𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦'𝐬 world comes crashing down when she discovers her husband's infidelity, shattering the illusion of her perfect life and the gilded cage imprisoning her. The once-promising future she had envisioned for herself crumbles beneath her fe...
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𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐄 has a twisted sense of humor.
It has a way of throwing things at your face, things you were dead set sure you'd never encounter again. And then you're left standing corrected. More than that, you're left feeling confused and bewildered.
Just when you think you have a sense of what's going to happen next and what your life's trajectory will be, fate harrumphs and flips the path you carefully constructed into a blizzard of chaos.
Want to hear something even worse?
Sometimes that chaos feels like bliss, even if you know it'll end in a tragically magnificent fuck-up.
It feels right when it's wrong in every way there is like the forbidden fruit Eve ate that put us all on this insipid little rock hurtling toward its impending demise.
You'd think a blushing bride who's twenty minutes away from her wedding would be thinking about her husband or her coming future.
This might not be my first rodeo, but I feel even more inexperienced this time around. Like a deer caught in the headlights, my head swarms with static noise.
Maybe it's because I'm not a puppet anymore, with strings being pulled in whichever direction the puppeteer — my biological mother — desires. Maybe it's because I actually have free will now, and this time, my marriage is on my terms.
Even if it's no love match, it is my choice. Having the choice to choose is as romantic as it gets for women.
I've fixed the velvet dupatta veiled over my head more times than I can count, but I do it again.
My eyes dart restlessly to the wooden doors, through the vanity mirror, awaiting and also fearing the moment Khala will walk in and tell me it's time.
Time to trek the path I've chosen for myself.
And to face the people I share blood with.
Footsteps patter behind the doors, and an all-encompassing shiver runs through me when I hear the voices accompanying them.
Shakily rising from the stool, I prance towards the doors, pressing my ear against the wood, wincing as my freshly pierced helix clanks against it.
"How did Hareem even get a man like him to marry her?"
Three years and this is the first thing I hear from my mother. It's not even upsetting or shocking anymore, as for that I'd have to expect something good from her. Numbness rings in my ears as I straighten, my chest falling in a large exhale.
"Don't talk about our daughter like that. Mind your words." My mouth falls open to a silent gasp as my father reprimands her remark.
"You mean 'your' daughter, Asfand." She's quick to snap back, I'll give her that.
