I hear him cursing and banging on the door, but I keep my eyes closed. There is a jingle of keys (so the prick had them, after all!), hinges squeak in protest as the handle bangs against the wall (that’s going to take some paint off). A pause and then with a sharp thud, the door is slammed shut. Praveen’s mother’s voice is faint, she is trying to reason with him, but he walks past her. When he is this drunk, there is only one thing he wants to do. And only one person he wants to do it with.
The smell of whisky and cigarettes hits me before he does.
“Standing outside...for one hour…,” he grunts incoherently, pulling me up by my hair. I pretend to blink into consciousness. I claim never to have heard him.
Liar, he breathes into my face.
His eyes are red as is his face, and that’s the last thing I see before I close my eyes again and think about how this story started.

THE INCITING INCIDENT: The Hero enters!

Netra, my best friend, made a face the first time we saw him. We had spent the better part of the morning picking cheap versions of high fashion from the Bandra streets and sought a respite from the afternoon heat in the small air-conditioned cafe.
“Hi gorgeous, my name is Praveen,” he said, smiling at me. Netra stared at him, astonished. He pointedly ignored her.
“He looks like a pig,” Netra said when we reached home to our little Mahim apartment. She tried to be nonchalant about it, as she tried on the clothes she had just picked up at the market.
I smiled and leaned back into the bright blue, rented sofa. I intertwined my fingers in the fairy lights we had draped over the furniture and blushed. He did have some porcine features, it’s true, but he had flirted with me. He had asked for my number.
“You should have purchased something today,” Netra remarked, admiring her new skirt in the long mirror by the front door. She was tall, slender and delicate-looking.
“Nothing looked good on me,” I shrugged. “Next time we see a mannequin that is short and stocky, I’ll buy whatever she is wearing!”
“Are you going to call him?” Netra asked, meeting my gaze in the mirror.
I giggled.

RISING ACTION 1: First dates and a Black Eye!

