It was their first morning in Islamabad, and Murtasim was quite excited to play out his surprise. They had reached the hotel quite late in the night and they had slept off soon after. He looked at Meerab sleeping next to him, and though there was quite a distance between them, he could perfectly see her serene face. She looked quite at peace.
Peace that mostly forgot her address whenever she was awake. Life had been cruel to her, starting off from her infancy when her biological mother died and her biological father abandoned her and then again when her adopted parents abandoned her, in which he was also complicit. His suggestion to marry her off to clip her wings, to stop her from fulfilling her dreams started everything that went wrong in her life and he was responsible, he was wholly responsible. He was not kind to her and he was quite ashamed of himself for it.
If she knew she'd not be kind to him and he shuddered at the thought.
But anyway, now he wanted to make up for everything. He wanted to help fullfill her dreams, help her become what she always wanted to be. A lawyer. He wanted to shower her with so much love and happiness that she forgets everything that went wrong in her life. He wanted to rectify his mistakes and work on himself as her life partner and eventually, eventually he wanted her to choose him. Like he chose her when he fell in love with her. He wanted a happy married life with her.
As his thoughts went astray from there, she finally stirred because of the sun rays coming from the window next to their bed. She opened her beautiful kitten eyes and found him looking at her with all the love in the world. She got taken aback for a second with his intense gaze but quickly composed herself and threw a witty, "Why are you looking at me like that, you creep?", at him.
"Because you're beautiful when you sleep", he said still in trance of her.
She raised her eyebrows and asked, "and otherwise?"
"Waise bhi ho, but thoda sa kam", he replied cheekily.
She waved him off as she got up from the bed, "Aren't we going somewhere today? For the surprise?" She said as she made air quotes for surprise.
"Oh, yes, you get ready, I'll call in breakfast", he quickly got up as well.
________
They had finished their breakfast when Meerab asked him, "so what's the event, how should I dress up?"
"Um, just casual is okay", he replied distracted in figuring out the address to their destination on his phone.
"What do you mean casual? Isn't it some big surprise?", she asked, with her hands on her hips, fixing a glare at him.
"Yeah", he asked, still distracted on his phone.
"Murtasim Khan, I am talking to you", she reached forward and snatched his phone from his hand.
He finally paid attention to her, she was standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding his phone, and looking at him with a stare that could kill.
"Meerab, its not any event, its just some place we're gonna be visiting, just wear something casual, you'll look perfect in whatever you decide to wear anyway", he muttered the last sentence under his breath.
Her breath hitched at his compliment because she was in rather close distance to him and his slow voice had reached hers.
"Oh okay." she gave him a look and his phone back and went near her suitcase to look for a casual jean and top.
________
As their car stood outside the gate of the best law university in the whole of Pakistan, Meerab was dumbfounded. Out of everything, she didn't expect this to be the reason for their trip. She tried to form words but nothing came out of her mouth for a while. She just kept looking at the university gate and the board above it. She had always dreamed of studying here, but knew that Baba wouldn't allow her to study out of the city, hence she was okay with Karachi back then, and was forcing him to convince the Khans for admission until everything got ruined. Her parents abandoned her, she was married off to the man next to her, and her dreams got shattered. But now here she was, in front of the gate of the most desired university for law students and the reason was the man next to her. It was overwhelming how life had taken a turn for her, for them. The man she used to despise was now gifting her, her dreams.
