Pain

Sob...

So painful

Adira's whole body was in so much pain, she felt like all her bones had been crushed since that day. She could not stop her tears and asked herself, "Why did this happen to me? What had I done to deserve it! That bastard forced himself on me, did whatever he wanted!

That human faced beast had his way and left me there battered, bruised, broken. He acted as if I should be grateful to him! That scum!"

Adira had been hiding in her room for continuous four days but surprisingly no one in her family even noticed! She mocked herself, "What was I even expecting....it's not like they gave me any attention before. Only I have been living with fake expectations. Never mind. I don't think I can face them in my current condition. Maybe it's better if they don't notice my battered condition."

Alone in her own space, she wept leaking her unseen wounds, tried to recover as much as she could by herself thinking that no one would ever know about her sufferings.

Thankfully her summer vacation started a few days ago and she didn't need to go to school for the time being. She sighed out a relief at this.

_

Several weeks passed and Adira continued her normal life, trying to forget that fearful night as just a nightmare which had passed. Soon she realized she was wrong.

Adira started feeling sick, her dizziness increased. So did her nausea. She thought she ate something wrong because she was generally inattentive to her health and often ate irregularly; she developed this bad habit as no one paid much attention to her.

Later when her condition worsened, she went to the hospital and the doctor gave her a few tests. She was told to wait; she would receive the results after some time. That being said she left the hospital and went home to rest, she thought of coming to get the results the next day. However she felt very sick the following day and had to postpone it as she could hardly get up from bed.

The hospital had delivery service, if the patients could not receive the reports physically they would sent it by delivery. While Adira was sleeping in her room, her mother received the test results report. Confused Mrs. Dovino took out the results seeing that it was a medical test report. The other conditions all showed normal, the only thing that caught her eyes was,

Pregnancy result: Positive

That day hell crashed down at the Dovino family. Mrs. Dovino burst open Adira's bedroom door and dragged her to the living room. Dazed from being suddenly woken up, she looked up to see her family members all looking at her aggressively. Her mother threw a piece of paper at her face and looked as if she wanted to kill her.

Adira took the paper at hand and stared at it. It took some time for her dazed mind to register what was actually written on her medical report. When she finally understood her eyes widened out of shock, she could not believe she was pregnant! Memories of that night came bursting into her mind and silent tears rolled down from her eyes.

"We sent you to school to study but this is what you have been doing!"

"No wonder you never succeed like her siblings, after all this is where all your attention went."

"What? Are you too horny when you see boys?"

"You ungrateful brat instead of studying, you have been indulging in pleasure with our hard earned money?"

"What are you being silent for? What cat got your tongue?"

"Did you think your shameful acts won't get exposed?"

"How dare you deceive us pretending to be innocent in front of us?"

"All this time you have only been seducing boys and having pleasures!"

The couple kept on scolding and insulting her without giving her any chance to explain. They dragged her weak body to the hospital to get an abortion done quickly before anyone found this and dragged down their family name. They wished to get rid of the piece of evidence which could shame their family as soon as possible. From the beginning to till then they did not give Adira any chance to talk at all.

However the doctor said that Adira's body condition was complicated, plus with her teenage pregnancy her body would not be able to handle an abortion operation. It was highly risky to put her under the blades. Not will it only damage her ability to give birth in future but also it might put her life on the risk if they operated an abortion on her current body condition.

The Dovino couple returned home with dark faces. They were silent, in deep thoughts how to save their family from this disgraceful brat's shameful acts. Mr. Dovino suddenly broke the slience,

"Who's the child's father?"

Everyone turned to look at Adira standing there with her visibly weak body. Her low weak voice stuttered, " Al...alc...xa..vier"

He roared, "You don't feel a shame when disgracing our family! What are you now showing a meek look for! Speak clearly who's the evil spawn's father?" Mr. Dovino looked utterly disgusted as he said these words.

"ALARIC XAVIER"

"Xavier?" Mr. Dovino confusedly asked, "What nonsense are you spewing now? Do you even know who the Xaviers are? How could they even meet low prostitutes like you?"

Adira was shocked, how could her father call her that? She was innocent. She didn't sell her body. She had never done anything that could disgrace her family. She had always put her family first, so how could she even think of doing anything that might bring shame to her family! She had done nothing wrong, why didn't anyone from her family believe her at all?

"It..It's true. I meet him at the Turner's house. Jonathan Turner studies in the same class as me."

Before the Dovino father could again refute her words,

"Are you sure the child you are carrying is of the Xavier bloodline?" this time it was Dovino mother who asked, her eyes looked complicated.

"Yes"

Mrs. Dovino looked at her husband with a deep thought then slowly voicing out,

"Husband, that Alaric boy is the only heir from the main branch of the Xavier Clan. If what she's saying is true, then this unborn child may very well be the first born child of the Xavier heir...." She didn't finish the sentence and looked at her husband with a complicated gaze.

Mr. Dovino seemed to comprehend the meaning of his wife's unspoken words and he fell silent.

Adira looked from her mother to her father but she could not understand them.

Mrs. Dovino took her husband back to their room to discuss and the rest family as well left Adira there in the hall way, each was engaged in their own thoughts, none noticed the weak Adira unable to bear her own body weight had fallen to her knees on the ground.

Perhaps they felt she didn't deserve their concern, she wasn't worthy. This impression which had been vague all these years hidden in their minds, suddenly became solidified with today's physical evidence.

It's not like they had any enmity or possessed any thoughts about harming her, on the contrary as family they truly wished for the well-being of Adira. But in this fast paced competitive world, when do we have the time to pay heed to our genuine feelings? Since we are all too busy cooped up in our bounded thinking of how to leave others behind and win the competition of life. Thus forgetting our empathetic side.

The Dovino's always felt Adira was like a dull teammate dragging down the team. Yes they did have feelings for her as family but it's just that they were too focused about their face, cared too much as to how people viewed them in the society. Their dignity was the foremost important to them.

Though the thought Adira wasn't worthy enough had taken roots in their mind ever since they were unable to find talent in young Adira, they didn't admit it verbally before. Only after this incident because of being backed up by the evidence of her shameful acts, did they feel it was absolutely reasonable to openly admit what was hidden in their minds for so long; and insulted her for what a shameful, unworthy person she was to her family.

_

After being left alone in the hallway Adira took the support of wall to slowly stabilize herself and carefully dragged her weak body to her room. Behind the closed door she could no longer control her tears. Like a broken dam the tears rushed down at the thought of her family wrongly accusing her.

Did they not know her at all? All these years had no one even understood what kind of a person she was at all? How could they doubt her like this? Degrade her in that way? She had tried living her whole life in the way they wanted, always thinking what she could do to make them happy.

But all her efforts in their eyes became her seducing boys? Being too horny? Being laid by any boy she sees? Indulging herself in pleasure? Selling her body? How could her family think of her in this way!

What hurt her wasn't the false accusations, rather the realization that in her family's eyes she was this kind of existence. Nobody raised their voice to defend for her. Worse, no one even bothered to ask her.

She couldn't come to terms that the family she devoted her all affections to, actually saw as a girl like this. Never once did they believe her and thought she could be innocent. For them she had always been a bad apple, rotten.

The more this realization became undeniable, the more her heart sunk.

Her family's words hurt her much deeper than the time she had been raped and physically broken. She felt thousand knives cutting into her hearts as those words pierced deep into her. She wept the night long, while her family's accusations kept ringing in her ears.