One week later, Netra bullied me into a chair and applied makeup on my face for my first date. I sat under the small air conditioner in the living room (its fans pointed at my face lest I sweated out the makeup), eyes closed as cotton balls, sponges, and brushes all worked to transform my face. First, she wiped my face down with a cleansing lotion. Then came a moisturizer and a primer. Then she slathered on some foundation. A concealer on my hyperpigmentation. A bronzer to contour my face into a slimmer, sharper version of itself. Then she meticulously lined my eyes and painted my lips with artistic flair. I looked into the mirror by the door, just like she did every day before leaving home, and was pleasantly surprised with how lovely she made me look.
At dinner, Praveen smirked when he saw me but said nothing.
“You don’t need makeup,” he commented later as we sat on Marine Drive, drinking sugary-sweet tea at midnight. Couples were making out on either side of us. He turned to me, ran his hand through my thick curly hair, and leaned in.
“You don’t like it?”
“Honestly, makeup doesn’t suit everyone and you look so beautiful without it,” he whispered as he kissed me. “It’s one of the first things I noticed about you. You are natural.”
I didn’t let Netra do my make-up after that. When she asked me why not with a dejected look, I told her it was unnecessary.
My mother would have liked Praveen. He was what she would call a suitable match. Not too good-looking (the good-looking ones always had a wandering eye, you know), not too rich, but not poor either (he had his own house in Mumbai) and lived with his mother (so, family-oriented). None of my friends like Praveen much though. Or should I say, liked? I haven’t seen any of them in a long time now. Praveen lives with his mother on the outskirts of the city and that’s where I have moved in with him. It's a dingy little place in Thane with a low ceiling, red oxide flooring and peeling walls. When I first moved in, his mother stood by the plastic bedroom door, gave me a hopeful smile and said: he has changed so much since he met you. I felt a burst of pride inside me. She pressed a pair of gold-plated bangles into my hands and said nothing.
“She really was sleeping, beta, leave her alone,” his mother pleads now. Half-heartedly. Standing a full seven feet out of Praveen’s reach. He twists my arm and pushes me on the bed.
“She is a lying piece of shit, Maa,” he tells her. “And that is the truth. It is a goddamn honest fact.”
I had once tried to tell Praveen that a lot of what he labelled as ‘facts’ or ‘honesty’ was mostly just ‘cruelty’ and often ‘an ill-informed opinion’.
“I just like to say it as it is,” he tried to explain to me with a sigh. I don’t sugarcoat things.
I spoke about facts, truths, and opinions to Netra once. It was summer then, about two months after Praveen and I became ‘official’. Netra was lying under the air-conditioner in our living room, her eyes closed in bliss as the heat rose from the concrete road outside and danced in waves outside our glass window. We had painted our living room yellow with emulsion we bought from the hardware store down the street. Netra had drawn beautiful Madhubani designs on the wall with a black permanent marker. We knew the landlord would probably not be happy with this, but since we had to pay for the painting charges anyway when we emptied the flat, we figured why the hell not.
The difference between facts, opinions, and truths, she told me on that hot summer day without opening her eyes, her finger in the air, is that truth is always helpful. We had painted the walls, that was a fact. It looked great and was much needed, that was our opinion. But telling the landlord now will not help anyone since it is already done, hence we would not tell him about it. That was the truth.
When I repeated this gem to Praveen, he didn’t understand it. He just rolled his eyes and gave me a playful shove.
He had always been a bit physical, pushing me and pulling me, but I chalked it up to him growing up with older brothers. But the first time we argued, and I mean really argued, he lunged and put his hands around my throat. I didn’t realize what he had done or tried to do, I only saw him reach toward me and I kicked out instinctively. I got him straight in the chest before I leapt up and briskly walked out of his room. He followed me out, clutching his chest, wheezing in a really scary way.
“I am sorry, I am so sorry,” he continued to wheeze down the stairs. By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, he caught my hand and looked deep into my eyes.
“I am so freaking sorry, baby. I don’t know what came over me. You just got me so angry back there,” he said, his eyes prickling with unshed tears.
Almost like she knew, that night, my mother called me after many months. I didn’t pick up, although I felt guilty.
My father used to hit her. Almost every night, he would stumble into the house in a drunken stupor and as soon as he saw Amma, he would curse her, call her names, and blame all our misfortunes on her. She would be still as if he were a wild animal who would walk away if she did not move. It never worked.
The next morning, Amma would wake up at the crack of dawn and get started with the day as if the bruises on her person were only makeup. I swore to never be in her situation ever.
I know. The irony is hilarious.

RISING ACTION 2: Making up after a fight!

Praveen was standing outside my balcony the next day, holding flowers, weeping.
“What has happened?” Netra asked me, bewildered as she handed me tea in an old china mug.
“We fought,” I said, secretly enjoying the fact that someone would do this for me. Cry outside my window. Heh.
“What kind of a fight?” Netra mused as she sipped her tea, watching him write S-O-R-R-Y on the road with the rose petals he had brought in a blue plastic bag.
I ignored her, irritated. Why was she being so nosy? It didn’t matter what kind of a fight.
I waited for him to finish (a careless cyclist had run one of the R’s over and he had to redo it) and then I beckoned him upstairs. He ran up, taking two stairs at a time, breathlessly enveloping me in a bear hug.
“I’ll never hurt you again,” he whispered in my ear. “I love you.”
That was the first time he said those words to me. I replayed it in my head, giddy.
I love you.
Someone loved me.
He continued to whisper in my ears: You are so beautiful. You are so precious and beautiful.
He was damp, and my nose was dangerously close to his armpit, but at that moment, I didn’t care. The whole exhibition was quite touching, and one could say, the sentiment almost got me choked up.
Sorry, that’s not funny.
Praveen is taking a short break now, catching his breath on the chair. Beating someone up is tiring, who would have guessed? Just as I am hoping he feels drunk and tired enough to go to sleep, my phone rings. He sees who it is and it fills him with energy.
“Why the hell is Netra still calling you?” he demands. “Are you still talking to her? She told you to leave me and you still haven’t cut her out?”
Once, I asked my mother as I helped her press turmeric into her open wound (my father had found a knife that evening): What if we left?
Amma had been crying. Her eyes were red, her eyebrows scrunched up like they were trying to touch each other and moisture was blooming on her upper lip. She looked at me, wiped her nose, ruffled my hair affectionately and said- "When you grow up, you will realize what it means to be an adult. You will realize what it means to have the responsibility of a child. Appa is only frustrated because he has no job."
Then, she playfully booped my nose. When I think back on why I don’t talk to my mother anymore, this moment comes to mind.

