Professor Khan ✔️(completed)

38. h u m s a f a r - companion

The pages were turning into a flash of flame, flying into smoke and then into ashes. She ripped them apart. In anger. In grief. In heartache.

She burned that file to ashes. Part of her wished that in some miraculous way if she could incinerate his past away too. Remove the ache of that catastrophe. Take away the torture and torment seven-year-old Asfandyar had to go through.

"Rabi?"

His voice came from the hallway as she sat in front of the fireplace as Willow and Akira ran around her. She looked up as she felt his gaze on her. She patted the space next to her and he sat down, pulling her closer, securing her in the warmth of his arms. Her lips curving up in a blissful smile.

"How are you feeling?" She traced the ink on the back of his hand then up to his forearm, a habit she formed over past few weeks.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "But it seems like a war has come to an end within me. I have yet to see the ruination left behind."

"We'll go through it together." She squeezed his hand in assurance.

"Have you been going to therapy?" He asked after a long quiet moment. She looked away. "Rabi?"

She had a moment of valor to go once, but after that, there was something stopping her. What happened between them for the past week gave her time away from thinking about going back.

"No."

"Why?" He caught Willow and ran his hands through the cat's fur.

"I went once and I'll accept to a certain extent I felt lighter. But I feel like the more I go the more I'll have bare it down to what's causing it and I don't think so I can let it go."

Her trauma became her essence. She herself became her trauma. It scared her to face herself. Who was she without her despair and her trauma? She didn't know and that was horrifying for her. What would take place of all that sorrow she had kept within her? Was she an empty shell?

Her eyes widened with realization. She wasn't apprehensive of going to the therapy. She was terrified of letting her grief go. Who was Rabail beyond her pain, her scars, and her sufferings?

"It's not about repairing yourself back to your old self you once knew. You just have to figure out how to handle your pain, your past, and your scars. You need to learn how are you going to meet the truth of your birth, and how to leave behind the habit of hurting yourself. Instead of coping with it by cutting, you can find a safer and peaceful way." He took a long breath, weaving his fingers gently in her hair. "I would've never recovered, Rabi. There was no hope, even when I returned after four years. The nightmares never left me. They might never do, but I know how to hold up against them. I know it's not my fault what happened to Ayla or even myself. It never was."

She caught sight of the way his eyes dimmed, then darkened at the mention of his past. The way his throat quivered with the murmur of the buried pain in his voice.

"Going to counseling helped. It taught me to survive without guilt, without thinking it's my fault. It taught me that my pain matters. My suffering and my loss needed to be addressed and cared for, by not someone else, but myself first." He turned his head a little, staring into her hesitant eyes. "People can love you, but they can't love away the damage caused by trauma. You need to go to the therapist to learn to deal with the changes, the damage, the past, and the way to deal with all this. I will be right here and love you, support you, and help you through every step, but my love can't take away the damage, it can only support you to get that help you need to recover."