Zoya’s P.O.V
The man still hadn't woken up, so I decided to go outside and get some fresh air. This place was getting too stuffy for my liking.
The cold midnight breeze greeted me as soon as I opened the door. There were no lamp posts outside to illuminate the place, so I flicked all the switches I could touch until I found the one that was connected to the front porch lights.
I stepped out into the night, keeping the door open so I could easily run back inside in case something happened, like if a wild bear showed itself and I would be able to run back to safety instead of being frozen in fear. Cam did say that there would be no such attacks here, but then again, she also did not say that there would be a naked man in the middle of the cabin.
My car was parked close enough to the house that I could sit atop the hood, my feet dangling at the sides, without being shrouded in the darkness of the night. I propped my feet up and lay with my back flat against the car roof.
From where I was, I could see the brilliant stars in the night sky. There was only enough light here to let me see my surroundings without being too much, to the point where the stars in the sky were basically being exiled by the light pollution. And I was more than glad for that.
The sight that I was seeing, this almost-milky radiance churning in the heavens up above, suddenly made me feel like I was going to be just fine. In the grand scheme of things, I was insignificant, and soon my pain would ebb and fade, and what was hurting me now would not be able to even cut me in a few years', perhaps even months', time.
It filled me with hope and comfort to know that one day, I would only have scars as evidence that I had lived this life and gone through this pain. Right now, it still hurts, but soon, I will be over this tragedy, and my life will be all the better for it. I knew that in my heart. I had to believe that. If even I lost all hope in the betterment of my own life, then who else would believe in me? I wouldn't know what I would do when that happened.
A subtle buzz broke me out of my reverie. My phone was ringing. My mom was calling. As it turned out, there somehow was reception here, atop the roof of my car.
“Hello?” I answered. “Ma?”
“Zoya, when are you coming home?” she demanded. I could sense the impatience in her voice. I could see her pursing her lips and crossing her arms, eyebrows raised in question. “And why haven't you already? Don't you know what time it is?”
“Actually…” I said, my voice hesitant. “I won't be home for a while. I've been transferred to a different clinic.”
“Oh, were you assigned in New York, then, like you had always hoped?” she asked. I could not help but feel miserable at the sound of her hopeful tone, knowing that I was about to let her down.
“I… no,” I admitted after a long pause. There was no sugar-coating it. I couldn't find the right words, anyway. It was better to just hand it to her straight. “I'm in the Sapphire Mountains.”
What I got in return was a mocking laugh. “So even in what you claim to be good at, you're still a failure,” she concluded harshly. “Not only were you unable to keep your fiancé, but you did not get the promotion you wanted as well. Sapphire Mountains…” She snorted. “What's a doctor got to do in the wilderness like that? Diagnose wild bears?”
I wanted to tell her that she was all wrong. That she was greatly, severely mistaken. But, like always, I did not have it in me to raise my tongue against my own mother, even if she was raising her tongue against me, brandishing it like a whip.
“You should have focused on marriage. How difficult is it to keep a husband-to-be satisfied? How much of a failure did you have to be, for Ravi to up and leave like that?” She clicked her tongue. “You should have insisted upon the marriage and had kids with your husband instead of pursuing the career you could not even maintain. What use is that if you could not keep your man? What use are you?”
Her words were icy and hurt like the impact of a car crash. The barely-dangling self-confidence I had only just managed to summon earlier crumbled to ashes. I felt even more insecure, like I was the one to blame for everything.
Was I?
I feared that I was no longer in the right state of mind.