RISING ACTION 3: Another fight!

About six months into our relationship, I made a mistake.
“Who were you talking to this late?” Praveen was positively screaming when I finally returned his call. He had called me five times now, although he could hear that I was on another call each time.
I was expecting him to be angry, but not this angry. But why was he so angry? Suddenly, a justified rage took over me.
“What is it to you anyway?” I screamed back.
“Tell me who it is right now!” he shouted.
“My mother, I was talking to my mother!”
“You are lying to me!”
“No, I am not!”
“Where are you, right now?” He asked me, in a calmer voice.
“At home, where else would I be?” I said, exasperated.
He hung up. In twenty minutes, he was huffing and puffing up the staircase of my apartment building. Netra was visiting her parents that weekend, and I was almost glad she wasn’t around to see this side of him. He rang my doorbell several times in quick succession and I let him in before my neighbours could come out to investigate. He wrenched my phone out of my hands and opened my call logs. That night, he slapped me across my face for the first time.
“You need to move out of here,” he told me as he put his clothes on a couple of hours later.
His eyes were still wet from the tears he shed after he hit me. My father never cried when he hit my mother. When Praveen’s palm connected with my face, I went into shock. I sank into the sofa gathering my limbs as if I expected them to have come loose. He recoiled from me as if overcome by the shame of what he had done. He doubled over and held his head as silent sobs wreaked all over his body. When he looked up at me from the floor, a bit of snot in his nose, his dark skin blotchy, his eyes bloodshot, I thought of what I had done to this man.
“You make me so angry, I can’t think straight,” he whimpered. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you say you were talking to your mother when you were talking to your friend?”
I had no answer.
“I have been cheated on so many times by my ex-girlfriend, you have no idea,” he choked out, shaking uncontrollably now. “I couldn’t bear it if you cheated on me.”
I glanced into the mirror by the main door and saw the shocked expression on my face. Indescribably, I was just glad the slap didn’t leave any bruises on my face.
After I had consoled him, promised to never cheat on him, apologized for giving him that idea, and convinced him to sit on the bed, he took his shirt off and leaned in for a kiss. He kissed me all over my face, stopping as he gently caressed my raw cheek with great devotion.
“Why do you want me to move?” I asked, surprised.
“I mean, I know I would feel much better if you were close to me. Less opportunity for misunderstandings, right?” He stood up and walked over to the dresser.
“But this is my home,” I sputtered.
“Your home is with Netra? Or me?” He was still smiling, but I could see where this was going. I just looked at him.
“I mean, eventually, you are going to move in with me right?” he said, in a matter-of-fact way. He stood there, his shirt half-buttoned up over his bulging stomach and I felt a strange feeling in my stomach. I managed a smile.
He kneeled and took my face in his hands. You are so beautiful. I am going to marry you one day.
When Netra came back from her parents the next day, I sat her down to tell her the good news. I was going to move in with my boyfriend!
She hugged me and then asked what had happened to my face. Turns out bruises can appear a day later too. I told her I had hit myself in the face with the fridge door, oops clumsy me! She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
She helped me with the packing and kept staring at me with a concerned look the whole time. Eventually, she sat me down.
“Listen, she began slowly, are you sure of this guy?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, scared she had found out.
“I… I know,” she said, quietly.
Dread put its icy fingers around my heart. How could she know? What did she know? Was he talking to her? What was he telling her? How dare these two discuss things behind my back?
“What do you mean?” I repeated.
“I know he yells at you,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I have heard him screaming so loudly on the phone, I can hear him from the other room. That’s not normal, you know.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“He is pretty loud, haha. But don’t worry, it’s all ok.”
“I have seen how he talks to you… and it’s not okay,” she continued in an even voice. “He’s rude, and he puts you down all the time. You don’t even realize it, anymore.”
The temperature in the room had dropped. She stared at me intently.
“Listen, thanks for the concern, but you don’t know him like I do,” I told her, bluntly.
She stayed quiet for a long moment and then shrugged. “If you say so,” she said and went back to packing.
On Moving day, she gave me a long hug at the door. “Come down,” I told her. She shook her head. I couldn’t bear to look into her eyes.
“I am not getting another roommate for now,” she told me. “Come home, whenever.”
I nodded and ignoring the mirror at the door, I walked down the stairs. Praveen was sitting in his car, waiting for me. He honked his horn gleefully when he saw me.

