After

13| Notorious

13| Notorious

Daniya couldn't stop laughing and neither could Sithara especially seeing her friend's face, twitch and unable to breathe yet bursting out loud. Daniya repeated the lyrics and Sithara guffawed more at the meaning that they had interpreted. They were rolling, and could not bear to look at each other's faces.

"Tell me, who'd believe it if I told them that you two are not eighteen but mother to these children hm??" Ammi exclaimed and a smile of pure admiration formed on her, Arsalan and Abba's lips.

They were all sat in the balcony overlooking at the children playing in the garden. Daniya and Sithara were on the swing while Arsalan talked to his parents on the couch.

Arsalan's eyes met with hers and it instantly made her blush profusely as if she was really a silly little girl crushing over him. She had never wanted to taste a grin like the one that spread across his face right then because none can look at someone like the way Arsalan looked at her, with an entirety of the past but also always imagining the future.

"Alhamdulillah for both of you." Abba added in his feeble voice. "You two are truly the joy and light of this house." He meant it. Even during this dire time, Daniya and Sithara's chatter &laughter echoing in different corners of the house had kept it alive.

"It's not about today, it's about every single day ever since the two of you enrolled in the kindergarten together and came back home to play house house hn???!" Ammi nostalgically commented, making Sithara and Daniya look at each other and giggle.

To be honest, it was really sort of dreamy, to be able to share a house with your childhood best-friend and see your children play and grow together, to marry your crush, to have a family so sweet and nice and caring. It was everything that one calls perfect until of course it's not, because you remember what you lost to achieve your dreams.

"Sometimes I feel it's not Arsalan but Daniya and her obsession with Sithara who has attracted her into our family hn, despite everything, hm right?" Ammi asked Abba for his opinion.

Despite everything.

Sithara's lips immediately dropped off that smile as she registered her words.

Despite everything.

Despite Madhia.

But did Ammi mean solely despite Madhia? Or did she intend to take into account her own reluctance to accept her as her daughter-in-law for many reasons one being her belonging to a different religion, being a Hindu? Or Daniya's fear of the consequences of having Sithara replace Madhia, her husband's cousin, in Arsalan's life in her own marriage? Or Abba's unwillingness to have his rival's daughter marry his son? Or maybe simply Arsalan's hesitation to actually take a bold step and accept her as the love of his life in front of the world???

The truth was that nobody, nobody attracted her into this house. It was  the utter misfortune, misery, and mayhem that she had faced all her life that compelled God to show her some mercy and give Sithara what she truly deserved, a little peace and a lot of less sufferings.

All of a sudden, in a matter of mere  seconds, Sithara felt completely out of place. She did not feel that she belonged to the family, to any of them, to this house. She felt she was forced upon them without their choice or liking by destiny.

She could not look them in the eye anymore, all of them looked guilty to her. She lowered her view as tears threatened to escape but she could not cry and create a scene? She could not embarrass herself anymore, and honestly none would understand her either. They'd just justify, explain, ramble, try to shift the blame, uphold their morality without for once considering about her feelings, and pain.