Life Sentence

CHAPTER 12

‘The chains are broken. . . But are you truly free?’

Kubra had often wondered how people who lived years apart from their home felt when they saw it after so long. Now she knew, as she looked out the window of the car at the modern-styled mansion. It was nostalgic and nauseating at the same time.

But maybe this was only the case with her and not everyone else. After all, all those people stayed away by their own choice. They had left to make their careers, for better opportunities, for love, for family . . . but her? She was dragged away from this very home, with no one being able to do anything despite her painful cries.

“No! Dad, please! I don’t want to go! Please, stop them, dad! Leave me!” She had shouted but her father had buried his face in his hands and her mother had been restrained by Huma’s mother.

The only person she could have counted on to do something wasn’t there. Saad had been arrested for assaulting a police officer on duty.

She had been released on bail the first time, but now, after the evidences, she couldn’t be bailed without a trial.

“Mom! Mom, do something please! Huma!”

But they could simply watch as she was handcuffed and thrown into a police van.

“They’re waiting for us, KB.” Saad yet again pulled her out from the painful memories.

She looked into his gorgeous eyes and found nothing but care and love for her. How she couldn’t see it before was beyond her.

“Please, don’t call me that. She isn’t me. I’m not her anymore.”

She knew she’d hurt him. He’d been calling her that for longer than she could remember. But she also knew that if he knew why she didn’t want to be called that anymore, he would cut his tongue before saying it ever again.

Why doesn’t he know anyway? Why haven’t I told him?

“Yes, why haven’t you told him, dear? Maybe he’d be able to help you.” Saddy kindly said into her ear, carefully as if afraid Saad would hear her.

“Are you really this dumb? We’ll die if anyone were to know about us. They’ll label us as crazy after murderer!” Of course, KB yelled without caring if anyone heard her.

“No, they won’t. They’ll help her!”

“Help, my ass! No one can help us, you get it? No o-”

“Of course.” Both of them disappeared when Saad spoke. “As you wish. I prefer calling you ‘love’ anyway.” He was smiling, his slightly chipped canine looking cuter than ever, now that the shadows of desperation and hopelessness had flown away. He looked healthier, happier and more like the Saad she had grown up admiring.

“You know, when I was in that cell, I often ranked things I missed the most from the free world. They always competed with each other. Sometimes, it was my parents. My mother as she used to scold me with a scowl on her face. Or my father, as he used to defend my silly antics. Or Huma, the way we skipped school together to eat a cheap ice-cream by the corner.”

He listened to her patiently as she revisited the good in the bad.

“Anything related to you always sacrificed itself even in the figments of my imagination. They always stayed behind. They didn’t want to offend anyone, just like how you are always,” she cocked her head at him and he chuckled. “I always fought with myself, do you know?”

He raised his brow in question. She didn’t look like she needed probing though. She was in a trance, speaking as if she was living those moments right then.