. You win, my love.

Closing all of my books and papers, I set them aside on my desk before unlocking my phone with my finger print against the home button. There were a few messages from you. I smiled, before my fingers started sliding across the screen always ready to respond to you.

Show me what you bought today. You had asked me once I've responded to your previous question of what I was up to today. I was beyond nervous. Do I send you pictures of the stuff that I bought just like that or do I wear them or do I...?

Lyla, you're overthinking this way too much. Perhaps because I had told you that it was you who had started the 'send me a picture thing'. Are you still in denial? You had me question everything I had ever know. How could one person instill so much doubt into another's mind and soul?

And as you snugged up my heart for the umpteenth time this very day and left me looking forward for every next breath that I had to take, and every next day I had to wake up to; I found myself grinning at my mother the minute she had entered my bedroom.

Her ginger head and freckled face popped between the door's frame and the actual dark wood door. "Khochesh' roma?" She asked me.

I raised my brows at her quizzically, not understanding what she had asked that I wanted. "Chto rom?" Letting my legs dangle off the bed for a minute before sliding off of it slowly, I placed my feet into my faux fur filled beige knitted slippers and strid towards her.

"Like vodka only Russian." My mother says, in a strong Russian accent. Ahhh. Rum. That makes more sense. I laughed and nodded as I left the room right behind her, ready for our usual movie night.

Before you bid me goodnight you had reminded me of the day we had spent at the movies yesterday. I will remind you of this day, November thirty twenty eighteen, next year. It was an amazing day. I never want to forget it.

But you did forget, didn't you? I wish I had forgotten it too.

Author's Note:

Ahhh. This chapter just, it just, ugh it gave me all the feels whilst writing it. It's been such a roller coaster with this book honestly. I'm putting the entirety of my heart into this, as much as I can. I love this book so much and it holds such a special place in my life. I think the book is finally picking up and I cannot wait to share more with you.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you've thought in the comments below and turn that little star button orange, love.

With love,
Linda V x