Chapter 156: Love Her?

“Bhabi- Sorry, I am mean Aalifa,”

Knocking, Asad entered with a deadpan expression. In one glance, I could witness the rage in his eyes, the resentment for leaving his brother.

Yet, he was forced to maintain his seriousness and not burst on me and entered.

“Y-yes?” I gulped, turning to him when he placed the divorce papers before me, handing me a pen.

“Zaviyaar has signed them. You also sign here.” He informed me coldly, pointing at where to sign.

I could feel my hands becoming cold, tears blurring my vision with shaky hands. Countless questions began to attack me, giving me a moment to contemplate.

Think, think, think.

“Are you truly sure, Aalifa?” Papa asked again when my gaze cascaded on the papers, my lips started to quiver.

When the guilt evoked, my breaths stopped. I hastily wiped my tears. Nothing would work, it was baseless.

But- Should I truly do that?

‘How would he live? He is so attached to me. And me, no matter what, he was there under all conditions without complaining to me. Should I truly do this? ’

No, no, no, that was no time for having second thoughts, Aalifa. Snap out of it.

We couldn’t stay happy, there was no future, things won’t be as beautiful as we wanted it to be.

My mind turned blank as I poured all my strength in my hands and signed the divorce papers.

“Congratulations. That is what you wanted after all,”

Asad coldly taunted, snatching the papers away from me, going through them to not miss anything.

Pressing my teeth together with woe, I looked down. It felt like my heart would leap through my chest, a lump collected around my throat.

With silent tears gleaming on my face, I could no longer lift my head. The last image of Zaviyaar appeared where he got up and left.

He walked away so mutely, was that the last time I would see him?

“Is… he going to see me for the last time?” I asked vaguely in apprehension.

Asad stopped, his jaw clenched with a deadly glare. I shivered at his dire expression as I had never seen him like this before.

“No. He won’t. He couldn’t,” He growled, tightening his grip on the papers.

I expected that…

“I see… then can you tell him ‘Allah Hafiz’ from me?”

“He said the same too,”

With a mutter, Asad’s steps retreated, motioning to the workers to take my thing away, turning my mind blind.

Curling my lips upward, I remained motionless, no longer in my proper senses as Asad stopped before leaving.

“We have completed all the arrangements to send you back. You have been cut off from us.”

His words induced the realization that it was the last time I would be here. All my connections with him would die if I stepped out. Nothing would remain.

“That was it…?”

“Yes,”

Is that how the bond which started with my admiration, a murder, my imprisonment, to committing Zina and loving him nonetheless going to reach its destination?

In the end, what did I gain by loving him? What blessing did it bring?

And in a split second, my soul froze with a silent tear rolling down when Asad announced what I did in a spur of anguish.

Declaring the result of an immoral love.

“From now on you have no connections with us. You are freed from this marriage, Aalifa Niyaz.”

ZAVIYAAR SHEIKH

“You got so near that I thought you became mine,”

I guess I was wrong, I always was.

I watched her leave from afar, how her steps were retreating with a hanging head and in a corner of my heart, I wanted to see her for the last time again, if I did.

I won’t be able to let her go.

“Allah Hafiz, My Noor-e-Jaan,”

Whispering, I blew a kiss at her wholeheartedly, praying my feelings could reach her core and probably not today, but one day, at any point of her life-

She would return to me and I shall embrace her with open arms.

“Zaviyaar, I have sent the papers to get them registered.”

Asad informed me vaguely. His words were calm but they wrecked a storm in my chest. A kind of pain I never wanted to experience again.

“I see…”

Smiling with an agonizing tear rolling down my cheek, my steps retreating as the more I watched her go back, the more it was stabbing me.

I went back inside, hands resting in my pockets, a hollowness taking over me which my brothers witnessed with pure perturbation.

“She also looked up here. Do you want to make a last eye-contact?” Asad added, gaining my attention.

Stopping in my tracks, I paused, my very soul was screaming- Yes! Yes! Yes!

“No.”

Resting my hands in my pockets with a dead look, I came back into the room where Erhan was sitting on the bed with bandages around him.

Hanging his head while I was expressionless at the moment.

The ache was so much that it turned me numb as I became incapable of reacting momentarily.

“Is… it my fault? Because I am weak? That I couldn’t protect Mother and Saira Bhabi?”

Erhan questioned in a broken tone, staring at his empty hands with anger emerging from him.

“How do you expect yourself to fight against a group of people? Don’t uselessly blame yourself,” I sighed, waving my other hand in the air to shrug it off and not find reasons.

Nothing could undo what happened, blaming anyone but me would be absurd. I knew I still did it.

If anyone should be cursed, it should be me.

“May your home be ruined like mine…"

Amid my void state where I found myself being imprisoned in an inescapable abyss of unspeakable pain, Erhan decided to hit a sensitive spot.

"It’s happening because of Sufiyan’s curse, isn’t it!?”

We all became stiff when he yelled in frustration. Asad glared at him to stop but he continued nonetheless.

“Because we destroyed his home, our own cousin’s home, it came back to us,”

“Asad was in jail, I got shot, Saira Bhabi died, we lost the baby and now… your divorce… our deeds returned to us, right?”

To his miserable and harsh reality, it took me a few moments to regain my senses as I smirked emptily in return and gave a plain reply.

“Yes.”

“We receive what we give. People like us get our punishment before hell,”

Asad added coldly, coming closer and giving my shoulder a pat which did what?

I didn’t know. Neither consoled nor did it help.

“Are you sure you want to let her go? Don’t you love her?”