Dancing to his tunes

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Hearing the bang, Aaron's secretary and some of the other employees in the firm entered the conference hall to check what had happened. Seeing his fist bleeding, many of his female employees fussed about it and some tried to bandage it up with their scarf. But the only woman he wanted, had just left him bleeding there.

Aaron ripped his hand away from one of his employees who was wrapping it up with a bandage to prevent the bleeding.

"Sir it's almost done," she said.

Ignoring the whiney sound of the receptionist, he made his way to his office, the only place in ADZ textiles that had been his home in all these years. He locked the door the moment he entered it and went to pick up their wedding frame that was perched on the desk. He didn't change a single thing about this office. Everything was exactly like how his Bia had left it. A tear leaked from his eyes and landed on the frame. Every single day in this office for the past 3 years he had looked at their wedding photo, caressed it and remembered how elated he was to get married to her and how short lived his happiness was. Though it was a poignant reminder of what he had lost, he still held it dear to his heart.

He looked at his right hand that was poorly bandaged up by the receptionist. He couldn't help but compare it with Bia's way of bandaging. She had a knack for providing First Aid. Her passion for medicine had driven her to take up countless Basic Life Support and First Aid workshops and so it was no surprise to Aaron when she effortlessly bandaged his hand up the first time after he had cut it while picking up the broken shards of the wine bottle. Aaron unwrapped the bandage and tried to wrap it just like how his Bia would do it. Though he knew it would be a botched attempt and nowhere near as clean and crisp as hers, it still would be better than what he was already sporting. He didn't know if he should be glad or rather sad that Bia didn't give into her helping instincts, instead refrained from tending to his wounds. It would be wrong to say that he wasn't mildly surprised and hurt. The Bia he had known would rush to provide emergency care to someone regardless of who they were and what they had done to her. So seeing her not tend to his wounds hurt him more than he'd like to admit. He knew he deserved it; moreover this was what he had wanted Bia to become: cold, calculative, selfish, ruthless. But at the same time, he didn't want her to lose her essence.

"I really don't know what I want anymore, cara. I've never been this confused in my life as I am now!" He whispered defeatedly to the wedding frame.

There were very few times in his life when he didn't think of himself but thought of others and one of those times were when he had decided to let Bia go. But at this point in his life he was deeply regretting that decision of his.

If only Bia was like him: selfish, less emotionally driven, and manipulative. He would have never let her go or at least would have not decided for herself. He knew that if he would have told her about his testicular cancer and infertility, Bia would have never left him. She would have stood by him not caring about what her family and society said. However, she wouldn't have opted for sperm donor and IVF and would be more inclined towards adopting a child, something he wasn't fine with the idea of. He didn't want her to miss out on conception and birthing a child just because he was infertile. But now the thought of her birthing Rahim's baby was unbearable. Back then, he hadn't thought of surviving cancer. On the contrary, he had wanted to die and had prayed for it so that it would be easy for Bia to move on since she would have thought of it as karma for all I did to her. He had even written his will 3 years ago in which he had returned her the shares of the company and had written their house in her name.

Only if he didn't survive, it would have saved him so much misery. He wouldn't have to bear seeing his love being replaced by someone else. But then that's a wishful thought. Someone like him deserved to burn in this self inflicted misery. Perhaps it was karma that Bia believed really firmly in. Another thing they had contrasting views about. Where Bia believed in karma and leaving it all on Allah, he believed in avenging the atrocities. It was probably because Bia had grown up in a country where there is a botched legal system and so they rely on Allah to dole out justice instead of the court. But then even Dubai's legal system failed to bring her justice, so perhaps it was karma only. He survived so that he could reap what he had sowed. Aaron kissed her picture, wiped his tears and went to the connected bathroom to freshen up.