A Court's Maim

لندن | London

Chapter 16.

"Don't shut me out."

The words even as they left her mouth were nothing more than an innocent out cry. For help. Dipped in a silver shade of the moon her fingers pressed to his bicep and held on to them, the cusp of her nail digging in as she prayed — held her breath in tact. Empty she stared at him, with her eyes running over his suddenly collapsed face. The brunette strand if hair that only at his hour appeared lighter curled over his brow, sharp lines matched the hardness in his orbs. This was not him. Not the man she knew, nor the man she married.

"I'm not Barekhna. There isn't much I can say."

Aliyaar shrugged, the words weighed his tongue down, heavy lies tied him to the ground as he spoke with a straight face. His fingers were sweaty, was it the cold in the world or the sudden icicle that had wrapped around his heart? The dabbed at the side of his head and he massaged it counter clockwise, shifting over the Egyptian feather mattress, his fingers dug into the sheets and the length of them curled around the expanse of the duvet.

"You're lying."

Barekhna tutted, her tone crisp and alert, the crook of her arms letting of him. The winds eased into the room from the door that had been left ajar, whistling in they tickled the skin on her cheeks and brushed aside the fickle worries that dripped down her being. Curling her legs into herself, her head turned to him, his back to her — the warmth from it sheltered her from the exhausting cold of the night. Her ass hung off of the bed as she fixed her position, underneath her curved ribs a dull ache thrummed.

"Why would I lie about this?" Aliyaar scoffed.

Depraved shadows covered his pale skin as dim lights, in the intensity of their pasty pallor turned his skin flaxen. The thicket of his hair lost it's life as his blood dribbled from the centre of his mind to the tops of his cheeks. Dreary, the chill bit through his flesh and sliced into the shin bone hid under the thick layers of his tailored fit attire. Spinning the edge of his head slightly, raising the chiseled corner of his chin just an inch from it's relaxed state he stared into her eyes. Just from the corner. The mead color of his eyes was marred and mixed with shades of heartbreak, betrayal and despair. Just above his soft mouth the scruff that covered his face, fell into a riverine and curled around — had he failed in his one true pursuable desire?

Barekhna was human. Breathing and living, she had lived a life before he had seen her five years ago, even then she had lived as a woman. Had experienced, noticed and known much more than he could have. Aliyaar pushed his fists into the side of his thighs, a dull pain crept up he leg like a redundant trigger. Of the seriousness— of the fact that it was not a dream. That he would not be roused from it anytime soon.

"Aliyaar I see it in your eyes, you are not okay."

"When I married you Barekhna I married your past too. I can no change it," he sighed, rubbing his face, "it's fine."

"Is it? I know it hurt you." She frowned.

"It doesn't matter," he smiled at her, squeezing her hand in assurance.

To whom does me being hurt matter? He thought, even as his arms wrapped around Barekhna and stroked her soft back to reassure her. His parents had been focused on his sister, on his younger brother — it was where he had given up first. Then it came to Barekhna. The lack of feelings and reciprocal, her laughs and giddiness that were all reserved for men that were not him. The pain drowned him, threw him into the deepest of Oceans and kept him there until he learnt to breathe with the ache in his lungs. Aliyaar admired everyone around him — they loved or well atleast liked him, yes, but he knew what it in it's truth was.