QAIS

Chapter 28: The Familiar Stranger

Lately her interactions with Qais had turned stranger and stranger. Each morning he would appear outside her room and she’d shut the door on his face. Each morning he’d threaten her. And yet each morning the threat would sound emptier than yesterday.

He would disappear for hours on ends and then suddenly appear and take her on walks through the gardens. She’d watch the flowers and he’d watch her. He would speak and she would never answer. Both of them fascinated with each of their butterflies.

Her afternoons were filled with the remembrance of her family. Her sunsets with that of Zaviyar and his love and deceit. The nights were filled with crying for all her losses. But the mornings, the mornings were filled with the most consoling of blues. The mornings made her forget the nightmares of her night. The mornings when a certain dark-haired knocked at her door with a dozen servants in tow, that dimpled smile greeting her.

She had forsaken her religion ever since her suicide attempt. Or evidently, even before that. A part of her, deep down, was scared of turning back, knowing she had made an irredeemable offense. The other part still wanted to fix that mistake, to redo and succeed.  It was the part that had lost all hope. As all links to her family, her past life, and her beliefs broke one by one. She was shrouded in complete darkness.

All she could see was the ray of light that appeared in the form of a single person, Qais. In that abysmal darkness she could not read the moral compass that desperately twitched and faltered, pointing in all the directions away from him.

Despite her hatred for him she found herself inexplicably tethered to him. She was at crossroads with her heart when it came to him. She hated him for saving her, for caging her in this misery, but at the same time she was grateful of him, for saving her from a fate probably worse than this. Layla wondered if it were even possible, to be faced with worse.

Nonetheless, he’d become the only force roping her to this suffocating life. And before she’d even known, her walls were breaking down around him.

Maybe it was a last ditch attempt of survival. So scared of losing all hopes of living, maybe her mind had started playing tricks on her. The red that once shrouded him had started to appear treacherously rosy. There was also the fear of being alone. Deep inside she knew she was irrevocably alone. There was only one person that still held hope in her. And the abandoned girl in her, the very essence of human that died for belonging saw in him a momentary flicker of home.

It was impossible not to. With the way he cared for. With the way he respected her. And respect, it had always been a terrible weakness of hers. A weakness that had allowed even Zaviyar to come and ruin her. If Zaviyar had respected her averting gaze and prudence, Qais was almost trudging blasphemy in his promises. He revered the very ground she walked on. Layla could feel it, in all his little actions, in all his little stares, and in the agony it took to stay patient. It scared her sometimes, how long was he going to play this kind façade? What if he suddenly snapped? But more often, under the effect of his mesmerizing laughter and gentle actions, Layla forgot all about the what ifs.

Yesterday she had let a smile slip at a joke of his during breakfast. And today she found herself removing the flower vases from her small table so there’s more room for the dozens of breakfast dishes he requires. Of course she caught herself mid-act and admonished herself. But she couldn’t deny it, so used to his company, lunches and dinner alone now felt suffocatingly empty.

The growing familiarity arouse a dreadful fear in her. The more she fell for it the more she was scared of it. She reminded herself why she couldn’t allow it. Not after what happened with Zaviyar. Not again. Never again. And especially never with him.