FROM NEVER TO HAPPILY EVER!

15.

Asad Khan.

Harder. Go harder Asad. I keep going, my pace increasing every second as I picture her innocent doe eyes screaming with pain, with unshed tears, with a hidden longing and with rising hatred for me.

It scared me to my damn bones. Seeing hatred for me in her eyes scared me. This might as well be the first time I am scared of something.

A hiss escapes my lips as my knuckles get bruised but I don't stop punching, until the ache in my heart converts into physical ache. Atleast until I will feel numb because my body is buzzing with fear and anger ever since she came into my room and announced her consent for this marriage.

What is fucking wrong with me? This is exactly what I wanted, where I wanted to be. But the relief and satisfaction I had imagined to achieve is no where.

I had no intention of marrying anyone nor am I interested in Sabrina romantically. She is just a good friend. My only motive was revenge. For what Sarjungis did to my brother, what I planned for their daughter was only a little pain compared to their inhumanity. I wanted them to experience how it is like to see an innocent family member suffering at the hands of cruelty. Their own cruelty. Marrying another woman after Hoor would mean her humiliation and direct disrespect of Sarjung. Added to it, Sarpanch Saleem would writh in pain for what his daughter would be going through.

But what I didn't estimate before forming my perfect plan was that his daughter is now my wife. The same wife that I have grown an emotional attachment to, the one whose eyes shining with happiness have the capacity to tilt my fucking world. The only flaw in my well-thought revenge plan was that I simply can't seem to see her in pain.

When did it happen? When did her small smile begin making my day? When did her body pressed into mine become my idea of a happy life? And why the hell am I realising it just after breaking every chance of having that happy end with her? I am a fool of the highest order.

I stop hitting the bag when it bursts open, the sand pouring out of the broken end. Panting I sit down on the bench, wiping the sweat dripping from my forehead. That's when I noticed the blood oozing from my hand. I walk out of the gym room, texting my driver to get me another punching bag. This is the fourth one in the last two days.

Two days of agonising wait, wait for what you ask? I have been unconsciously waiting for a reaction out of her. But all she does is smile like she won a lottery. Her happiness seems to have increased for some unknown reason.

How can she behave so happily? Is she not as much affected as I am? How could she agree to easily on sharing me with some other woman?
How can she give up on me without a fight? Am I not worth fighting for? Ugh! Hooriya Asad Khan, you will be the sole reason if I lose my mind someday.

I see the blood is dripping down my knuckles as I walk, so I sit at the nearest couch in the corridor, trying to see if there is a kerchief in my pants. How will I stop this blood flow?

Before I know it, my hands are captured into a pair of soft, milky white ones. I look up instantly staring at her like an animal deprived of food as she tears the corner of her dupatta without a hitch and immediately wraps it around my bleeding knuckles.

Something about that act of her has my heart racing like it ran a fucking marathon. My shoulders relax, releasing the tension after seeing her. She looks like a hoor, that descended right from the heavens in a baby pink salwar suit.

I sound like a love sick puppy. What is wrong with me? She pulls me up with her hand on my wrist and I follow her without questions. Once we reach my room, she brings the first aid box. I don't really pay attention to what she does after, my main focus centred on her features. I am drinking her in, locking every detail to my memory.

She looks marvelous. Her lips between her teeth as she focuses on my hand, her eyes slightly narrowed and her long black hair that can make you sin, bouncing off her shoulders. She is a sight for sore eyes. It is a sin to even make this angel sad, much less bring tears in her eyes.

What am I saying? Come back to Earth Asad. She is Saleem's daughter. Don't forget that.

Her task seems to be finally finished as her bent shoulders relax and she pulls her hand away from mine. That's when I see a white bandage wrapped around my hand.

"Khudko aziyat dene se pehle dubara socha karen Khan sahab
Kya pata koi deewana aapki fiqar karta ho.
Dil todne mein dil jodne jitna samay nahin lagta
Kya pata khazana purani tijori mein hi rakha ho."

She whispers like an angel who knew I was troubled and whose words had all the answers to questions. Just like that, she disappears from my vision as if she wasn't even there in the first place.

It takes a few moments for me to decode her cryptic message, and when I do I smile like a lunatic. The sound of my laughter echoes in the room the next moment. Did she just call herself an old tijori? Damn, my Hoor.

She just managed to answer all my questions in four lines. Isn't she magical. It was pure magic on her part to do what I have been trying to do from the past two days, to get my tensed muscles to relax.

Oh Hoor! Only if we had met in better circumstances. Perhaps things would turn out different then. Only if.

I am in shackles. Tied to the pain my brother had to experience for being innocent. The image of his beaten body, of his broken limbs lying lifeless haunts me, day and night. The only time I don't have depressing thoughts is when Hoor is with me because when she is around, all I can think about is her.

I have realised I can't see her in pain, it pains me more to see her broken. But I cannot be selfish. And give up my plans for my growing feelings for her. It would be too selfish of me to let go of my revenge just because I feel too much for the wrong girl.

Mujhe maaf kardena Hoor, khazana ho ya na ho, tijori to nayi hi khulegi jaan!