Meher •completed•

3.

ehsān zindagī pe kiye jā rahe haiñ ham
man to nahīñ hai phir bhī jiye jā rahe haiñ ham 
~ Imtiyaz Khan

•••

Meher sat on her bed and watched the grey clouds as they cried for her. She buried her head between her knees and sighed, she couldn't fathom how someone who had loved her so dearly, whose entire life once had revolved around her, could do this to her.

Meher closed her eyes and remember the day and she did very well. She had just returned home from college and as soon as she steps her foot inside the threshold her brother held her with a tight grip on her arm and swung his other hand to land a booming slap across her cheek.
Her bhabhi had apparently lied about their argument, she had accused Meher of calling her and her son names since she had fallen pregnant before her nikkah.

Junaid had dragged Meher by her hair and had locked her in her room not before setting fire on her college bag burning all her books.

Meher cried, begged, screamed for Junaid to believe her but he didn't. Meher begged her mother and Zohra khala to take a stand for her, support her, tell her brother that nothing of that sort had happened but they didn't either.

All of them left Meher to suffer alone.

But apparently the fates had something else in their mind for her, they had woven her future with a thread already bound with another.

Meera watched the rain pour down, the gloomy weather reflected on her mood as well, the heavy feeling in her chest was a foreboding feeling of the doom impending on her.

The door to her room opened with a creek. A face she had wanted to avoid came in her site of vision.

"Congratulations Meher." Rukaiya said mockingly. "Tumhara nikkah tay kar ke aa rahi hu." She said laughing. (Your wedding has been fixed)

As the words which had left Rukaiya's mouth started to make sense to her, a lump formed in her throat, all she wanted to do was throw everything in her reach at the woman standing in front of her, mocking at her helplessness.

Meher refused to cry in front of the woman who played a major role in taking away the little happiness she still had left after her world flipped upside down.

"I can't wait for you to leave." Rukaiya spat as she closed the door behind her bolting it shut.

That night hearing her cry, Zohra khala had come to her room after everyone had slept, she held Meher close to her as she cried her heart out. Zohra khala told Meher about the conversation she had overheard between Rukaiya and Junaid, the groom's family were paying them a sum of 25 lakhs for the wedding.

•••

Meher sat in her room, in a cheap red bridal dress which was given to her to change into, she signed the nikkah nama (wedding contract) selling herself, not that she had a choice. She dreaded the man who had bought her, because she hardly felt like a wife and more like a purchase commodity.

Her wedding had to be a joke, not one person from the grooms side had come to take her home or to witness the nikkah. She sat in her room, twisting the hem of her dupatta. Her mother and Zohra khala had left her side after she had signed the documents and left her alone with her thoughts.

How had her life come to this.

The door of her room opened making the weird creaking noise it always did.