QAIS

Chapter 6: A Crime Without A Criminal

It wasn't his fault.

That one moment of her turning back in the sun outside his car. As she turned to face him with all the pain and betrayal in her teary eyes. With all the innocence and despair in her being. The kindness in her features that he had mistaken for something vile because that's all he knew. The naiveté that he had ruined.

It was not his fault.

The sun shouldn't have reflected off her like that. Like she was a piece of heaven on earth. The wind shouldn't have swayed her disheveled inky hair onto her flushed cheeks. Her red-rimmed eyes shouldn't have squinted like that, the damp lashes shouldn't have cradled her honey orbs so beautifully.

It wasn't his fault.

Qais hadn't asked for her to come to him. Qais hadn't made her give him that bandaid. Qais hadn't made her be so fucking ethereal in front of him. Qais hadn't asked for the God damn sun to shine on her like that.

And he sure as hell did not ask for her to haunt his dreams. To torment every waking hours of his. It had been 3 days since that day, he should've forgotten how the hazel eyes had specks of gold in them amid that honey green. Or the diamond shape of the small til beside her left eye. Or density of those dark lashes. But he remembered it as vividly as if she lived in his eyes.

None of it was his fault.

But no...

It was his fault that he had spared her alive. He would later realize. He had brought this upon himself.

It was all his fault for letting her live and breathe.

If she didn't exist, he would never have fallen.

Yet the more he thought about her the more he fell. It wasn't her existence that tormented him so. It was the way she had taken over his mind. Like a mirage for a stranded man. Teasing him, tricking him, slowly killing him.

She was becoming a part of his conscious. And he figured the only way to get rid of her, would be to drown himself senseless.

♛

"I'm already full." Layla urged her mother.

"No, you have to finish it. It's because you always miss breakfast that you fell so weak."

Layla wanted to tell her that it wasn't because of breakfast. But she hadn't spoken of the incident to anyone, not even Ruhi. As the pair of dark blue orbs flashed in her mind, she shuddered, pulling her sleeves over her wrist. It had been days but the bruise had yet to heal.

She only smiled sadly at her mother, as she fed her the breakfast. She didn't want to worry her. And anyway, there was nothing that could come of it, it was over anyway. She would never run into him again anyway.

"What about me? I feel weak too!" Ruhi jumped in complaining, successfully lightening Layla's downcast mood.
Arfa laughed and fed the other girl as well.

Layla feigned a scowl, but the fondness in her eyes was all too visible. "Look at you stealing my mother."

Ruhi made an arrogant face. "You can have mine. She's a Hitler anyway."

"What did you say?" Behind them Nadia entered the kitchen, making Ruhi pale.

"N-nothing! I meant my mother's as strong as Hitler...But has a heart as soft as clouds!"

"She's lying aunt!" Layla ratted on her. "She said-!"

Ruhi leapt at her trying to clamp her mouth shut but Layla ran from her playfully teasing her. "She said that-"