Love isn't always butterflies and pounding hearts. Love can also lie, deceive and betray.
Her way of seeing the world was a lot different from his. She was broken with open wounds, standing high on her throne and giving no damn to the world. A stron...
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Ruh.
The word she had heard from him for the last time and the word that haunted the dead parts of her. She jerked up from her slumber and eyes blinked harder to shove away the last pieces of what she saw while she slept. Her body, limp against the chair and her hands numb since she had her head resting on them and the base of nape hurt. She eyed the clock before getting up from the chair to go to her room.
Her mind constantly reminding her of the way his voice trembled while calling her that before he walked out of her life. He was holding so much pain in the front of his palm, waiting to be devoured by them. He was hurting– he was rotting in pain in front of her and she couldn't do anything, only because she knew why. She didn't know what to say to a man who called himself out before a woman, something a man would never do or at least the men in the country she lived in, never would.
A pain shot up to her back as she stretched out and sniffed when the air in the room felt cold. Ayat had fallen asleep in the middle of working and it was a new thing as most of the time she kept her work to the doors of Wajdani groups and never really brought any to home. One reason being bibi jaan and two, she had always wanted to rest– to close eyes and fall asleep but never did she ever fall asleep as fast as she did now in these years. It felt invigorating in a very fine way. Even when she was out for only three hours.
As she stepped out of her father's study, she could smell something in the house– a smell so savory that it churned her stomach in hunger. A slice of toast that she ate about three and a half hours ago, well, burned down, "What are you making?" She asked the moment she set her feet in the last flight of stairs.
"Aloo gosht and mattar pulao." The woman replied to her and having nothing to reply, Ayat nodded her head faintly as though it was something new. Turning on her heels, Ayat closed the distance to the couch and settled herself on it, fishing the phone out of her pocket and began to set reminders. Reminders to eat food on time, reminders to walk out of the office on time and reminders to return home before six in the evening the following day so she could pack bags and leave for New Orleans with bibi jaan.
A gust of breeze slithered through the open windows and shifted near her, leaving a trail of goosebumps prominent on her skin. His touch on her wrist from that evening still lingered in her skin and she could feel it like he was holding it at that moment. Like he was standing opposite to her and watching her with bare, naked eyes– his eyes telling a different story from his words. The man named Fayd Malik was undoubtedly testing her smoothened patience.
Ruh.
It echoed in her ears again and her head whipped up only to be welcomed by the emptiness in the room. The air leaving echoes of rustling leaves and colliding branches. Ruh– he called her with that name at times. He called her ruh whenever he felt things from the heart, whenever he talked about his family and mostly his mother although he never told her the reason behind the name.
