Her eyes haunted me. Day and night. I could never forget those eyes. They were so lost when she was found, tied up and gagged. She looked as if she had lost all will to live. The goons had tortured her, but barely kept her alive, for their only source of information. She looked at me so pleadingly when she opened her eyes for the hospital in the first time. My Meher never looked at anyone so helplessly.
The police testimony brought more revelations. The officer had asked her to tell them what happened as she sat down on her bed. She looked at me, with those eyes. She fumbled and started trembling. I went over and held her with my hands around her shoulders, I wanted to protect her. I wanted to save her, but I couldn't. I failed to safeguard the woman I loved for the second time in my life.
She cried a lot. She had bruises on the side of her lip, still bleeding. Her forehead was covered in a long circular bandage. She looked here and there, unable to meet eyes with anyone. She told them how she was blindfolded and given a cloth over her head so she couldn't see where they were going. She arrived somewhere and was strapped to a chair and questioned by the goons about my whereabouts. The tortured her beyond human belief. She was covered in a cloth, drenched with water numerous times to give her the illusion she was drowning and would die had she not told them where I was. They slapped, hit, and hurt her. I couldn't fathom how heartless can a soul be? And why would she not just tell them where I was? Why did she hurt herself for me?
I took her on a stroll in a garden one day, hoping to see some excitement in her eyes once again. But to no avail. I kept talking and talking in my usual annoying tone to her and she never responded. Her eyes seemed aloof, still the same. She wasn't even listening...I turned around as I was talking and when I looked back she was still walking - with that same blank expression.
Nights became worse. She would jump up in fits of terror and start screaming uncontrollably. No one was able to control her. The nightmares of her unfortunate reality haunted her. She would cry so much and not sleep the whole night. I would try so hard to hold her, to hug her, to calm her down, and tell her it was going to be okay, that I was here for her. She just looked at me hopelessly.
The sad thing about this whole scenario was that I was responsible for it. Meher had suffered her emotional wounds silently 8 years ago. Now she faced the dreadful sight of her physical wounds 8 years later. Both of which I was responsible for. Meher proved it once more - I was never worthy of her love, of her care nor of her.
