AFTER DARK

Chapter 14

A golden glint of sunlight fell upon the running waters, as we leisurely walked to the silent meadows of the beautiful City of Al-Ain.

Once we were there, Rehan ushered me to the spot he used to come to back in the day. It was a quiet spot on the side of the stream.

I had almost but forgotten about the scar and the smoking incident, when Rehan brought it up again.
"I see you scratch your scar every now and then -- wanna talk about it?" He asked, earnestly.
"What scar?" I blurted, hiding it in a childlike manner. "I just had an itch, okay?"
"Alright, didn't mean to pry," he said, putting his hands out. "But just so you know -- I've got my own scars ... and I know that every scar has a story behind it ... so ... you don't need to say anything but you must know that it's alright to have scars."

A prolonged silence followed in which we both listened to the sound of our breaths.

I've had this scar for ages, but no one ever bothered to ask me how I got it. Daria and all knew it was there, yet they never spoke about it. Perhaps, they were afraid to have the talk with me. They were afraid to open the wounds of my past because they knew something bad had happened to me ... they just didn't know whether they should talk about it or not. Unknowingly, they distracted me with all these other trivial things of life, not realizing that each day the bandage was not removed, was each day the wound got worse and worse. And to cover the wound, they put more bandages on top of it, hoping that the pain would disappear. But it did not. It only got worse.

Of all the people who entered my life, Rehan was the only one who dared to lift the bandage off and address the wound without pitying me or anything.

Actually, he had a completely different philosophy of life. He believed that everything that happens in our life -- good or bad -- is a reason to get closer to Allah. And that, if we are not hit by the tides of life, we will be lost somewhere in the dust of this world.

The longer the silence grew, the stronger I felt the urge to share the story of my scar with him. For someone who kept her secrets and her pain to herself, this was a strange feeling. The feeling of knowing that it was perfectly alright to bare my soul. Perhaps, the soul knows what the heart and the mind does not.

And so I glanced at my hand, the one with the scar on it, and began to narrate the events of the most torturous day of my life.

"It was our wedding anniversary," I said, scratching the scar out of impulse. "I prepared the food he liked: set the table with the finest silverware and the best china I had, and also decorated flowers and candles. I myself dressed up according to the occasion. He entered, sat down on the table. I hoped to hear a compliment or two from him; after all, I had put in so much effort into making our anniversary special."
"Let me guess -- he took no interest at all," Rehan said, taking a keen interest in my story.
"Yeah ... it was like he was punishing me for something I didn't even know of. Then we had dinner, and the flames kept rising. I just asked him if he liked the food or not ... and he got so mad that he pushed the plate away, and left the table.

I didn't understand his odd behavior, so I chased him to the room, and instead of letting me in, he shut the door on my face.

After a while, he opened the lock. I gathered my wits and went inside to confront him again. I found him sitting in the room balcony, smoking a cigarette. With fear in my voice, I asked him what I had done to receive such bad treatment from him. He grimaced. I knew I was in trouble. Everytime he looked at me that way, he did ... the horrible thing to me."
"What 'horrible thing'?" Rehan asked, his brows tightly knitted.
"You know it ..." I said, rolling my eyes at him.
"I do, but you must say it anyway."
"Why?" I retorted, aggressively rubbing the scar now.
"Because you need to let it out," he replied, gently placing a hand on top of mine, so I don't damage my wound any further. "You need to face your fears, my friend."

I looked at him and I wanted to tell him all of it, but I was too afraid. My forehead was sweating, and my hands were slightly trembling.

"Hey, it's alright," he said, in a polite manner now. "You don't have to let it all out now ... you can come back to this place some other time (preferably at night, when no one's around, and just scream it all out), okay?"

I looked at him, and a silly smile formed on my face. Sometimes he said things in such a funny manner that it forced a smile out of me.