you cut me

Malik untucked the chair from the coffee table and sat across Cynthia.

The tealight candle struggled to brighten the room from the center of the table. It cast a soft glow on Cynthia’s face, an overarching shadow on the wall behind her.

Malik watched her for a moment. He looked pleased, although a little worry tainted his thick brows. “What chapter are you on now?” he asked her.

“Third one,” Cynthia said. “And you know better than to disturb me while I’m enjoying my stories.”

Malik shifted in his chair. The left sleeve of his pajamas top shifted a bit. It revealed the start of what seemed like a huge scar on his large hairy forearm. With an absent mind, he caressed the tip of the scar. He took a deep breath.

“I could not sleep. I noticed you had not come to bed.”

Cynthia raised her face to look up at him. Her face was a canvas with no colors. She felt no emotions, or at least she showed no emotions. Her carved lips looked perfect in the candle light. They looked like they would spread with a smile. Malik wished they would. But they never did. A minute passed between them but it felt like hours. The silence in the room grew bigger than Cynthia’s shadow. Malik humphed, and leaned into his chair.

“The least you could do is talk to me you know. Like, talk to your husband, babe. I am yours. Allah knows that I do not want to disturb you. Especially after everything that’s happened. All I ask is that — -”

“ — -See man,” Cynthia said. “I don’t want any trouble tonight. It’s what? Past 2 am. All I want is to finish this book and go to bed. I’m begging you. Drop whatever it is and just go to bed. Forget me here.”

“Forget you?”

“Yes Malik. Forget me. All you have to do is pretend I’m not here. It’s not even that hard.”

Malik sat up again. He puffed up his cheeks and blew out a long sigh. “We have been together four years babe. Four! And every day for the past four years, I have been here. Breathing in the same air as you. Eating the same food. Sleeping on the same bed.” Fake laughter stumbled off his lips. “We have existed beyond physical form for four good years. And you say ‘forget me,’ like you were the words to a random elevator song.”

Cynthia’s eyes locked with his. Her heavy breath swayed the candle flame, making their shadows dribble on the large walls. She had fire on her eyelids, a raging storm on her lips. She hissed and muffled something.

“What did you say?” Malik asked.

“Look Malik, I know where you are going with this. And I don’t want you to push me to fight. Please in Jesus name, drop it. I will go to bed to sleep when I am ready.”

Cynthia adjusted the book and started to read again. She tuned off from Malik.

He watched her glance across the lines of the open pages, with her head tilting along as she read. There was a soothing grace about her. She never broke concentration for a second. It was as if he was not sitting across from her. Malik saw her shadow on the wall behind, a silhouette of her packed dreadlocks and bent over back. For several minutes, it was the only thing that moved in the gloomy living room.

After moments of sitting in silence, Malik kept his eyes focused on Cynthia. They narrowed with contempt, a curious anger. He could not help but wonder if he was doing the right thing or not. He wondered if fighting tonight would save him. If fighting this time, would not be the end of him.

In one swift move, Malik slammed his left hand, palm down, on the open pages of Cynthia’s novel.

“Listen to me, babe,” he said. He pulled his left sleeve all the way to his shoulder. A big, slightly curved scar ran down from the center of his biceps to the midpoint of his forearm. The scar looked fresh. It had been less than a month since the wound started healing.

“I don’t even look at it weird anymore you know,” Malik said. “It has become a part of me, this scar, just like the other ones. It is a part of my story with you.”

Cynthia’s face burned with rage. Her heavy breathing once again caused a rioting wave to the candle flame. For a moment, it cast ripples of shadows across the large walls of the room.

“I don’t care about that,” she said, with her voice raised.

“You have to care Cynthia!” Malik shouted. His voice was matching hers now. “Like this scar, you are a part of me. As I am a part of you. For the past four years, you have etched yourself on my skin. It does not matter whether you want me or not, I am a part of your life!”

“My God! You want to play that card now?” Cynthia said, her voice gaining a volume over Malik’s. She threw the book to the floor, storming off the chair. She walked off into the darker parts of the room. Then she returned. “It’s convenient to use that of course. A cute little bingo to shut me up, isn’t it? Because you think I’ll give a damn. I don’t give a damn, Malik. It’s been four years with you, and it’s felt like a million. Look at me for fuck’s sake. I’m only twenty-six, and everyone calls me violent, irrational. Hell, I have many therapy sessions in my bag. You have turned me into a mad woman.”

“And you have turned me into a monster!” Malik said. His voice broke mid-sentence and tears trickled down his cheeks. He pointed to his forearm. “You look at me! Look at what you did to me, Cynthia! Look at these scars.”

He raised his shirt to his chest. Three scars scattered around his body. Two on his belly and one just below his chest.

