Husband For Hire

43. I Took Her Spot

43. I Took Her Spot
When you love someone, don't you want to support them through their hard times?

* * *

Ashar took me to a negative star quality restaurant that was mildly clean, and I feared for my health.

Despite my protests about not eating outside food, he sat down on a rugged chair to have a meal. He gave me the option to not eat but he was too hungry to make it home.

All my hunger had disappeared after seeing the photo. I had handed it back to Ashar who had wordlessly stuffed it inside his jeans pocket instead of throwing it away in the trash where it belonged.

Hell, he should've burned it to ashes and flushed it down the toilet!

While he feasted on tandoori chicken, biryani, momos, lassi, and a plate of salad, I thought of how to ask him about his ex lover. She abandoned him a long while ago. Why did he still carry a photo of her?

Man had no self-respect!

She left him!

He should not think about her or carry around her photo.

Especially not a photo of him kissing her cheek!

It took everything in my power to not dump the glass of lassi on Ashar's head.

"Did you love her a lot?" I asked him.

"Who?" he asked, completely focused on his food.

"The girl in the photo," I replied calmly. "It's Hayat, right?" I tried to sound as casual and mildly interested as I possibly could.

"Right."

"You must've been mad about her to still have her photo."

"We were going to get married," he replied, taking a pause from his eating. I hadn't expected him to answer my questions rather shut me down on this topic.

"When?"

"It was supposed to be after graduating university," he replied.

"You proposed to a girl to marry you before you even entered university?" I asked amazed. "In high school, I assume."

"It could've worked out," he said thoughtfully. "If everything had happened as expected, I'd be married right now to Hayat."

"That's why you hate me." The words flew out of my mouth. "I took her spot."

"I don't hate you," he said almost surprised. "You didn't take anybody's spot. Hayat left a long time ago."

"Because of Rosie? That's what Aara said."

He looked at me as if contemplating whether he wanted to pursue this further or not. For a moment, I thought he was going to tell me to drop it.

"You used to hate Aara and Rosie, right?" he stated.

"That was before I got to know them," I said immediately.

"Exactly." He smiled. "Hayat didn't get the opportunity to know them. Her parents also had some pressure on her. She was a Pakistani Muslim. I'm an Indian who has stepped inside religious places only twice in his life. That engagement collapsed after . . . after the accident happened."

"She should've supported you," I tried to insist.

"She did." He nodded. His words aggravated me for some reason. "She tried hard. Two years of pushing back on her family and giving me support. Aara and Rosie's responsibility fell on me later, and she couldn't do it anymore. I don't blame her. I was too broke—in all aspects—at that time.