LET ME HATE YOU

The Truth

It was not Asmaira trying to take Raina's place. It was you who were looking for Raina in her.

Feriha's words echoed in Amaan's mind, a splash of cold water bringing him abruptly back to reality. His mother, as always, saw straight through him, recognizing the true source of his troubled feelings about Asmaira when he himself was blind to it.

The room thundered as the door slammed against the wall. Amaan strode to the center, only to stop, struck by the impeccable order of the space. Everything was in its place, meticulously clean. He recoiled as the memory of the Gala night—how violently he had handled her—flashed before his eyes. He stumbled against the vanity as her scream from that night pierced his consciousness, forcing him to cover his ears and drop his phone.

What had he done?

In the consuming fog of his grief for Raina, he had never paused to consider that others also loved her, others for whom Raina was a cherished guardian and their entire world. He hadn't even thought of his son, a child who needed both his mother and father. While he wallowed in self-pity, there were people enduring similar loss who chose to support each other.

Unlike them, he sought solace in alcohol and vented his buried rage on someone else, systematically ruining her life. He hadn't just tormented Asmaira on countless occasions; in the process, he had utterly shattered her innocent soul.

He collapsed onto the floor, the memory of her empty eyes haunting him. Now he understood the depth of the damage inflicted by his cruel words, words he had spat out purely from spite, simply because her presence in his life affected him so profoundly.

Burying his face in his palms, he let out a muffled scream. Exhausted, emotionally drained, and stunned by the revelations of the last two hours, he was, for the second time, completely lost, with no idea how to move forward. If this were a business crisis, he could implement damage control, but this involved a human life.

"Where are you, Asmaira?" he whispered.

Ring!

His first instinct was to ignore the sound, but given Asmaira's disappearance, he decided to answer. Habitually, he searched his immediate area, but realizing the muffled sound was coming from a distance, he scanned the room, following the ringtone. With the sound so faint, he knelt and looked under the vanity.

Following the flash of light from the phone, he quickly reached to grab it before the call disconnected. But by the time he fetched it, the call had ended. His attention drifted back to the dark space under the vanity. He bent down further, narrowing his eyes, and saw something that looked like a book. Covered in dust, it appeared to have been there for many days.

An inner voice urged him to take it, and he complied. The moment he held the journal-like book, a folded paper slipped out. He might have ignored it if not for Asmaira's name written in Raina's unmistakable handwriting. His fingers trembled as he sank onto the floor, visibly shaken.

It wasn't just the fact that Raina had written to her sister. It was the realization that he had no knowledge of her writing this during her final months when he was with her.

His phone rang again, but this time, he tossed it aside. With quivering fingers, he opened the letter.

Dear Aashi,

Please don't tear this letter before you read it. Just think of it as the last wish of a dying mother.

If I had known my days were numbered, I would have apologized to you every single day instead of waiting for the 'right time.' There were so many things I wanted to tell you about Amaan and me: how we met, what made me fall in love with him, why I chose him, and why I never contacted you after my marriage. But none of that matters now.