LOVE TRIALS

xiv

I want you in ways that no one else would suffice.

-KR

🥀

Sophia took a hesitant sip, her hands wrapped around the steaming cup as she soaked its warmth. The fire crackled merrily in the fireplace.

"Baji, Jabeer Sahab is here, "The guard spoke through the door.

Sophia quickly rose from the seat, she snatched her veil and burqa from the hooks, donning them hastily to cover herself.

"Please, send him inside," she told him as she awaited Jabeer at the door. It's been some years since she last saw him, Sophia recalled with fondness.

"Heyy, Sophia is that you?" Jabeer breathed with surprise as he halted at the door."How have you been?"

"I am good. You?"

"Still alive," Jabeer chuckled. "You look different."

Jabeer's eyes rose to meet Sophia's but she wasn't looking at him, she had chosen to instruct the househelp. His gaze skimmed her hidden figure, she wore a dark coloured burqa, a veil on her face, only her eyes were visible to him. Crinkled and just as breathtaking when she regarded him.

He wondered if she was smiling beneath it and then, he felt it in her words.

"Good or bad?" She said, suppressing a laugh.

She was loud.

She never just smiled, she cackled, he remembered.

She stood before him with her hands clasped, gracefully at the front, holding another mask.

This Sophia was soft, demure. Spoke when spoken to. He wondered if instead of seeking corners in a room she still basked in the spotlight. He didn't think she liked that, anymore.

Sophia Rizwan had changed.

For better or worse, only Hamza Hassan Omer could tell.

Jabeer was still looking at her when he asked, "You tell me? Does it feel good?"

"Yes," Sophia said with a solemn nod of her head.

He couldn't bring himself to feel satisfaction. What did Bilal-Munizeh think of her change?

"I never imagined, I would ever see you like this, Sophia. Numerous people had told me you changed, I just couldn't believe them but now, that I see you I do believe them."Sophia shifted on her feet, his voice awed."All of this because of him?"

Sophia couldn't find her voice when she saw something akin to pity or sympathy flash in his eyes. She couldn't tell them apart so she took a deep breath and remained quite, deciding to seek out her husband.

Jabeer waited for her to speak, tell him she hadn't done it for the man she called her husband but herself. She didn't, she didn't lie to him.

Among other things, Sophia Rizwan had been a liar, small lies, here and there. She could-should have lied, her lies had never hurt anyone, even in the past yet she hadn't.

"Will you keep standing here?"

Jabeer smiled, "I was waiting for you to say that."

"This way," Sophia said, gesturing him towards the sitting room as she turned around to go find her sleeping husband.

"Hamza, wakeup," Sophia whispered as she shook Hamza's shoulder, glancing at their baby snuggled into his side.

"What happened?" Hamza awoke to his wife leaning over him with her niqab in place, he frowned.