Stranger No Moreنموونە

I was supposed to return to the college the next day to talk about the next year and hand in some paperwork. I had spent most of the night in the bathroom,  watching the bruises emerge across my chest, arms, side, and legs. I had a cut across my face that had barely stopped bleeding and a black eye that was already swollen. No amount of makeup would cover it up, and whenever I tried to walk, my steps were those of an old woman.
 

When it was time to leave the apartment, I phoned my teacher instead.  Asghar was asleep and I was desperate not to wake him, but as soon as the cheery female voice on the other end said my name, I started to cry.

  “What’s wrong?”
  “I’m okay. I have just been sick in the night. Can I mail you the   paperwork?”
  “Of course,” she said. A long pause followed. “We want to help you,   Annahita.”
 

I knew that she spoke the truth, and I didn’t doubt that she cared, but what could she do? There was no way she could help. And deep inside, a part of me doubted that I even deserved to be rescued. The words I had heard after   Mohammad’s death—that God was punishing me—still continued to haunt me.
 

I couldn’t understand what I had done to deserve Mohammad’s death, but if I abandoned my husband, what would God do to me then? I was terrified of God, terrified of causing further shame for my family back home. That fear kept me trapped more than any bars of any cell I had been kept behind in Turkey.
 

The only thing I could do was hide. I hid my story from my fellow students and teachers, as well as from my parents. I hid my bruises behind makeup and my sorrow behind hard work. I hid my hope of seeing Daniel from Asghar, for fear of making him mad. I hid from Roksana my fear that one day he would turn on his own daughter.
 

I was hiding everything. Soon there would be nothing left.