Zehnaseeb ✓

t w e l v e

[To those who don't understand Urdu: I'll add the translations in the comment section soon.
I'm sorry if you read the book offline :(
(Can someone please take the responsibility of translating in return of a shoutout? Because we all know what my 'soon' means.)

Enjoy!]

I slam the door of the car aggressively as I sit in. Azaan comes and sits by my side, the driver starts driving. I rub my temple and glance at Azaan, who's still worried why I insisted on leaving the place.

I clench my teeth and feel like hitting the window with my fist. It's the second time this week someone has made me feel that I've put on 'a bit' of weight, and my dietitian is doing nothing but telling me to eat healthy, shoving tons of vegetables and meals in my chart.

I groan out of frustration as Charlotte's blunt question appears in my head, "when's the due date?" and her uncertain smile at my questioning look, "aren't you pregnant?"

That's not a question to ask even if a woman is expecting. Basic ethical values.

The warm moonlight follows me as I furiously make my way towards the apartment, without waiting for Azaan, and pick up all my courage to go to the second-last floor using the stairs.

I'm angry at Azaan for not warning me that this dress wasn't hiding my fat well. Perhaps he didn't even notice it, for all he can notice is Kylie. He deserves no explanation of why I'm taking the stairs.

And I'm never going anywhere with Azaan. He doesn't deserve that either.

I get tired after the fortieth floor and take the elevator for the rest of the sixty or seventy floors.

I get to my room and search for the chart Bethany, the dietitian, gave me. I tear it up and toss it into the dustbin. I grab my calorie journal and write my goal for tomorrow as two-hundred calories.

That's it. That's what you're eating Sawera. Enough is enough. You're going to wake up at 8AM tomorrow and go jogging.

My dietitian lied to me when I told her that the weighing scale was reporting that my weight is increasing. She lied that it was okay in the beginning, she told me to not weigh myself daily, she said weighing scales were false.

She's a liar. I have no time to figure out why she lied to me. I'm going to call her first thing in the morning and cancel my membership.

It's time to join the gym.

The door bursts open and Azaan pulls me around, blurring my vision. "What!?" He yells. His face inches apart, his eyes narrowed, rigid, cold, hard. And his jaw clenched.

"What?" I ask, as loud as he yelled at me.

"What are you doing? What's wrong with you? If you didn't want to go you could have told me instead of leaving in the middle of the party."

"Azaan?" I raise my shoulders slightly and shake my head as I look at him in disbelief. "I-" I did want to go with him. "You never realise your mistakes."

That day we went on a date and he talked on the phone for an hour or so and then convinced me into not leaving. It was his mistake yet I forgave him.

When I allowed him to make a call in the car, and Kylie told him that she had been calling. It was his mistake, yet I apologised at night.

When I started praying, he never appreciated me properly.

I hate going to his house, yet I do every Sunday, just for him. He never appreciates that.