BROKEN

The next few days passed by as quick as lightening and soon a week had passed. Roderick was a serious workaholic. He sometimes went to work at 6am sharp and came back around 11 to 12pm. It was startling how such a powerful, rich person was so dedicated to his work. As a result of his workaholism, Roderick and Elena had barely interacted.

That was only in the mornings. She was an early waker, the latest she could ever wake up was 9am. On better days she woke up at 5am but on worse days, it would be either 6 or 7am and on days that she was not in good condition, it would be 9am.

That morning, she was having a bad day. The night before, she had cried herself to sleep which she had been doing since the weeding night but last night was worse. She had only fallen asleep at dawn. Her bagged eyes were proof of it. It was 7am already and having studied Roderick's daily schedule, she knew he was already gone which was kinda a relief to her.

As Elena stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, she couldn't help but tear up again. She clutched her chest where her heart was located as if there was unbearable pain coming from there. And there was, it felt like an inexplicable clenching and tightening of her heart as in it was going to burst because of heart ache.

She whimpered as the large fat tears dropped and glided down over her soft cheeks to her chin. She stumbled back and her back hit a wall. She slid down onto the ground as she whimpered loudly as if someone was inflicting pain on her.

An hour had passed steadily but she never moved from her position, though she had long stopped crying. She sat on the floor, her eyes empty, lifeless, cold as she looked straight ahead unseeingly. Her sapphire blue eyes were dim and dark with pain and hurt. Everything about her right now was showing an extremely beautiful yet utterly broken soul.

*****

On this day, Roderick didn't go to work. His friend who had gone abroad for three years was finally back so they agreed she who visit. He thought he would see Elena this morning too, just like very other morning but she was nowhere to be seen when he went down stairs. He had asked the butlers and the maids but they all had the same impassive answer, "sir, madam has not come out of her room."

Weirdly, he felt she wasn't ok. Oh, if only he knew what she was doing at that moment.

Inside Elena's room,

Elena was looking at the mirror that had fallen out of her hand and broke into a million pieces. She picked up the biggest piece and her empty eyes stared intently at it. She pressed her thump against the sharp side and it pierced into her delicate skin.Her blood dropped unto the snow white fur carpet.

Elena smiled, a broken smile as she decided to get the maids to clean the mess. she pressed a red bottom and after a moment two young maids came in, only to be welcomed by an Elena who had small blood stains all over her.

"Madam, blood?", the bolder one of the two said, her voice raising to a higher pitch, making it sound like a question.

"Oh, this? I'll change later", she smiled reassuringly at the maid but the smile didn't even reach her eyes. Almost immediately the maids heart bled with worry. She had never seen the madam with such a smile before. The sir, yes but the madam's smile always reached her eyes no matter how much pain she was in.

The maid whose name was Nola, noticed that the madam was clenching her fists so tightly that her acrylic nails were digging into her skin. Nola felt exasperated beyond words. She was so worried about the madam however, though the other maid, Cecilia could see that their madam seemed to be turning into a masochist, she didn't appear to care. She had been here longer so she knew things that Nola didn't know which made her create a barrier that separates her from her madam.

"Please clean that up," Elena said pointing to the pieces of broken glass. "And this too, erm.....it got stained with blood" she continued pointing at the extremely white carpet that had a few bloods droplets on it.

Cecilia glanced at her, feeling a pang of pity which she immediately steeled. If only she knew how much Elena hated being pitied, she wouldn't have looked at her with such pity-filled eyes. Elena had noticed the looked Cecilia had given her but said nothing.

Once they were gone, Elena took a shower and changed. She threw the white dress that was stained with blood in the bin. It was already 9am when she was done and her stomach growled a complaint for her eating late.

She went down but just when she was about to reach the bottom of the stairs case, she heard a familiar voice, Roderick's voice. What was he doing here? Wasn't he supposed to be at work?

She halted and turned her head to where the living room was located. There she saw an elegant and beautiful lady seated beside her husband, Roderick.

"You got into a loveless marriage?" ,the women said, looking like she couldn't believe it however, Roderick's calm aura blazed at what she said.