Life Sentence

CHAPTER 4

Her gaze flickered towards the canvas again. Lying on the floor with scattered art supplies all around it, the blank canvas stared back at her. It was taunting her, daring her to fill it with the bright colors, wanting to be colored by the strokes of her emotions, while she was the exact opposite. Oh, what she would have given to be blank like the canvas again! Instead she was brimming with emotions she had no way of getting out. Anger. Hatred. Loneliness. Sadness. Frustration. All of it.

Her fingers itched to feel the paintbrush in them but no! She wouldn't touch them. Not now. Not ever! How dare he bring them to her? Did he really think she would forgive him like that? She would rather die of boredom than to use things he'd brought for her.

She banged on the door of her cell. "Please take these things away! I don't want them. Please throw them out. Please!"

It had been a whole day since she'd been begging the guard outside to throw these things away. Because it ached her physically to not use them. But as usual, she got no response. Or so she thought.

The door opened and she sighed in relief. That is until the policewoman opened her mouth again. "You have a visitor!"

"What? If it's the same guy as yesterday then I don't want to go! Tell him to fuck off! AH!"

The guard had yanked her from her cell so hard she was afraid her shoulder was going to pop out.

She was in front of the glass window again. But this time she couldn't have picked up the receiver any sooner.

"Saad!" she gasped out.

"Kubra!"

"Saad, please, please, please get me out of here. I can't live here. Saad, I'll go insane. Please, Saad! Do something. Please."

"Shh... Relax. Calm down. Kubra!" she stopped her rant and looked at her bloodshot eyes, breathing hard. "Calm down. Take a deep breath. In. out. In. out. Good." He took in a deep breath himself, closing his eyes and forcing the tears to go away but the persistent ones still fell on his cheeks. Seeing the love of his life like this, so broken and hopeless was not something he could bear.

It was this moment that Kubra realized how everything had taken a toll on Saad as well. The Saad she knew was nowhere to be seen. His grey eyes were hollowed in the dark circles around them. His beard which he always kept neatly trimmed was unkempt and bushy. His hair were long and falling on his forehead. He looked like he was living her pain with her.

But he wasn't. He couldn't. Nobody could. They could grieve with her but only she knew what she was living through.

"Kubra, I need you to stay calm. Just hold on. And I swear I'd move heavens to get you out. Please. For my sake."

"Saad, I don't know if I can. I don't. I know I'm hurting you most by being like this. But I can't. Saad, I'll go crazy!"

"I know. I know. God damn it! I know. I'm sorry. I'm trying. Please, just hold on."

She exhaled. "Ok. Ok, I'll try. But can you please do one thing for me?"

"Anything." It was a promise.

"Can you please ask these policemen to remove those things from my cell?"

"Of course. Which things?"

"The things Yusuf brought."

"What?! What was Yusuf doing here? How fucking dare he? By what right was he here?"

She chuckled without any humor. "He was here to ask why I killed Wali."

"I'm going to kill that bastard! How dare he come here and give you more pain?" The fury on his face was something she had been seeing on his face for the past three months since she was first accused of it but she was still not used to it. The vein throbbing on his temple, his fist clenched tight, his teeth gritted, his face reddened __ it was not a good look on him.