THE CLIMAX!

A sharp pain shoots up my abdomen. He is now punching me in the stomach. As I double over, he drags me to the nearby cupboard and slams my head into it. If this were a cartoon, the metal almirah door and I would both vibrate together like two cymbals. I smile, despite my grim situation. He does not like that.
“What are you smiling about?” He is shouting and I see he has started crying again. As if he is the one getting beaten up.
“You don’t respect me! You make me feel so small! You enjoy watching me struggle outside the door instead of opening it. I am not even respected in my own house!”
He lets me go and steps back towards his study table, apparently overcome by his assessment of the injustices meted out to him. His hands find a paperweight and he launches it across the room, narrowly missing the mirror on the wall. He doubles over and gets into a fetal position. He is shaking as he covers his face with his hands.
I turn to inspect the mirror and catch a glimpse of an unfamiliar woman. Her eyes are red, her eyebrows scrunched up as if trying to touch each other, and moisture is blooming on her upper lip.
Oh, hell no.
The woman in the mirror also has a swollen cheek and long, red, angry bruises across her limbs. Her hair has been torn off in clumps. She is breathing in short, shallow breaths.
I watch my reflection, fascinated by this woman who is letting herself get beaten into a pulp by a pig. I slump down there studying myself, even as he starts to lightly snore. At some point, his mother gingerly walks in and sees her son sleeping on the floor and me staring at the mirror. She walks around him, puts a glass of water next to me and says something. When I don’t respond, she goes away. I don’t know how long I sit there in front of the mirror, but after a long while my mind registers what his mother just said: "He is stressed because he doesn’t have a job. It’ll get better once you are married and have a child."
No, he won’t. My father didn’t. Not until they fished him out of the river, bloated and sheet-white from being in the water too long, his beloved bottle in hand. The march from our home to the cremation ground is still one of the best memories of my childhood.

RESOLUTION/ A NEW INCITING INCIDENT: The heroine walks out!

I stand up. I pick up a bag and start shoving my things into it. Not everything, just what is essential and I can lay my hands on. I worry that he will wake up and stop me, but mercifully, he does not. He is still snoring like a man with the clearest conscience.
I unlock the door, booking my ride as I go down the stairs. It’s early morning, and the sky is the loveliest shade of blue. Mumbai is already awake with plenty of people trying to get to their jobs in the city. I hear a sound behind me and for one horrid moment, I think it’s him. But the shadowy figure turns out to be his mother. She catches up to me on the stairs as I turn around.
“I’ll send the rest of your things to wherever you want,” she whispers, looking behind her shoulders. “Don’t come back, beta.”
I nod as I give her the gold bangles back. She teeters at the edge of speech and with a small shake of her head, she hurries back into her house.
My body is sore but I do a little jig as I hail the car down. “Mahim,” I tell him. I still have the keys, and I can explain everything when Netra is awake anyway.
On the way, I tap my fingers on the phone and then dial a number from memory. She picks it up on the first ring.
“Did you finally remember you have a mother?” She speaks in a clear voice as if she has been awake for hours.
“Hello, Amma.”

Looks like some stories start with the end.