Besabriyan

47|FORTY SEVEN

In the forty minutes he spent on the road on his way to Maheen's university, his soul was slowly slipping away from his body in fear. So much had happened in the morning and he left her without a proper goodbye. He saw her standing there- all lost in her head when he turned to look at her before he walked out of the university's main gate.

Sitting on the steel chair placed next to the bed in the university's nurse room, Zaviyar held his unconscious wife's hand in his hands and kept kissing her fingers repeatedly. The warmth that her blood in her veins passed to him brought a sense of peace to his heart- his eyes glassy and anyone who would lay their eyes on him would easily tell tales of how scared he was to see his wife laying on the bed.

“Ek jhatke me jaan nikal di tum ne, eshgham.” He moved closer to her and moved her hair out of her face before leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead. The nurse or the doctor or whoever who treated her wasn't there when he arrived so he had no idea what happened to her or why she fainted but he knew he would wait even if it cost the rest of the day's work. Nothing used to be important than work but now nothing held more importance than his wife. Time changed and he found love.

“Hasn’t she woken up yet?” A young lad– almost his wife's age– walked through the door, dressed in the same red jersey he wore the day he found out about Maheen's existence; when she rushed into him.

“Who are you, may I ask?” Zaviyar could smell something from the way the guy looked at his unconscious wife- his jaw already ticking though he kept his face neutral and bare.

“Me?”

“Apart from the three of us, do you see anyone else here? Zaviyar thundered, startling the guy for no reason. They said it right; men would know other men's intentions and that they didn't trust each other with the people they loved.

“Allah, okay! I'm Ammar.” The guy smiled goofily at him like any younger brother would grin at their older brother after doing something mischievous. His eyes twinkled and he was so full of life that Zaviyar almost envied. He wasn't like that when he was in university.

“Ammar?” Zaviyar raised his eyebrows at Ammar who cluelessly smiled at the man who was ready to tear him and the fact that he completely ignored Zaviyar holding Maheen's hand or it was just that he had yet to see it.

“Zaviyar Ali Dawar, Maheen's hu-” Zaviyar was cut off by the golden retriever boy as he shook his head vigorously in an attempt to recognise him.

“I know! I've attended all your seminars.” Maheen was not the only master student who sneaked into the seminar halls. Ammar and a few of his friends did too and there he saw her- talking to herself, straddling with the straps of her bag and keeping an eye on the door and then getting called out by the man who conducted the seminars.

“I met her in your first seminar.” There were stars glistening in his eyes- similar to the ones Zaviyar saw in his own eyes in the mirror the night after he saw her for the first night so to see it in Ammar’s eyes for his wife, it brought an unsettling feeling to his heart.

“You met her?” Zaviyar shot at Ammar- judging his uncanny energy to keep smiling continuously. Again, life was not cruel to everyone or so he thought.

“Not exactly but I saw her there and liked her.” Ammar shook his head, walked across the bed and pulled a chair to sit next to Zaviyar to have a chat with him. Ammar had been wanting to hear from Zaviyar- to know him and to be mentored by him. From the time he heard Zaviyar was going to be the one conducting seminars- his joy found no bounds.

“You like my wife, Ammar?” He hadn't heard Zaviyar's words as his eyes were on her hands stuffed inside the latter's big hands; the mind then registered the words it absorbed just a second ago. The woman who gave him butterflies was already married and it instantly killed the smile on his face as he lifted his eyelids to look at the man sitting before him.