Besabriyan

24|TWENTY FOUR

"Kya aapko Zaviyar Ali Dawar wald Yahya Ali Dawar se nikah qabool hai?"

The world around her stopped the first time she was asked for her consent. The world around her froze the second time she was asked for her consent and the world around her fell apart the third time she was asked for her consent. Maheen Kamran had managed to answer the first two times but she seemed to have forgotten the words and languages she so dearly loved when she was asked to seal her fate with the man who had no wish in marrying her and who, nonetheless, loved her.

When she had locked herself with him in her room, all she could think of was falling on her knees and crying until she let go of her agony and told him to take her away. The moments of little peace were brutally robbed off when he said he gave himself away to the one he was promised too.

Noorul Ain, how lucky she must have been to be born with the fate of being his wife- she lamented so much that she almost hated her. The boneless, cowardly  behavior scared her to death. She knew what she was doing when she did. She knew what she was throwing away when she tossed and denied being in love. And for someone who wrote and felt emotions so deeply, she couldn't help herself but laugh at her designated place- to hang between the dreamworld of love and the reality of life.

She looked above to find him fidgeting with his fingers, clearly unattached from his surroundings to the point of oblivion. She wanted to scream at him for giving her hope and snatch it away. She wanted to cry for the breaking and cracking of her heart. It was too painful. Nonetheless, she had befriended the fact that she had been punished for breaking someone who just wished to offer some love and prayed for her life. Bazia begam nudged her shoulder from behind and she sighed. His mother rushed in the moment Daniyal informed them about the situation with Ahlah. Maheen expected her to lash out or taunt her or just take her son away from her place. She did take him away but when they returned he consented, throwing her off the cliff.

Zaviyar Ali Dawar was a calculative and sensitive man and to think that his mother managed to change his mind in a matter of ten minutes set her off. He was resilient to most things, she knew, but it was at that moment she realized he showed none to his mother despite being ignored by her all his life. In the end, he didn't walk out on her and held her together unlike her who didn't think as much before leaving him to appease her mother.

"Qabool hai." She said for the third time, her voice was just above a whisper but it was enough to shook his world as he stopped fidgeting and looked at her. There was a time where he would have done literally anything to wife her. There was a time where he would have swept her off her feet and run away from the mayhem. However, it all died when he gave Rayyan's ring back to her. He had accepted that she wasn't in his destiny, but what he couldn't accept was the change in his destiny after he accepted it.

He felt like a powerless bastard who had used three women to his benefits. He loved Maheen and everything in the universe was the sole witness of his love for her. He respected Noorul Ain and nobody other than him could testify to it. He lied and used Anabiya to expose her shitty husband when he knew he could have done it in much better ways. He betrayed two women to protect one. He felt so powerless when his mother dragged him away and fed him with the delusions of love and how he desired it. He felt so, so powerless when he found himself giving into his deluded heart only because he accidently met her eyes while being dragged away. He saw love and hope and he saw them burning themselves in her eyes.

"Mubarak ho," He heard someone say to him and snapped back to reality only to find that someone was actually her father, Kamran sahb. The older man squeezed his son in law's hands with a small smile on his face. Zaviyar had heard from Daniyal that her father was an influential man but he didn't know it was Kamran until he found him standing in the middle of their living room, talking to Abul Kashem sahb, "I trust my daughter's choice." To which he totally blanked and so he didn't say anything.