Culpable

I

It is not a famous "Once upon a time" story for Shae. This story is very new, and this one dusts off every single thorn of fictional ostentatiousness. She wrote on her blank messaging page, "I know that all of my occasional, hidden wailing ups are nothing but a heaping wound of anger. I hate each face leaning forward from the sides of my bed. When will they stop coming?"

The ’To:’ box was empty.

She only had a soft spot for her attendant, Lady Dey. Shae loved the way Lady Dey took care of her itching bandages. Whenever Shae called, "Lady Dey, it’s burning...again," Lady Dey used to hurry towards the bed and fill the top rim of the bandage with talcum powder. Every day, she used to put an ointment on Shae’s digging scars. Shae screamed on each turn. And on every application of the ointment, the pong of the tube cheered her to vomit. She used to call that feeling the impartial bugging dance in her belly. She felt that she was disguising herself as an undercover, mediocre belly dancer. In her words, her cringey moves were covered sometimes under the brownish blanket and sometimes in her imaginary concert at any space station. But after some hours of dressing sessions, she would completely forget those crippling feelings. She used to fix her eyes on the left side table for thriller Netflix shows.

But every time, the sound of their boots made her nauseous. They had a typical cold routine of meeting her. They had grimy smiles. Sometimes those smiles looked like old, ragged stickers, as if someone had permanently glued them to their shadowy faces. In loop, they used to boil up the same kind of impenitent words, "Poor child, we’re so sorry. But don’t mind, baby, this incident was quite anticipated!"

And each time Shae’s mind would scream, "Hello! Did you really anticipate molestation?"

II

A boy was touching her right thigh, and then he slid his arm through her waist. Shae moved her body and pointed her surfboard towards him. She almost hit his leg with the pointed edge. He dropped his head into the water. He vanished. After around ten wavy dives in the briny, wild waves, Shae felt the same kind of touch. She realised that she was in the middle of a half-circle of men. That boy was with them. Every one of them had the same sharp, gulping look. At one high bounce, they all tried to grab her, but she twisted her dive in a different direction. The splash somehow threw her beside a trainer. They whistled at Shae. They called out different sugary names. The trainer screamed, "Hey, go away, bullocks!"

They laughed and went quite far away.

Shae was in the beach area for a family staycation. They were pretty cordial with each other. They had some decent laughs, some healthy breakfasts, and a few rounds of board games. But when on a breezy afternoon, Shae picked up the surfboard, their faces looked somewhat hard, as if someone had brought back blizzards in the summer. Shae didn’t know that her relatives would show those frowning expressions at her surfing skills. And after this specific incident, their opinions became very sour. Shae’s uncle became like an elected representative of the typically morally protective clan. He was continuously giving her long speeches. Those speeches had a similarity with heavy spreadsheet files. It was like a rule book of ways to avoid such harassment. And on each block, he had one sense, "The boys are like this. You should be more careful!"

Finally, the two days’ clumsy "togetherness" ended. Shae could not have imagined the comfort of this ‘ending’ feeling. But she never guessed that this night her emotions were in a very fragile locker.

They were all waiting for their cabs. Shae was smilingly guarding the luggage on one side of the pavement. Suddenly, an eerie sound guffawed in the air. Four-five men ran towards Shae. At blazing speed, they pushed Shae in front of a running bus. They shouted,"Enjoy surfing, girl!"

III

After around two months, Shae was taken home along with Lady Dey. When Lady Dey was fixing Shae’s rufous bandages, her relatives had sympathetic smiles and words. Shae could see that one after another, each pretentious smile was falling into a deep scowl. They huddled, looking at her power wheelchair. Their approach towards Lady Dey was also very alien, as if she had some Bluetooth activation system and they never had any expertise to show warmth.

That jinxed night, her ankle was crushed, the skin of her thighs was peeled off, and her right hand was fractured. When she was sliding under the bus, a stranger pulled Shae from her left hand. She had a blurry vision of the man. He held her feet softly when the hospital staff was tightening her up on the stretcher. After a couple of minutes, her uncle pushed the man aside. Shae never knew if her family had ever thanked that gentleman. She only knew that if he had not pulled her, her head would have been buried under the bus. She never knew who he was or how he saved her at the right moment. In the ambulance, she could hear her uncle’s evanescent blabbering. Before she fainted, she heard two voices and saw a bright light.

Her uncle annoyingly yelled, "I told her not to mess with guys! Now see…”

“Cut the cackle. Can’t you see her situation? "A man snapped at her uncle. Then the man took out a torch from his whitecoat’s pocket. He touched her right eyelid.