3 - Third time is the charm

As I hit the backspace key on my laptop for the hundredth time, I hit the table in frustration. It's been over 2 hours that I have been staring at the blank compose page of my Gmail and trying to get a start. I knew this would be difficult, but I had no idea it would be this difficult.

I had typed 'Dear'. But I knew it wasn't fair, not to me ..or him. I wasn't 'dear' to him anymore and now I wasn't sure he was mine either. But I didn't know any other way to address him. After all, we had been dear to each other.. until just a few days ago.

I wasn't given any rule book when I fell in love. I didn't know there were if's and but's. After all I hadn't planned on falling in love and least of all, with him.

But it happened, even if neither of us had planned for it.

I remembered the fun times we had.

Like the time he voted to cook dinner and made me my favorite green bean salad. I liked it spicy. He knew it. But the first bite I took was not the bean, but the big green chilli sliced exactly like the bean. After gulping down glasses of ice cold water, we both laughed over it for hours...even while munching on the take out pizza we treated ourselves to.

I was the one who taught him how to shop. I made him realize that there is a whole new world besides the one faded blue jeans. 

He was no drop dead hunk, but he definitely was a charmer.

I had been the envy of my friends for landing this dreamboat.

I had believed it too...until the first time it happened.

It was a day not different from any other regular day. But I had been late for a meeting with his friends. I got held up in traffic. Not my fault. I knew he would be pissed, but there was nothing my smile couldn't change. Or so I thought.

The extended arm was coming for a hug is what had occurred to me. But when I felt the heat gush up to my cheeks, I felt my head reeling and time stood still..for what felt like an eternity.

In the middle of the dinner table with his friends seated, in clear view of all the guests in the classy restaurant, he had slapped me..for being 20 minutes late.

My head and dignity told me not to stay on, but my heart bade me to pull the chair and take the seat beside him. To be a lady, his lady. Even if he was not gentle or a man now.

The dinner conversation continued, but I was not a part of it. Not anymore.

He walked out with his friends and I came home.

I waited the next 28 hours for his call. For an apology. He never called. 

Despite all the warning bells in my head, I still made the call. He answered and spoke to me like he would have..on any normal day.

It took me a while, but I conceded. After all, he was still making plans with me.

Maybe he was just waiting for an opening to break the rule or maybe be liked the fact that I didn't question him. But he believed that the harshness of his rough hands on my delicate face was a right which being in a relationship bestowed on him. 

A right he felt to walk away from, if I reacted.

Third time's the charm they say. That's when I knew there would be a fourth and a fifth and maybe a tenth too. This time, I didn't wait to find out or for him to walk out. I was the first to walk out.

And that is when I ended up alone, staring into my laptop, completely unsure on if and how to invite him back.

After all, he had walked out on me a thousand times, but the first time I walked out was when he decided to end it all.

Maybe this was a clause in the rule book they are given when they are born superior. 'It takes a girl to walk out, for the relation to end.'

I honestly don't know if it's the boon or bane of my species. But I do know for a fact that the pain and humiliation is no lesser than what they might feel too.

Anyhow, the email stayed on in my drafts folder...incomplete and unsent.

I knew the scar on my face will heal in a few days. I knew the pattern now. This wasn't the first scar. But I was finally glad, this would be the last.