BANE

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Sweetheart, I don’t know what to say to you, but don’t you think you should give it a rest? You deserve that.” His wife said as she placed the breakfast dishes on the table.

“You don’t understand, a girl’s life is at stake somewhere.”

“I know that, I feel sad and I believe you are a great detective and you will solve the case, but you’re sort of taking it to the extreme. I think you always take your job to a ridiculous level of seriousness. You have enough time to do your work, but you have a family that needs you too.” He had always respected her honesty, but right then, he wasn’t in a mood to listen to what he should do and shouldn’t do. What did she know anyway?

“I repeat, you wouldn’t understand.” He said in a tone that put an end to the conversation.

ZAID AND BANAN
A new day had come, and he prayed it would come with something good. He felt guilty every time he laughed or happened to be in a happy mood. How could he be happy when his best friend was locked up somewhere? He just prayed she was alive.
“Let’s be happy for Sabiha.” Banan had said. Although they both knew they were deceiving themselves.

HAFSAT

She decided she could go over to Ibrahim’s after work. He hadn’t had such episodes a long time, it had stopped. Why did it start now?

Ibrahim didn’t know he could cure himself, if only he could learn to let go of all the bitterness and hatred he had bottled up inside him.

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He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a lunatic, with his unshaven face and eyes that looked laden with sorrow. He looked like a troubled lunatic.

“You have beautiful eyes.” He tried to block her voice out of his mind but it seemed useless.

Beautiful indeed, how ironic it sounded to him then. His eyes looked empty, more like a dark pit. That luminous glow seemed to have disappeared. He wondered what she would have said if she could see him now. He sighed.

“You know you can help yourself this time.” She said after Ibrahim narrated the previous day’s incident.

“It’s not easy.” He knew where she was headed.

“You need to let go of the anger that you have locked up, let it flow freely like water. It’s the main reason for your pain. I don’t promise that if you do that, you won’t feel the pain anymore but trust me, you would feel better, you would be able to open your heart and love again, you can be happy again Ibrahim, forgiveness is the best cure.”

“You don’t understand Hafsy, it’s not easy.”

“Nothing worth it is easy. Life is a product of choice and a well beaten road does not always make the right path.”

He put his hands on his head. “They did me wrong.”

“But he is sorry, he’s been sorry for years, he took you in without question. He’s willing to right the wrong he did in the past. Its your choice what you choose to do.”

“No, that’s different.”

“Two wrongs do not make a right, Ibrahim.”

“You just dont get it. It can never be like before.” He sighed. Why is it that no ome undertsands?

"It doesn't have to be. But remember, you have to let yourself heal someday. In your own time. Maybe,this is it."