The Stigma Called Love - Chapter 1

She was packing her bags frantically, glancing time and again at the clock. Looking at the sleeping child on the bed, she tried hard to control her nerves, which were going haywire with every passing second. What will happen if he came home early today? Shaking her head in fear, she closed her eyes and prayed. Oh, please god, for once be on my side.

She jumped out of her skin just as her phone sounded the message tone. Wiping off the nervous sweat on her forehead, she fetched the device and opened the message. ‘The cab has been booked. Should be there in another 30 minutes,’ her best friend had written.

Quickly grabbing everything, she could think off, she closed the suitcases, trying her best to ignore her throbbing head. Not now, please. Putting everything else inside her child’s bag, she grabbed the suitcases and dragged them outside in the drawing room. Suddenly, she heard her phone ringing and rushed to bedroom to answer it.

She looked at the screen and her eyes widened in fear. It was an unknown number. Should she answer the call? What if it was him?

Gulping down the nervous lump forming in her throat, she answered the call with a shaking voice.

“Hello.”

“Ma’am, I am waiting in the cab outside the society.”

She heaved a sigh of relief. It’s only the cab driver.

Asking him to wait, she picked up her child and opened the main door. She flicked a scared look around the corridor just to check if anyone was there.

No one.

One by one, she put the suitcases out of the door. Then she took the keys and put them on the table.

Clutching the sleeping child to her heart, she stepped to the other side threshold, without a backward glance. As, the door closed with metal click, she felt a little less panicked.

The driver was waiting at the gate. Seeing her dragging the suitcases, he quickly helped her. As she sat inside the cab and it started, her panic-stricken mind eased a little.

But this was just the end of a war; the battle is yet to begin.   

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