She was a Mirage.

PART 14- Loss...

There was silence in the room as I read through the first few pieces. From just reading them, tears sprung into my eyes. They were heartbreaking pieces of art.
All raw emotions just grabbed from the bottom of someone's heart and thrown across the pages. That someone being Ayesha made it worse and harder to read.
For someone who I had known or at least thought that they knew Ayesha so well, the words were almost too painful to read. I was pulled back from the poetry to the real world when Zaid Bhaiyya kept a hand on my shoulder and offered me tissue,

"You're crying Adaab"

I hadn't realized I was, I took the tissue and wiped my tears off, although it felt like they didn't know how to stop anymore.They kept flowing and Zaid Bhaiyya hugged me. He had always been like my brother since he not only was Ayesha's closest person but also Waad's friend.
He had always promised to protect me just as much as he had promised Ayesha, however I did always question the level of honesty behind that statement.
They were each other's strength and biggest support systems. She had been the first person he had told when he had changed his goal of engineer to architect and she had been his biggest fan, hooting the loudest when he had received his diploma. He had also reciprocated all the support and love.
We sat there crying and reading all her heart wrenching pieces, till I was called by Ali to head home. Zaid Bhaiyya met him and with a genuine smile threatened him, just like he had always promised me and Ayesha that he would.

When he met Hamza and I introduced them he said,

"Of course I remember Hamza. Ayesha and him stirred a lot of naughtiness, that I had to take control of IF they ever got caught which only happened once in a blue moon."

The aura was a little lighter by the time we had finished dinner but still much more somber than we had ever been.
We ended the visit, after meeting Ayesha's uncle and his family and his older daughter Misha who had always looked up to Ayesha as her role model. I told her that she should consider me as her sister and even though I wouldn't be able to do half as good job as Ayesha, I would be honored to help out with anything.
With final goodbyes for the day and them trying to get us to stay the night at their house and us declining the offer politely we finally decided to retire at the hotel nearby and take the first flight back home. I was told by Maha Appi that so many of Ayesha's friends had called to convey their condolences and some where even flying out with or without their families, that despite the pain and sorrow in me, I smiled as pride spread through my chest. Ayesha had always formed a place in everyone's whether you wanted her to or not.

That night after dinner I went out to sit on the lawn chairs outside my room.
With my legs up on the chair and a shawl around me for protection I sat their trying to let the cool night wind blow some of sorrow away.
Instead I just sat watching the sky.
A lot of thoughts were in my mind but there wasn't one single one that I was focusing on,or could focus on.
I wanted to ask Ayesha why she felt what she felt and why she never shared any of the pain with anyone, but there was no way. She was gone and I had to stop feeling the guilt.
Was that the reason she had started the blog?
So others feeling the way she had felt would be able to know that it's okay to feel such things from someone who was surviving. Or was her giving that advice to other hypocrisy knowing that inside she felt that way too. Or while she was telling others, her own words would comfort her as well. These were all questions that I would never be able to figure out the answers too and I would have to learn to live with them unanswered.
While I was pondering over these thoughts, Ali came and sat next to me. We stayed in silence for a while then he spoke quietly,
"Hamza is still heartbroken but I realize he wants to start becoming better. He knows and understands, this wasn't the way Ayesha would have wanted for him to live."
I replied with a nod but never brought my eyes away from the half moon in the sky that had barely any stars that night. Then I asked him,. "Ali,how do you feel? You've been trying to console both of us but I've seen you swallow your own feelings down"
I guess my sudden question caught him off-guard because it took him a while to reply. But when he did, he had my full attention.

"Adaab I didn't have such a strong bond with her like you or Hamza but I definitely saw her as a sister. I have 2 blood sisters but within the year and half,Ayesha earned more respect from me than either one of my real sisters. I knew her as a kid, not as closely as Hamza but I did. I always questioned why she never got cranky when she didn't get something, we were no brats but even we had our temper tantrums. I would even get angry when she would get praised all the time" he let out a chuckle at this point. "She probably wasn't as perfect as the rest of us deemed her to be but she definitely knew how to overcome those shortcomings. You know the first day when I acted harshly with the both of you,and she didn't let you get angry at me, something inside me thanked her because every time after that I was about to do wrong with someone who didn't deserve it, I was instantly reminded of how you both had acted and I couldn't continue with it.Along with you, Ayesha also helped me return back to my original self. I may not be there yet but she taught me that it's okay, that I had supporting people like you and Hamza and my family around me to help me get there." After he finished, we sat in silence, I don't know what was on his mind but I realized Ayesha had been an influence on people, whom she probably didn't realize were affected by her. She was like a set of ideologies, like cool wind that went wherever just spread joy but as it kept going, it kept storing other people's heat in itself to cool them.
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