With only a small night light turned on, the cozy square of a room swarmed in a mix of golden and brown hues. And somehow, that dim light had a soothing effect on Abeer as he sat crouched on the floor against the side of his bed - tackling a thousand disturbing thoughts weaving a silent war in his mind.
Today was a big day for his family, for his love... for today she has finally triumphed over those monsters who'd destroyed her life once. Everyone was in a merry mood ever since they came back from the court, and since the morning a lot of their well-wishers kept calling or dropping by to congratulate Amala on her win. Abeer felt truly grateful for those sweet gestures; both because they brought about a happy smile on Amala's face after going through so much struggles, and because they had really helped him get distracted throughout the day.
Around dinner time, though, when the house was finally empty but from them six, Abeer had started to feel it difficult to continue ignoring all the negative ideas that had kept popping in his mind. So, with as straight a face as he was able to wear at that time, he somehow managed to have dinner with everyone... and then, at the first chance he found; he stealthily got out of the house and came to his room. He knew too well that Amala was bound to miss him from the bunch sooner or later, especially since he got out without talking to her as she went into the kitchen with Mando Parjai to prepare coffee for everyone... but he absentmindedly thought he'll definitely be able to give her a convincing excuse once she came by...
"Abeer..." a soft voice jolted him out of his detached state of being as a petite shadow fell over him...
He looked up to see Amala eyeing him with a worried curiosity, her delicate face glowing as the light directly fell on her.
"What are you doing here sitting in the dark, alone?" She asked, her tone a bit high pitched.
"Nothing..." Abeer answered, clearly still disconnected from his surroundings. "I'm just tired... I need to rest..." he added as he lowered his eyes towards the dark floor again.
Amala felt a gripping pain seize at her heart as she realised that even though Abeer was physically present with her, his thoughts were dwelling somewhere very far from there - lost and tormented. She sat down beside him without a word, still completely facing him, and kept her right hand on his shoulder as her other hand reached to pat his arm gently.
"Abeer.., I've called you from the threshold for a number of times now, and you didn't notice nor hear me at all..." Amala said, her words coming out in almost a whisper. "I know you've been trying to act normal since earlier today... and I know there's something that's really bothering you... please, share it with me!"
Abeer raised his head again, meeting her eyes with a more focused expression, her touch seemed to have dragged him out of his disturbed thoughts' world. Now both of their faces were partially obscured by the shadows of the semi-dark room... yet, he adamantly searched her eyes, trying to find a bit of courage for himself in them.
"I've been thinking..." Abeer murmured, uttering every word in a slow and careful way, "all those months you've had to tell your story to people time and again... and even as we fought in the court... when they kept calling you names and accusing you... I was..."
"You were what? Abeer..?" Amala urged him on, even as she couldn't miss his strained and choked up voice.
"I was dying a little on the inside every single time! I felt so helpless... I was supposed to protect you, to shield you from all harm... and instead, I'd sat watching you fight your own battle, all alone... living that horrible incident to its very details in every minute... "that was not why I'd married her!" I thought to myself... and then..."
Amala's heart sank as his voice cracked and trailed away, and she immediately reached for his hand, tightly holding it in hers. Abeer lowered his gaze again as their palms rested against each other, hers generously transforming some of its warmth into his cold one. He suddenly felt too ashamed of her goodness, but he knew he had to go on talking.
"And then I remembered the day of our marriage..." Abeer continued in an apparently shaky tone, "how I'd agreed to marry you... that too when I still wasn't sure if just like the others, I too was a filthy criminal... if I'd too had ra..." Abeer squeezed his eyes shut as he couldn't complete his words anymore, and hot tears started to role down his face.
"Abeer..." Amala muttered, unable to control her own tears from gushing out, she clutched a fistful of his shirt as she weakly watched him sob in silence.
"I swear to God, Amala..." Abeer breathed out after a few moments in a totally raw voice, "I agreed to marry you only because that Viren Aasthana had convinced me that you'd agreed to marry me! And it never was for the money... he just shoved that parcel into my hands and I had no chance to give it back to him. Please.., believe me."
"Look at me, Abeer!" Amala said in a determined manner, wiping her dampened face with the back of her hand, and then making him turn to face her fully, "I don't know in what ways that lawyer manipulated you back then, but I have been a first hand prey to his wicked tricks - so I would know better than to blame you..."
Fresh tears started to fall out of Abeer's eyes, and she dried them away with kind strokes, shaking her head a little to tell him not to cry anymore.
"When that thing happened to me, I wanted to scream at the top of my voice - and tell the whole world about it... yet they silenced me!" Amala went on, a tiny sigh escaping her mouth, "they were so powerful back then that they so skilfully installed a fear of society, of Dev, into my mind... and buried my pain so deep that no body would have ever noticed my wounds had I not spoken of them myself at last."
"Still..." Abeer replied with a heavy tone, turning away from her yet again, "sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd never met you on that mountain highway a few days before that night... if I hadn't felt a liking for you then... or at least, if I'd never told those three monsters of "friends" of mine about you... if I'd never went to the lake side with them that particular night..!"
Amala silently studied Abeer's side profile for a few seconds. And though her side of his face was darkened by the shadows that she could hardly make out his expressions, she knew from his downcast gaze that she was far from easing his mind of those troubling thoughts as of yet.
"Abeer, do you remember the time when I said that I wish this never happened to me? That I wish you were not a part of it all?" She asked in a reminiscent tone, snaking her arm over his shoulders in a partial hug, "you told me then that as long as my "I wish" doesn't leave me, I won't be able to move forward with my life. Same goes for your "what ifs", right now."
