"You think it's fucking funny?" She scowled when Jamal started laughing.
"Of course. Why would you not? Your uncle and your mother, eh?" He snickered again.
"Oh shut up! Just do it!" She opened the ribbons in her hair and let her hair flow across the shoulders unto her back.
"It's a shame you want to cut it. I would kill for hair like this." Jamal said combing his fingers through her hair. "Are you certain?"
"Yes. And make it short. Really short."
***
"My boy, have you seen the young lady?" Her mother tapped her shoulder and she waited until it clicked and it did as her mother gasped.
"You. What did you do?!" She hissed. "Your hair..."
"I cut it, mama. No big deal."
"You cut it?" Her mother asked her in shock. Her mother's usually dusky face seemed red in anger. "You cut your hair. For what?"
She shrugged. "Just like that."
"Just like that she says...." her mother fanned her face like she usually did when she wanted to cool down. "Salim!" She yelled. "Come here. Right now!"
"What's wrong? Why are you-oh..." Her uncle stopped in mid sentence when he saw saw. She folded her arms and picked her nails, peering at it nonchalantly.
"Look at her. She cut it off. And she says she did just like it."
"Raza, did you say that?" Her uncle called her by the name that he always called her since she was a child.
"I did. Salim baba." She shrugged.
"Well, that's was very bad." He scolded her. "You should've come to me and we both could've pulled your mother's leg." He laughed.
"You think it's funny?!" Her mother scoffed.
"What?" Her uncle shrugged, "She wanted to do it, she did it. Is you scolding her going to undo it?"
"It's your fault! You pamper her too much!"
"Of course I do. She's the apple of my eye. Aren't you Raza jaan?" He smiled at her.
***
The only sound that sounded in the room was the clinking of cutlery. She felt suffocated. She had so much to ask. She took a deep breath and mustered up the courage and put forth her question.
"How long has it been going on?"
Both of them stopped at looked at her. "What are you asking about?" Her mother acted nonchalantly.
"Oh come on mama! This!" She waved her hand to them both. "You both. How long has it been?"
"Recently? It's been six years."
She took a deep breath. "Salim?!" Her mother hissed.
"What?" He mouthed. "She's a grown up. She needs to know."
"So, every year after we fled the palace, you used to come her at the time of the festival, so each year, you both....?"
She saw her mother take a deep breath, "Diya, it's wasn't about and isn't and will never be about physical intimacy. Once you grow up and fall in love, you'd understand relationships aren't solely based on it."
"You love him? What about Baba then? My father."
She saw her uncle choke on his water.
"What about him? He is in love with Ruh and she is as much in love with him. We got separated because we didn't love each other. Yes, I love Salim. Always have."
"Why didn't you marry him then? Why did you marry baba?"
"It's a long story." Her uncle said. "Things happened. Fate happened. We couldn't. We would've."
"You've cheated my baba! You love Salim baba and you were with him but you were married to my baba."
"Diya, I'm not bound by marital bonds now. I'm alone, your uncle is alone, we love each other so we choose to be together."
She sighed. They were right. "Why don't you both get married now? Nothing is stopping you now."
"Should we, Raza? We thought you would have problems with us getting married, quite honestly."
"I love you as much as I love my father. That's why I call you Salim baba. If you really do love each other then I have no qualms in you both marrying each other but please do lock the doors before you get intimate, I do not want to catch you both in that position again."
That only gained her a laugh from her mother and him.
***
"I did not think she'd take that well." Ada said as she combed her hair relieving it of knots.
Salim looked up from the papers he was reading. "I told you she's all grown up now." He leaned his head on his palm.
She saw him peering at her through the reflection of the mirror. "What are you looking at?"
"You." He smiled and it thrummed her heart, even after all these years. "Have I told you, you're the most beautiful woman in the world?"
Ada gave a little laugh as she started to braid her hair. "Yes you have."
"Then I need to tell you again and again."
Ada chuckled, and stood up from her seat and went towards him. "You're the most handsome man in the world."
"I know." He grinned at her.
She playfully hit his arm and he pulled her hips so that she settled on his lap.
"You never changed, Ada. You still look the same as you did all those years ago in that room. Heaven knows I have, my hair is white, I'm an old man. But you," he took her hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles. "You grow more beautiful everyday."
"I feel the same about you. You've grown more rugged and handsome. We're both old now, which is why I'm worried about Diya's marriage." She settled her head on his chest.
A deep rumbling laughter escaped his chest, "You're worried about her marriage when you and I are getting married at 47 and 50?"
Ada gasped, "Excuse me Sir?! I married at 16 and into a royal family at that!"
Salim chuckled. "And look where it brought you..."
"Indeed. Right in your lap." She said and kissed him.
****
THE END
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Till Life Bring Us Together... {COMPLETED}
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