Heaven From Here

eighteen

Hanna shut the door to her room and fell in a heap on the floor. She could feel the imprint of Saif's hands on her, as though there was some lasting residue on her that was emanating heat wherever he had touched her. The tears that she had struggled to hold back leaked out of her eyes as she closed them and leaned her head against the door. Hanna could feel the creaking of the floorboards underneath her, He's coming this way.

She wiped her tears away with the hem of her jumper and distanced herself from the door. She could see the shadow of him standing there in front of her door. He knocked gently on the door and called out to her. Asking her permission to enter her room. Hanna stayed silent as she wiped the tears that kept spilling out of her eyes.

"Hanna, please Hanna. Let me in," he said once again in the broken tone of voice that turned her into a puppet under his spell. On shaky legs, Hanna stood up and paused in front of the door before opening it. She knew she looked a mess, her eyes were a puffy teary mess, her entire face was probably a horrible blotchy mess; but Hanna couldn't bring herself to care about it.

She saw Saif lift his hand to touch her, but she quickly took a few steps back. She couldn't stand to be near him right now. Hanna saw the flash of pain across his face at her rejection, but she didn't have the heart to care.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he took a step closer. Hanna automatically took a few steps back, creating the welcomed distance between them. Seeing the bed a few steps away from her, Hanna dropped her body on the foot of the bed silently.

Shaking her head, as she wiped the tears away, "No one has ever spoken to me the way you spoke to me in the kitchen just now, Saif. No one."

Hanna refused to look at Saif as he knelt in front of her. "Please don't touch me," Hanna said blandly as she watched his hand freezing mid air in its movements.

"Why did you marry me, Saif?" she asked, and she heard him inhale sharply. "Was it out of pity? Was it out of some warped sense of responsibility of those stupid gossip mongering aunties who would have soon enough forgotten about the whole thing? Did you think, 'oh poor Hanna, if I don't marry her no one else will'? Was that what you thought?" With every word that Hanna uttered, the pain that was in her heart was exorcised by the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"Did you think that I was desperate for you; that no matter what I would want you still? Did you really think, that you were the only one who was forced into this? Did you know that ever since that night, Sana's walima, Baba hasn't talked to me properly? Did you even care, that I was alone all this while? Did you even for a minute, care about me and my feelings? Did you even for a second realise that I might be homesick? Did it ever cross your mind that I don't deserve to be treated like trash; by you, by your step mother? Did you -," a sob tore out from the depths of Hanna's soul.

Hanna doubled over as she clutched her body, the sobs racked through her. She cried so hard, that for a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe. It wasn't until she felt a cool glass pressed into her hands that she looked up and into Saif's red rimmed eyes. "Drink, please," Saif instructed gruffly.

Touching the rim of the glass to her chapped lips, Hanna took a sip. Her throat, that she finally realized was sore, felt slightly soothed by the cool liquid that she sipped. Greedily she took a few more gulps of the water before Saif took it from her and pressed a painkiller into the palm of her hand. "Please," he said in that same gruff tone.

Opening her mouth, Hanna placed the pill in the middle and washed it back with the water that Saif handed to her. "Whatever it is, you think you have to say to me right now...save it, just save it," Hanna said tiredly as she wiped her cheeks.