Changing Relations ✔

Chapter 46

An hour ago the sunset had radiated across the cloud, turning it molten orange with bands of pink. Now it is gone and I sit under the starless, moonless sky. There is no twilight, only blackness. I feel claustrophobic, like I am in a cave. The low sky has become a ceiling of grey black rock above.

Only the wind and the first drops of rain let me know that we are in the open. The cool damp air rushing in with a few spots of rain. With a sudden jerking movement I stepped back and opened the door, and then locking door of the terrace, I walked down.

Night had come around again too soon. I rested my head against the cool metal of the front door. With the lights off the sunset crept in through the open blinds, casting the ceiling a rusty grey. My hand ferreted inside the first aid box for a pill, just half a sleeping tab, not enough to put me under but sufficient to dull my mind.

There's that feeling in my stomach again, a soft of mixture between nausea and electric tingles. My head has begun to buzz and my heart rate increases as if I'm running away like I want to.

It's been three weeks since he had left for some work. The day we had arrived, we both maintained a good distance from each other and the next day he left for his business tour. He had called me when he had reached New York, but there was nothing much to talk about. Last night Mom and Zareen had visited me to check upon me and Adeel took this opportunity to be a stubborn boy and went with them.

He was everything I ever wanted in a man. If I were to conceptualise a list of ten desired qualities in a man, he would score eleven out of ten. He was my other half, this uncomprehendingly wonderful being that fulfilled my life, so much, so that I sometimes doubted his existence and thought that I had contrived him in a dream.

He inspired me, challenged me and loved me just as I was: quirks, flaws and all. He touched my soul so deeply that I was completely vulnerable to his grasp, which was always tender and caring. He taught me what it felt like to truly love someone down to your core; what it felt like to constantly live with a burning desire, so strong that it actually pains you, and he showed me the perpetually engulfing warmth of deep, flaming, impassioned, mad love.

I loved every element of his soul. What he deemed flawed, I saw as more reasons to love him: I loved his floppy wisp of hair that he could never seem to control; the way he overused the word perpetually when describing his passions; his shyness, the sad smile he made that accompanied a vacant stare when remembering happy memories of Hareem; his confidence that was always accompanied by a tiny crevice of self-doubt, a nook that I constantly tried to fill.

He was my perfect puzzle piece. He was a down-to-earth man. But he was also my reality: pulling me back down to earth when I had floated too far into space. He knew me better than I knew myself; he guided me towards a more beautiful life and opened my eyes to a wonderful, dazzling world that he created for me.

My heart was safely, snuggly wrapped in a blanket of his pulchritudinous love; and so I always carried him with me, wherever I went: in my sub-conscience, in my actions, in my thoughts, in my activities. It was as though we were one, and I was just one half of this amazingly surreal, perfect concept of 'us'.

With him by my side, I felt like I could conquer the world, reach all my goals and dream up inconceivable dreams; but with him by my side, I was just as content with dropping everything for a simple, happy life of togetherness.

He came into my life at a very fragile time. I wanted simple; however, the new me and the life I was leading was far from simple. I was frustrated with him for the way he made me feel: filled with so much love, adoration and desire that he became a need - an unbeknown feeling to me. Despite the fact that he was faced with the toughest time of his life, a time of loss, unwanted change and unimaginable sadness, he was still there for me; and I was undeserving.