Abeer nodded his head twice in acknowledgement, and his lips parted a bit... as if he was about to say something - but he remained quiet.
"Let me tell you one thing, though, Abeer." Amala said, still holding him in reassurance as close to herself as she could, "it is precisely because you've been there that night, because you've lived every split of a second of the excruciating pain that had befallen on me that night, because you've seen it happen to me with your very eyes and still couldn't do anything to stop it, because you've decided to marry me regardless of it all - it's due to all that, that I'm still alive and strong as ever today. That I am the victorious one today."
"What?!" Abeer exclaimed, utterly bewildered as he shot up his head and looked at her. She nodded firmly as their eyes connected.
"Just imagine one of your what-ifs were to be true... what if you weren't there with these rueful three at that time, and they still did what they'd done to me..." Amala explained to him in a dainty voice, "what would have happened then? Most probably, I would've been successful in committing suicide that day by the lake side - because you wouldn't have been driven to that same spot by your guilt to ultimately save me..."
"That can't be... even Pau came and stopped you from cutting your wrists shortly after... it wasn't just me who'd saved you then, Amala!" Abeer countered, somewhat vexed by the way she sounded as if she was hero-worshipping him.
"Fine, say... even if I survived death then thanks to Pau alone... I wouldn't have been able to survive the suffocating pain on my own afterwards, and would've met my brutal end one way or the other. Because no one, absolutely no one, would've been able to understand and share my pain with me... no matter how goodhearted and loving they'd be... not even my own Pau. For it doesn't take just love to understand the sort of agony I'd felt after that night... it had to be someone who was going through the exact same heart-wrenching feeling. That was you, Abeer."
"But let's go on assuming you never were there that night... what would your reaction to all of that have been? Honestly?" Amala asked.
"I can't think of any..." Abeer retorted, his forehead getting wrinkly as he wracked his brains for an answer.
"I will tell you," Amala smiled at him. "Being the good person that you are; you would've condemned your friends' devilish deed, cutting off all ties with them. And you would've felt truly bad that this one crush of yours had met such a ruthless end for sometime... and then moved on with your life after a year or two. And if you've never met me or had any feelings for me, then you would've forgotten all about it much faster."
Abeer looked at her pleasing smile in silence, pondering on all the hypothetical situations that she had just narrated.
"I still don't know if all that pain I've ever caused you was worth it..." he admitted with a burdensome sigh.
"My dear husband!" Amala replied with an endearing air, "you never caused me pain in any possible way ever! It was our circumstances that inflicted us both with immeasurable pain that was beyond our ability to refute. But it was that same pain that we were made to share together that brought our souls closer to each other - merging them into one at some point...forever. I recognised this much late myself, I admit. But now that we both know it's the most beautiful truth of our lives; don't you ever dare speak of the possibility of us never meeting... of you never falling for me..!"
Abeer didn't know what to say to her anymore. How was he supposed to reply to her boundless goodness? He didn't think he would ever find an answer to that... so instead, he lowered his head on her folded legs, hoping that his battling thoughts would find some piece there at last.
After a minute or two, Amala started to comb his hair with her fingers, and very leisurely yet steadily, Abeer began to feel his head becoming much lighter - as if the rhythmic movements of her fingers through his hair had some sort of a magical power that sucked all his worries out of his exhausted mind.
And somehow, even Amala knew of the effect that this gesture had on Abeer, as she watched the lines on his forehead disappear gradually, and an invisible smile start to form at the corners of his mouth. And hence, she continued to run her fingers through his wavey locks - not really minding the prickly numbness creeping into her legs by now.
"You know, Amala..." Abeer said after a while, his voice sounding much healed now, "when I was younger, I would tell Masso that I'm never going to get married in my life, expecting her to fume in anger at me... instead, she'd always keep this calm demeanour about her as she'd start reciting this ancient myth to me. Probably because deep down she knew I'd always feared ending up to be to my partner exactly what my father was to my Mai."
"What myth..?" Amala asked with a childish curiosity, smiling down at his finally relaxed features.
"An ancient Japanese myth." Abeer replied, a slight smile at play on his lips, "it says that every person born in to this world is tied by an invisible red thread to another person, who is their soulmate in the truest sense. And that no matter how far one might wander... no matter how long they search in the wrong places..; they'd eventually be attracted to that one right person at the right time, thanks to the tugs of this thread to bring them closer to each other. It's called the red thread of fate."
"The red thread of fate..." Amala repeated in a dreamlike voice.
"To think that the mythical story which I'd spent my teenage years laughing at would become the reality of my life!" Abeer said incredulously as he opened his eyes to smile up at Amala.
And then his glance fell on her photos sticking on his cupboard's doors - she looked ethereal that day while wearing his mother's saree...
"But I still wish I could see you as a proper bride! My bride!" He added with a little pout, getting up from her lap all of a sudden.
"What?" Amala asked, chuckling.
"And I still wish I could see nothing but happiness in your eyes as a bride!" Abeer went on, "and those are very much valid "I wishes", huh!"
"Well, I'm still waiting for a marriage proposal from you!" Amala retorted in a mischievous way.
"You are?!" Abeer said a little too enthusiastically, making her break into fits of giggles, and he joined her wholeheartedly.
After their laughters subdued, Amala snuggled up to Abeer, holding him in her fragile yet warm embrace... and making up her mind to stay there beside him for as long as it took him to grasp the idea that she was there with him... for him, always... come what may in their lives.
Edited by Diaa - 7 years ago
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