BEYOND THE REALMS #wattys2018

Chapter 41

His tone was full of affection and respect for Reza, and Alisa kept smiling fondly on the mention of her dead husband without realizing that this was the first time in two years that Reza's name and his discussion had brought a real smile on her face, rather than tears of agony in her eyes.

Finally their long meeting with the lawyers was over and after Alisa had settled all the things that were required to be done, she was ready to leave, but that's when Vishu told her apologetically,

"Alisa, I have an errand to run in Varanasi, so I won't be going home. I have called Zayn. He's on his on his way here and he will take you back home."

The mention of Zayn's name made her pulse lurch with trepidation. The idea of facing him after knowing about his feelings for her...made her uncomfortable. Her mind admonished her in that moment. It was unfair to feel uncomfortable because of his feelings. Her own heart was no less...It was treading towards dangerous territories too!

She was busy thinking about the dilemma of her heart and mind when Vishu's phone started ringing. He took the call and then nodding, told Alisa that Zayn had come and was waiting for her outside.

She gingerly rose from her place, bid goodbye to Vishu and went outside.

Zayn was standing beside his car and was looking into his phone. When she went near him, he lifted his head and smiled at her. Alisa couldn't help but notice dark circles around his eyes and also that his smile was a very tired one. She also noticed that he wasn't really looking into her eyes as he used to do. She deduced that his demeanor was like that because he was probably very fatigued. She felt a pang of guilt for bothering him like that. He had to come all the way from Narauli to Azamgarh district just for her.

Zayn opened the car door for her, and once she was seated, he also got inside the car and started driving. Alisa's earlier uneasiness on seeing him was gone now and for some unknown reason, she was hyper aware of him. She noticed that he was unusually quiet. She had known by then that he was not the silent type of person. In fact he used to make an effort to bring her out of her silence zone. So his behavior today started bothering her and after thinking about it, she asked quietly,

"Did you eat anything Zayn?"

There was not a single moment in Zayn Ali Azmi's life, in which he went through something even close to what he had been going through since the time he had met a girl named Alisa Hyder-Ahmed! He had found himself thinking about her in odd moments...he had tried to brush it all off as a mere infatuation. But he had started to lose his sleep now. Last night only, he had to do some work, when he found himself drawing her sketch subconsciously instead of the office design that he had to make! He himself was caught off-guard when he realized what he had done. Why was she affecting him like that? What is this feeling...Why I can't stop thinking about her? These were the questions he had been thinking about ever since.

When Vishu bhai called him to pick Alisa up, his heart skipped millions of beats on hearing her name. What is happening here? His heart and his desire to see her in front of his eyes was overwhelming him...confusing him...disturbing his usual calm and happy go lucky self!

He strictly told himself to behave in front of her. He didn't want her to know what havoc she was wreaking in his life. That was the reason why he had even tried to avoid looking into her eyes...the same eyes that used to bewitch him...pull him with a magnetic force against which he had no shield to guard himself...or his heart!

Zayn, who was chiding his heart for being so vulnerable in front of her, was taken aback by her question. He flicked a quick glance towards her and replied,