ASYA FF - "Kaise Katan Birha Ki Ratiyaan"

Chapter 4

4

"Maang Rakhi Thi Jo Wasl-ki-Shaam"

DAY 1

Zoya sat in front of the mirror, getting ready. One word, one thought doing rounds in her mind.

Date.

The Date.

The Date with Asad.

Asad Ahmed Khan.

She should feel excited – she didn't. Why didn't she?

Instead, she was terrified.

Terrified because she still hadn't forgiven him. Sure, he was trying to make it up to her but the glaciers he built around her heart, over and over, didn't quite melt yet.

Running wasn't an option. The only thing she had ever wanted was to run towards him. So even though everything and everyone around her said, she needs to get her head right. She still ran.

Aapi hadn't impulsively made a plan to go out today. She had mulled over it the night before, so she could take Zoya away as far as possible from the town, to let her get whatever perspective was needed.

Zeenat knew Dilshad, but she didn't know Asad.

And the seeds of doubt against him were sown the day he chose not to trust her sister. So she had spent the entire afternoon 'having the talk'. Zoya shuddered remembering.

.

.

.

"No Aapi, I am not deluded to think that he would 'change' for me over night. I believe in him because I know, he is a good person who has recognised his mistake and is doing something to mend it. I believe in him because I know, there is no ulterior motive he holds in opening his dumb, awkward, shy heart to me. I have to give him a chance. I have to give myself a chance."

.

.

.

Zeenat felt guilty pushing Zoya so much that she had to break into a long monologue like that. But what good be her Aapi if she made the same mistake twice. They'd been burned bad by Akram. She would never forgive herself if her child suffered again.

Zoya understood.

But no one understood what she understood.

If she were to lock up every memory, every moment, all the pain somewhere; she'd still remember him. Anywhere she was, he was. Everything was Asad.

She had deduced that as soon as she'd accepted her attraction for him. He was nowhere, then suddenly everywhere, whether she liked it or not.

No, she wasn't deluded to think, even for a second, this was her choice to make. Her self-preservation told her not to seek approvals, that she could do better.

But she didn't want better, did she? She wanted him, and that's how she ended up standing in front of the very dargah she had ran to on the day of her forced nikaah.

Was it 'going to a shrine day' today? First Aapi, now him. And who invites a girl for a date here?!

Zoya had requested him not to pick her up and he didn't want to push. He saw her standing near the tall gate at the entrance, staring up at the sky. Clad in all white, she glowed in the moonlight.

His stomach swarmed by butterflies; he looked at her like poetry in prose. Everyone around her moved faster, only she stood still, lulling the rest of the universe into a blur.