House of Ashes [Complete]

60. Almost | تقریبا

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There come moments in our lives when everything gets jumbled up. Nothing makes sense anymore. Life decides to take the reins to itself and ruins everything just to fix it for us because we've not been doing a really good job at it.

For Asmara Zanjani, this was exactly that moment.

She smiled meekly as she looked at the mirror, the reflection in which looking back at her with an identical smile. Donned in pastel pishwas with slight embroidery and a net duppata placed delicately on her head, she looked ethereal.

The course of events that had followed hadn't given her any time to shop for her Nikkah. Not that she was complaining. She wasn't, not even in the slightest. Because what did it matter that the attire wasn't exactly according to the event when the heart was content and the happiness was peaking through every fiber of her body, the brightness of which was outdoing everything else around?

Her ensemble had specifically been picked out by Safa which Kashana had wholeheartedly approved. Asmara didn't care much about it. She was going to get married to the love of her life. Something she could never imagine would happen, but here she was, with her heart swooning and only positive vibes engulfing her. So her whole focus was on that only. There wasn't an inch of agitation to her.

Surely, the happiest brides are the prettiest.

Her reverie of thoughts broke as the knob of the door turned against its own accord and she turned around. A very beaming Safa had come and stood right in front of her with a Gajra in her hand.

Asmara eyed it and then raised her eyebrow at Safa.

"Arham asked me to give this to use." She said, flashing it in front of her with a toothy grin..

Gajray.

The starting point of their love which she thought was going to wilt just like those Gajrays had when she had thrown them in the trash bin that day.

Now blooming more than ever. Something she didn't think was possible.

A tear gathered itself on the brim of her eye as her mind ventured back to last night.

"I cannot become a burden on you." Asmara said as she looked away in indignation. The tears that had marred down her ashen face were not there anymore in his presence as they took everything in her to hold back.

She couldn't cry in front of him. She couldn't be vulnerable in front of him.

The concerned expressions that were there on Arham's face when Safa had called him to the annex morphed into hurt on her statement.

"You can never be a burden on me, Asmara." His approach was gentle, but the pained edge wasn't hidden from the woman looking out the window, standing a few feet away from him.

"That's what you think right now. You want to free me from the shackles of the mess my life is. And what difference does it leave between you and the men of my family, hun?" She looked at him, her red rimmed eyes boring right into his and he felt a chill run down his spine looking at the fire, the horror those orbs contained. They were mortifying and he could swear he had never seen her like this before. She was burning from within. All her wounds had been opened and somehow he wanted to be the balm on them.