Ittefaq

6. In Vain

Her hands trembled as she carefully tore open the package. Peering into it she found a small brown diary. No. Her diary. A folded piece of parchment and... a ticket?

Pulling them all out carefully, she set them up on the table beside her except for the letter.

Taking a deep breath, she unfolded the parchment -

Dear, Zubi.

Please consider this as a letter to you from a friend and not your ex-fiancé.

Firstly I would like to apologize to you for treating you the way I did yesterday. But you know me.. that person wasn't who I am. Not really. The time we spent together back in Thailand... now that was the real me.

Remember the last day we spent together, which was at the beach and I found you writing in your diary.. I teased you about reading it all. After we spent some time, you got up saying you were going to head early to the bed. And I said I wanted to stay a bit longer. I hadn't realized till a few minutes later that you had mistakenly dropped your diary in the sand. I wasn't going to read it, I swear. But my curiousity got the best of me. Now, I apologize for that as well. But I can assure you that I only read the last entry as I was too shocked to find my name written in there when I didn't even mention it to you.

You wrote about getting engaged to me and then I put everything together. That you were Zubiya Khalil, the one my family was getting me engaged to. You won't believe how ecstatic I felt at first and thought maybe it was our fate bringing us together. I didn't want to believe at first.. I mean the world wouldn't be so kind to me after all that I had gone through. Right? Spending a few hours browsing through all of your social accounts I could tap onto, I was happy to find that for the first time I had been proved wrong.

I waited for you the next day, to return your diary to you.. but you didn't come. I waited outside your room for hours till a butler told me that you had already left early in the morning and gave me the letter you had so carelessly written, which contained only three words.

I mean, 'I am sorry'? Really? You had only these three words to say? Actually I would have preferred , 'See you soon'. Just kidding, by the way. You couldn't have known that it was me that you were about to be engaged to.

Anyhow. This will be the last conversation we have between us, at least from your side. I am not sure if you will even read this letter in the first place.

Maybe all of this was one-sided between us and I had expected more.

Now that you have your diary back I would like you to accept this ticket which is a form of apology ticket because it was for me that you had to cut short your vacation period as you had mentioned to me back then.

Zubi, I wish you a very happy life towards your freedom and whatever you want to achieve.

PS: Do not worry about saying anything to your parents. I'll say no to mine.

With love

Yours only,

Asfi.

XOXO

Asfi.

He sounded so much like the person she had met back in Thailand.

She missed him.

He had felt like a fresh breath of air to her because he was so much different from the men she usually associated with.

He was cheerful. Care-free. Passionate. Full of energy.

But so much different from the man she met the previous day.

Asfi and Dr. Asfandyar Ali Khan are so different that they are a huge contrast to each other.

She just didn't know what to make up of the letter.

The last conversation between them.

Weirdly she felt sad about it. That she wouldn't be in contact with this unusual person in any form again.

Am I making a mistake? She thought, as she grabbed at her hair and pulled them frustratedly.

Squeezing her eyes shut as she clenched her fists tightly around her hair, she could only see him.

In pain.

And that broke her apart.