Life as a Pakistani Cinderella.

Chapter Three- Returning to reality.

Helllllooooo people. Hope y'all missed me :D Look really closely at the picture, the female's gonna be really important in this novel's plot. Let's hope you guys understand all of it and there aren't any confusions. Cheers :)

Home is where your heart is set in stone.It's where you go when you're alone; It's where you go to rest your bones.

Sabine's POV;

I stood in the too familiar bedroom, trying to comprehend what had happened just a while ago. I didn't understand what had I said to make her so angry. Moreover, what had happened to her while I was gone? She wasn't the same Leenah I had left behind when I had started grad school. I knew she'd have changed as I had last seen her so many years ago, 9 to be precise, but I hadn't expected her to be still hurting. I also didn't expect such hostility from her. It had taken me off guard when she had shown no recognition, but I couldn't hold it against her. It wasn't her fault I had to leave so early in her life to study in collage and later on in med school. I had been quite busy with my studies, determined to achieve what people thought that I never could, to call home. I'd had no correspondence with my family, not that there was much.

Sabine's parents had divorced in her infancy due to her mother's deceit. Her father had gained full custody and took care of Sabine for some time. But he was distraught and didn't know how to properly look after her. Her aunt Mehwish had proposed to her father to let them adopt Sabine. Aunt Mehwish was her father's sister who had been married to her husband, Ahmed Qayyum for 3 years. They were quite young but both were good people. She was three at the time her father gave her over to aunt Mehwish but Sabine still remembered how much she had cried for her father. Raza was a nice man. But he had been made a fool by her mother due to which he had become depressed and fallen to a dark place. At least that's what aunt Mehwish, whom Sabine started calling Amma not long after she had been taken as her ward, had told her in her younger years.

Later, as she grew up, she found out that he'd fallen into the path of sin. Drinking, doing drugs and gambling his life away. Sometimes Sabine wished that he would have kept faith in Allah and held on tighter and at times like these she was mad at him. She was truly disappointed in him for never calling her or asking for her. But she knew that keeping grudges against others went against her religion, so she bowed her head and asked for Allah's forgiveness and moved on. Aunt Mehwish had gotten sick during Sabine's early childhood but she didn't know the cause. She was a good mother and after a few years, they had Leenah.

Leenah was a beautiful child with curly brown hair and rich brown eyes. Sabine had been six at the time. She had adored Leenah the moment Baba had put Leenah in Sabine's arms. They had many a lovely times together. She distinctively remembered how she would wish she had brown hair like Leenah's or her deep chocolate brown eyes but Amma assured her that she was beautiful the way Allah had created her and that put her doubts to rest. They were a happy family. Her adoptive parents gave her all that she could ask for. They were her pillars, her support. She had want for nothing. Baba was a corporate executive in one of Karachi's biggest companies while Amma had even though a master's degree in Botanical sciences, she preferred to take care of her and Leenah. It was lovely to spend time as a family as they attended many parties, functions and trips throughout the year but Sabine especially adored the times she got to spend with Amma. 

She was a woman of beauty, wit and charm. Sabine was captivated by her. She especially loved it when Amma told her stories about her past. She usually brushed Sabine's hair and would make pretty hairstyles that her friends gushed over. She came to collect Sabine from her school. Peer's school of excellence was a block away from their house on Hills street. Amma usually came around 2 to collect her, pram in tow, carrying a smiling, chubby faced Leenah. They would talk about the day's activities and if she had done well in an assessment, they would go to Mark's Ice-cream parlor opposite her school to celebrate. She always got chocolate chips ice-cream while Amma had weird taste as she practically lived on their Pineapple ice-cream. Sabine never really understood why, but she just did.