“Look at them! You have turned me into a monster. YOU HAVE TRIED AND FAILED TO KILL ME!”

Cynthia stood right in front of him, frozen, shaken, in tears. She shivered in anger. Her eyes wandered around the room. They returned to Malik. Her lips trembled and her skin moved like they could not contain the rage within her. She watched him remain stuck before her, like his feet were buried in the tiles.

Malik fought against his strength to keep talking. His voice lost volume altogether. “Look at me babe,” he said, crying. “All I have ever done is love you. Hold you. When I promised that I would die for you, I never hoped it would be you holding the knife. And each time I have escaped dying, I have stayed. Every single time, Cynthia.”

As the two of them stood beside the coffee table, a merged shadow extended onto the whole span of the wall. It pretended to be still on the far side of the living room.

Cynthia broke into a piercing shrill. Eyes shut, she raised her face and screamed. “Why?” she asked, stuttering amidst the tears. “Why are you even with me?”

“Because I love you?” Malik said. His nose drooled. His eyes released tears that drenched his face. “How can I forget you? I have lived my life becoming the man for you. The house, the car, the clothes. Everything screams your name, babe. I don’t know myself outside the man for you. Who would take me now?”

Malik watched Cynthia fall to her knees. Her breath stumbled amongst her tears. She looked broken. He fell to his knees in front of her. He held her hand.

She looked up at his face. “I am not right for you, Malik,” Cynthia said. “Everybody warned you to leave me. They said you were too good for me.” She dropped her eyes from his gaze.

“Do you believe it?” Malik asked. He raised her face to himself.

“They said you could do better than a woman who couldn’t give birth,” she said. “Your mother stopped coming here. Even your brothers don’t talk to us anymore. I can’t help but feel like you’re with me out of pity. And I don’t want pity, Malik. I know you will leave me. Everyone said I hurt you and you are just waiting to find someone else before you walk out.”

“But do you believe it?” Malik said.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Cynthia said. She sat on the floor now. “I have cut you badly.”

“You have cut me, babe. Sent me to the hospital. And you have come to pick me up. But my mother cut you. She tore you apart. And our friends whispered loudly for you to hear. You and I carry scars that will never clean off. We don’t need to add more to those scars, babe.”

Cynthia held his hand. She slowly ran her thumb over the scar on his forearm. “I’ve been cut, babe,” she said. “But not like this.”

Gently, and ever so sweetly, Malik said, “Exactly. You have only given me parts of your own scars. And like I said, they are a part of me.”

He held her face with both hands, staring into her dripping eyes. He saw a glow in her eyes that had not been there since the night he met her at his friend’s wedding after-party. In his eyes, she could do no wrong. None of this could be wrong. It was till death separated them. And since he had escaped death a couple of times now, it meant nothing could separate them yet.

Cynthia sobbed. The man she got married to had bore a canvas of their falls. His arm held the mark of her lowest point ever. She remembered that she had not meant to swing the knife at him, nor stab him. She remembered how he kept saying he would rather die than let her leave the house or leave him that night. How he kept screaming, “Kill me. Stab me. I don’t care.” She never meant to hurt him. And she remembered how he lied at the hospital to cover up for her.

None of it made sense to her. To her, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was with her out of pity. Being together stopped making sense for both of them two years ago. But maybe it was not supposed to make sense. Maybe it was never about perfection. Maybe it was all about that one person that would hold on to you even when it makes no sense. That one person that would give their soul for yours. And no matter how selfish or crazy it sounds, maybe love has no single uniform. It could be that love wears different colors in different stories. And to Malik, it wore the color of her eyes, her hair, her skin. Love wore the color of the sky on days that it rained, and she was his umbrella. To him, love was all about how firmly he could hold her hands.

Malik drew her face closer. He watched her lips tremble as he placed his on them. The kiss tasted like the spoils of war. Except he knew he won this time. It felt like he didn’t lose her, nor himself this time. He drew back from her, still holding her face.

“Again,” he said. “You will always be a part of me, babe. Always.”

The candle flame cast a weak silhouette of their melted shadows on the wall. It was running out now. They could hear distant rumbles in the skies too. She hugged him, as the candlelight died on the table. The darkness felt okay now. She did not feel alone. She could hear his heartbeat. It wasn’t racing now. It pounded softly against her chest. She smiled, and the night wrapped them both in its pleasant arriving hope of a new start.

Thank you for reading “You cut Me.”

It tells a tale of toxicity and domestic violence in romantic relationships. It paints how holding on can mean losing yourself. But it also tells how beautiful commitment and reassurance can be. It’s two sides of a coin and I’ll leave you to toss it and see what side you get.

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