Chapter 157: Not Everyone Attains Everything

Their question which made me laugh, mockingly, deafeningly, holding my sides, it sounded so funny that I couldn’t help it.

“I love her?!”

Clutching my chest, a tear pricked in the corner from how amusing it was.

“Love!? Her!?”

Taking a deep breath, when Asad was about to hold me as my steps stumbled but I stopped him and straightened my back.

Panting I kept myself together and stared at the lines of my palm where I couldn’t find her then how could they say this?

“I.. love… her? Really?”

Exhaling, I pushed my hair behind, shaking my head but the longer this question echoed in my mind, the more it anguished me.

Gradually becoming serious, I continued seriously which worried them about my mental state.

“Were we in love? When did that happen?”

Our not-so-beautiful moments flashed before my eyes, stealing my vision due to tears as I stood still. A worsened condition, as if someone had rubbed salt against my wounds.

I swallowed hard, “Love… huh?”

“If that’s what you call love then I don’t fucking want in my life ever again!!”

And in a split second, I lost myself, hitting the glass table nearby, breaking it with an unbearably desolated shouting that couldn’t heal me.

“Fuck that! Fuck that love!”

Yelling, I hit the bed post, on the verge of breaking into a sob but I kept it at bay though I doubt I could hold it longer.

I wasn’t that strong, I couldn’t.

“Zaviyaar-”

They were about to rush to my side but display my wrath, I raised my hand in the air dominantly to stop them.

“Leave. I want to be alone right now,”

I ordered in a growl and Asad asked worriedly which only reached my ears as a mockery.

“Will you be okay?”

I chuckled dryly and scoffed, “When was I okay in the first place?”

“Since when has anything in my life gone how ‘I’ wanted it to go? Couldn’t study properly, couldn’t marry properly, couldn’t love, When have you ever-”

Before some regretful or irredeemable words came out of my mouth, I made a tight fist and paused.

With a ‘tsk’ sound, I looked away.

“I will be fine, don’t worry about me, just go for now.”

They opened their mouths but knowing it was best to leave me alone to liberate my pain, they gave me a compassionate glance and left me.

The moment I was all alone in the untidy room like my messy life, I fell apart. The posture I kept at bay was annihilated by grief.

Gasping, I clutched my heart from overwhelming pain and fell on my knees accompanied by the tears I held back so far.

Nothing remained.

Everything burned.

My life, my hopes, my dreams, my future, my child, my marriage, my wife, my darling, my happiness, myself.

I saw all of it dying before my very eyes and there was nothing I could possibly do to prevent that.

“Aalifa….”

Breathless, my tears spilled like a river, tightening my grip over myself, I curled like a ball on the ground and began to sob out loud. Control slipped from my grasp powerlessly.

What a deadly defenseless feeling.

“Why did you leave me!?” I cried, pulling my hair, unable to breathe properly as the salty tears rolled, covering my face, entering my mouth too.

My pain would scatter, I knew.

And I swear, the flames of it would reach her core and she would tremble by the intensity of it!

“If that’s love then I don’t need it, I don’t want it, then I hate it…”

Hitting the ground, I never thought I would release such a painfully booming cry in my life but it liberated from the bottom of my soul.

“Can someone wake me up and tell me that it was all a dream?”

“Can I start over from the point I saw her dance? I will change everything, please grant me a chance.”

‘Oh, we are the slaves of our actions and words, they can't be redeemed or undone.’

I did what I did, what happened has happened.

Wailing from intolerable anguish, I pressed my head harder on the ground, knowing it was where I belonged.

I was nothing before the plans made from above.

There was nothing I could do to halt them, we were fated to be separated and by all means, we got separated.

I was tested with my most cherished one.

“Please, please, please, return her to me… I need noor (light)... Ya Allah, please, please,”

I begged, my throat was hurting from the crying but that prayer became my only yearning. Hugging my knees while being on the ground, I could no longer act strong.

All of that washed away the second I was left all alone with endless questions.

Was my love that weak that it couldn’t provide her solace?

When she was my light then why wasn't I hers?

This heart broke again, it lost again, it was destined to be doomed.

“Aalifa…”

Whispering, I remained on the ground, lying there motionless with tears silently rolling down.

My vocal cords were exhausted from sobbing, it was hurting, all over, from my soul to the inches of my skin, all of it was agonizing.

“The longer we would be together, it would only be a cursed love… I knew it still, I didn't want you to go.”

Neither I was a saint nor was she. If we had remained together, our past mistakes, sins would have remained so separation was necessary.

I knew. I knew that. But-

“Didn’t your heart tremble by the thought of leaving me?”

I found my insides declining that thought the second it entered but she spoke it- was it easy for her?

Maybe love couldn’t overcome all obstacles in the end after all…

“You will return, you will come back. If you won’t then I will hate love, I will resent that feeling.”

If we weren’t supposed to be together then our paths collide? Why did we meet?!

“You must, you must,”

Sniffling, I dug my nails into my skin to shut my eyes and suppress the pain inside so it won’t murder me from inside ever again and stared into nothingness.

Time passed, minutes went by.

Three hours went by but nothing happened.

She won’t return, she is returning to her life. We- No, I could no longer address her and myself as ‘we’- She and I had returned to our respective lives.

All of it was shattered in a mere day.

“So you too…” I smiled painfully with a final tear rolling down.

I accepted this reality with a destroyed home, crushed feelings and desires to be loved. All of me was obliterated. The labyrinth had caged me successfully.

Carrying that weight, I started giving the consolation I had been giving myself for the past years, once again- It's alright, Zaviyaar, because-

Not everyone attains everything.