Hikayat ✔

Chap. 17

"We need to leave.."
.
.
.

They thought she had meant leave the farm house...

But no she meant.. Leave.

Leave that place, that city, those people, their hearts, their life.

Vania wanted to Leave.

***

No one said a word to break the silence all the way back home. The tension so palpable, it could be cut by a knife.

Hafsa was still at the Farm house and Haider didn't want to leave his mother so he sent Maniha khala's family home with a driver. Hania stayed back, torn between choosing her mother and best friend..

Harris hadn't returned yet, still busy with Kamran uncle at the hospital.

Back home the Faizan family sat in the living room, completely silent.

Maniha wanted to scream! She wanted to shake Vania and make her spill all that had happened. Fatima's voice still rang in her ears and she didn't know what to make of it.

Vania would never do something like that! Never!

But looking at Vania's face she was reminded of the time when Vania was 4 years old, and her grandmother had had her locked up in her room alone, all night. Because she entered her father's room, because she had asked him why he didn't look at her?

When Maniha had come to see her, Vania was in soo much pain.. Because she was led to believe she hurt her father. That she rightly deserved that punishment. The child was scared and trembling but didn't care of its own suffering, it was told to focus on the suffering it caused.

And Maniha didn't know how to make her realise that.. How to tell her, that it wasn't her fault... That she was an innocent... She was the Victim!

That sometimes other people did bad stuff because they were hurting and they wanted others to hurt too.

It was not Vania's fault.

She didn't know how to tell her that.. Because no good words were coming to her in her state of tension and anything she would say would only aggravate the situation.

With a frustrated sigh she ran a hand through her hair, staring at the floor.

***

Suddenly Vania stood up, her face black from the smoke of the fire, her dress burned by the hem; the baby pink hidden under black soot.

Her eyes red from holding back her tears and her lips, turned white by how hard she was pursing them.

Maniha and Faizan had no idea what was going on in her head.

They watched with tortured expression as she paced on the carpet in front of them. Zeeshan and Zainab too, totally lost in the whole scenario, sat blank.

Vania paused, and turned to look at Faizan.

Not saying anything she just stared him down.

Maniha stood up wanting to question the girl but her next words shattered Maniha's whole world.

"Cancer?"

Faizan looked as if she slapped him, his face that was pale looked even more paler and his eyes shot open in disbelief.

"Vania??" Was all Maniha could gasp.

"Chronic lymphocytic leukemia.....Do you... Is it true?" Vania had her eyes fixated on her uncle's face, her expression giving nothing away.