As Long As I Live

Responsibility

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*****

Denial.

A powerful force.

For two years Aamir had denied Mayra her right as his wife. For two years he had denied himself the truth. For two years, two familes had denied the reality.

And denial was blissful anaesthesia, he thought wryly as the continuing screams from both sides made him want to bang his head on the wall.

What he wanted to do was to walk out and run to Mayra. The fact that he hadn't confessed his love to her yet was eating him up. But how could he have done it. Mayra had been crying so bad that Aamir was forced to call the doctor who said that Mayra has to be calmed or else she would hurt herself. And so the doctor had sedated her and yet again she was sleeping.

He seriously considered giving up the whole charade and confronting Mayra about her attempted suicide. He knew, for sure he knew that he had never wished for Mayra to die. Even at times when he had hated her with all his heart, he never wanted her to do something so drastic. He couldn't reassure himself that he wasn't deserving of blame in all that had brought two families to their knees, but this he wasn't guilty of.

Then what was making Mayra think that it was Aamir who wanted to see her dead? But considering the fragile state of Mayra's mind, asking any questions of such serious nature was going to be impossible.

And, as if the entire issue wasn't getting messier on it's own, at the worst possible timing of this entire episode, the police had sworn to get him imprisoned and he could swear that the officer and Mayra's doctor were secretly conspiring against him. He hadn't been approached for questioning, yet, but he knew he would be soon enough. His lawyer would give him more information about that.

His lawyer.

He really needed to speak to that man. The divorce papers had messed things up even further. The long list of things he needed to apologize to Mayra for only seemed to be getting longer and longer.

"He hurt my daughter! He hit her!"

Aamir winced as his father-in-law screamed that one sentence, again. And he knew his father would respond just as ferociously, which he did a split second later.

"Yes, he did. And he will pay for what he did. But what of you Rizwan? You think you are not to blame? I can't even tell you the number of times she called you, begged you to speak to her once! You never let her tell you the truth. You never cared enough to find out why she called you. I tried my best to keep my daughter happy, can you say the same? Can you?"

"Oh right, Farhan. That automatically absolves your entire family, doesn't it? If you tried your best, if your family tried their best, then why is she in such a state! My daughter is suicidal, dammit!"

"No," Aamir spoke for the first time since the shouting match began. "She's not."

Farhan glared at his son-in-law and Aamir could see that it was taking every ounce of patience he possessed to not punch Aamir in the face.

"Naturally you would want us to believe that, wouldn't you, you spineless animal! You think we will fall for it! My daughter will get justice! I will see to it that you be punished so severely that it becomes a lesson for everyone!"

Standing up, Aamir replied in a calm voice that made Rizwan want to punch him even more. "The only person with the right to punish me is Mayra. And when she gets well enough, I will readily accept whatever punishment she gives me. Until then it's important to remember that I'm not the only one who needs punishing."