Society – Part Two

She grabbed one of the many chocolate bars lying on her bed and started nibbling on it. She noticed she had been sitting and crying in her room since the last one hour. Her persistent tears had now dried leaving a watery scar across her cheeks. Very quietly she picked a dress from her wardrobe and started dressing up.

Down by the swimming pool the party was now brimming with new faces. Many affluent faces of the society could be seen. She thought she saw a movie star, but she noticed not to pay attention. Her mood was sour and ugly, as it had been since the past nineteen years. Renu had been born exactly nineteen years ago in this very house which was now bustling with cheers and noises of the many people who had gathered to congratulate her father on his business accomplishments.

Renu had learnt not to interfere or draw attention in her father’s parties. As far as she knew, she had let her father down in every chance she felt she had to make her presence felt in this dead house of hers. It was during such parties, in such over affectionate displays of affection that she missed her mother. Her parents were divorced, and she could see her mother once a month as was explained to her by her father’s lawyer seven years ago.

She had stuck to her promise, but as she grew up, she realized she needed her mother more than ever before. Slowly she had learnt to lie, sneak out, and find chances to meet her mom. But she had been caught and had witnessed a scrounge in her father's eyes.

Not that Renu despised her father. She loved him immensely; “He is a great dad” was something she used to utter to herself every now and then. All her whims and fancies had been taken care off every since she threw her first tantrum as a kid. Raising her on his own, Renu knew his father had done a very good job all by himself.

But she hated him. She hated him for not understanding the fact that she needed her mother by her side. She hated the fact that he allowed the bitter animosity between them as a married couple to affect her life. She grabbed a beer quietly from the waiter passing by and gulped it down. She knew a few drinks would help her in getting over this big fiesta of unknown faces her father had arranged to let her know that she was alone, very lonely.

Renu was feeling light headed after a few drinks. She thought she could use a cigarette to clobber out all the thoughts stuck in her dead brain. She puffed in the smoke and allowed it to settle in her lungs. That is when she heard the familiar scream of her father’s voice screeching in her ears “Renu, Renu? Where are you?" She did not want her father to know that she smoked, she also did not want to meet any of his false companions, pretty faces and big smiles, but all dead inside.

She slid behind the doorway inhaling the smoke, waiting them to pass by. But her father’s voice kept coming closer, she could hear him saying “After all I have done for her; she just won’t listen to me. She has failed all my expectations , she is not the daughter I wanted, after providing her with all that I could , she still runs away to her mother and unknown places. And her friends? I wouldn’t even let them enter my house if it wasn’t for her. I brought up this house alive with this party and she ran away again, i am disgusted to be her father, she is nothing but a nuisance creator”

Renu noticed beads of water forming in her eyes. She was crying. She sat down and let the water soak her makeup clawed fake face. She sat there for what seemed like an eternity. When she thought she couldn’t cry more, she got up and rinsed her face in the washroom. Her face was soiled, her eyes dead like black holes and her breath dry as a funeral drum. She hated the face in the mirror staring back at her.

She grabbed her car keys and a few beers on the way out. She knew she had to get out of here. All this while she had wanted to be the daughter her father wanted her to be. And she had failed; she had failed miserably in eyes of her father. She felt sick, she was tired. Her own existence had been drowned in the mystical lies she had created to fulfill her persona as her father’s wishes. And even that had failed. She was nobody.

She ignited the car engine to notice it was raining heavily. It had been raining all day and all night. She gulped two more beers and put her foot on the accelerator. She knew had to get out of it, the tyres moved in sync with her fast paced thoughts leaving horrid marks all over the road.  She lit another cigarette and let her thoughts flood her mind.

She could see her mother and father fighting , the divorce , she thought she also saw the many nights she had spent alone at the dining table waiting for her father , she saw her dreams that were killed by her own soul for her father, she was crying again and inconsolably. Suddenly she felt a loud bump against her car, she thought she hit something. Startled and alarmed she stormed out in the heavy rain.

She saw a little girl lying on the road with blood oozing out of her head. Renu was calm; she checked the body for pulse, there was none. She knew there had been two deaths that night. While the little girl in front of her died in a second, quick and painless, her own death had been merciless, and had lasted every second of the nineteen years she knew her father.