**A Wattpad featured story**
Bekhudi || بیخودی
❝ He gently dragged his hand around the delicate skin of my neck, slowly caressing it under his stifling touch. I felt his breath curling against me, as a wave of sultriness rod...
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Stillness. Absolute silence.
The words left my mouth like a quiver of lethal arrows, killing everything in their wake, wrecking death and devastation. The room stilled with a soulless silence.
Even the air seemed to have died. The curtains hung lifeless by the open window. The leaves and grass had stopped rustling outside, nor did the crickets chirped. There was no sound, near or far.
Silence.
Plain deadly silence hung suspended in the room, slowly seeping into every pore of my skin. It gnawed at my insides, like sweet poison gently chocking the life out of me.
Disintegrated thoughts, slivers of unspoken words and globules of silence wove into a kaleidoscopic jumble, leaving me as a debilitated mess. The silence forged a gaping void of nothingness, laying bare how vapid our conversation had turned.
In this repose, all I could hear was the shallow steady rhythm beating within me, while all I could see were the stoic pair of eyes, staring at me banefully. The guileful orbs that enthralled me, now looked at me bereft of any emotion, all feelings concealed under the veil of indifference.
Was he angry? Upset? Confused? I could not tell. And it did nothing to calm the turmoil churning within me. Guilt ate at me.
"Aliyaar," the name escaped my lips like a silent prayer. I raised my hand to lightly graze his jaw, hoping to breaking the deafening silence between us.
But it was as if, my contact roused him and he jolted away, like my touch had burnt him. "Aliyaar," I called out, my voice low and shallow. But he looked away, walking away to stand by the open window, staring into the wilderness, his back facing me.
He stood only a few feet away, yet I knew, in that moment, he was miles away. An abandoned tear slid down my face.
His silence was hurting me.
This is what I had wanted, this is what I had come here for, this is what I had planned. Aliyaar was my only route of escape, his refusal my only chance. I had come here with the sole intention to convince him to back away from this preposterous arrangement and save us all from the misery that would ensue.
Yet in that moment I could not do it.
I wasn't able to tell him what I truly came here for today. Today, I had seen a different version of him, the thoughtful yet impish Aliyaar. And after knowing him, I could not will myself to tell him the complete truth. Yaar's words resonated in my ears, my brother does not deserve this.
He was right, he didn't deserve my resentment over something he had no control over, but what he also didn't deserve were lies and dishonesty.
My conscience mocked me every time my heart skipped a beat and revelled in his attention. Nothing is more wretched than a mind conscious of guilt. I had created this storm, yet I was not prepared for the rain.
