As Long As I Live

Moment of Truth

Happy New Year!!!

Wishing you all a great ahead!!

Love you all.

Enjoy!

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There wasn't a single person in the crowded waiting room of the hospital that wasn't praying hard. But nobody was going through the agony that was eating Aamir alive. This was madness - utter, sheer madness! He had to stop the doctors, they couldn't operate! Mayra would die! Then he would never get to see his beloved, to hold her, to love her.

"Bhai," Zara whispered walking up to him and gently patting his arm, "have faith. Pray for her. At least that's what she would do."

An odd laugh devoid of any humour escaped his lips as he gazed at his sister. "That's Mayra we are talking about Zara. She is light, and I'm the worst kind of darkness there is."

His eyes welled up with tears and Zara moved away from him, sobbing quietly herself. He wanted to see Mayra walk out the doors, screaming at him, cursing him or even hurting him exactly the way he had. Anything but the uncertainty and unawareness of her condition. His head pounded as the stubborn headache from his sleepless nights made itself known, his mind in a state of utter chaos.

He wanted to cry.

He was crying, he realised as he walked up to his mother and knelt before her. Like an innocent child who would blindly believe that his mother could chase away all his troubles, he sought reassurance, "she'll be alright, won't she? She.. She'll come back to us, right mum?"

No mother should have to endure the sight of her child in pain, she thought as she gazed at her son's tear-stricken face. No mother should have to witness such agony. Her son was on the brink of madness, she knew it. His love for his wife was consuming him, as was his guilt and shame.

But today she was the luckier mother, she thought as she looked across the room to where Mayra's mother was seated. She couldn't bear to see Maimoona's face, as she had her eyes squeezed shut, her hands clasped together and her lips moving in a constant prayer ever since her unconscious daughter was wheeled in to surgery. Since that moment she had watched as Aamir paced the room nonstop, grabbing a seat for a few moments before he sprang to his feet and started pacing again. She couldn't bear to see her son on the brink of utter insanity but there was little she could do. Had she done anything sooner may be, things would be a bit different. Had she refused to pretend that everything in her home was fine, then may be things today would have been alright.

She knew that she would never forgive herself for the role she played in Mayra's misery.

"Of course, sweetheart," she murmured to her son soothingly, "of course she will. We're all praying for.."

"No, she won't!" His father growled from behind him. Aamir spun around to watch his father's face contorted in fury as he glared at Aamir. "For her sake, I hope she is rid of you forever! Why the hell do you want her to live? So that you can torture her some more? Isn't the monster inside of you satisfied with her condition, or is there more damage left to do?"

"Father, I.."

"Shut up!" He cut short Aamir's whimper. "You are no son of mine! My daughter is in there because of you, and I will never forgive you for what you've done to her!"

Unable to bear this father's fury, and his dire hope that Mayra and he be separated, Aamir fled the room. His father's accusations were right and pierced his heart as poisoned arrows, but still he couldn't imagine a life without his Mayra. Against all the warnings of his rational mind, his heart had started to hope. In his heart of hearts he drew visuals of their future together after Mayra would walk out of the hospital healthy again.