"Is this Adal?" the cool female voice asked.
"Yeah, who is this?" Adal asked surprised.
Farah gripped the mobile tightly in her hands, she was angry beyond belief and wanted to strangle Adal.
"It's Farah, you idiot! You must have heard about me from Sara." She said through clenched teeth.
"Oh yeah, she talks about you a lot. How are you?" the polite question was ignored as Farah lost her battle with anger and shouted
"You better tell her the truth you f**ker! It maybe a game for you but she is falling for you, and falling fast." She shouted, "Oh, who am I kidding, she is in love with you. And I know her, you will move on but she won't. So you better tell her what she means to you or you get the hell out of her life!"
"And this is your business, how?" Adal asked coldly.
"Because I love her. She is an amazing girl, Adal, any guy will be lucky to have her but she wants you and frankly I like you too. You are no pushover and I think you love her too, but she is losing it Adal. Can't you see uncertainty in her eyes? Can't you see she's become so quiet? She's losing her self confidence Adal just because you don't come clean with her. She helped me and Omer so so much Adal I want to do the same for her. For God's sake talk to her." Somewhere in the middle of her speech she had lost the fire and was pleading with him to spare her best friend's feelings. Upon hearing the desperate appeal in her voice, his own anger evaporated.
"I heard you, Farah, but I will handle this in my own way." He replied firmly but not rudely.
Farah was quiet for a while, then said, "Don't hurt her too badly Adal, she'll pull herself together but she'll never be the same. She won't trust again and she won't love again. I hope you know what you're doing and please don't tell her that I called you. She'll chew me alive."
"I won't." Adal replied and was about to say goodbye when the Farah hung up.
How long can I be with her without having to tell her why I cannot commit to her? He asked himself as he looked towards the beautiful flowers that announced the arrival of spring. It has been almost a year since I saw her, and 10 months since we became friends...well more than friends, he admitted to himself as he recalled seeing her for the first time. She had looked beautiful, with her hair mussed by her fingers, her face devoid of any make up, and her self-confident manner. Is it any wonder that I fell for her? No, the wonder is that she fell for me.
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Ayesha was surprised beyond belief to see her only son sitting in the dark on her bed. Usually he avoided her like plague, ever since that fateful night seven years ago when he had found out.
She was an attractive woman, her jet black hair were full and stylishly cut with bangs that covered her forehead and made her look younger than her 42 years. She was wearing minimum make up, even though she had just come back from a marriage. Her blue long shirt with matching trousers showed off a slim figure that came naturally to her without any need for exercise and diets.
"Ali what are you doing here?" she asked him, dumbfounded.
"Why'd you do it?" he quietly asked her. He looked up and she could see the plea in his eyes asking her to deny that his mother has ever slept with four of his father's friends—three weeks after they had buried him.
She sat down on the rocking chair in front of him and simply looked at him, the man that he had become and wondered how she had missed the fact that he was grown up.
"I loved your father, Ali,…" that was as far as she got before he got up from the bed and giving her a look of pure hatred started towards the door.
"I am not going to lie Ali so either never ask me again or sit down and have the courage to listen to me." He looked back at her, she held his look, and didn't break off the eye contact until he started pacing on the huge Persian rug like a caged tiger.
"I met him when I was 21 and he was 25. Our families knew each other as your grandparents had done some business together. I met him at a party and it was love at first sight." She was lost in the memories and there was a wistful smile on her face.
"We got married later that year. He loved me to pieces, Ali. I can never figure out why he fell for me but he did. His love was what kept me smiling throughout the day, we had fights, Ali, loud and passionate fights but we never doubted the depth of our love for each other. And moreover my mother and father in law were perfect. They lead their own lives and did not interfere in ours. We had so many happy memories together." She said and didn't notice when tears silently stained her cheeks as they fell.
"He took me everywhere with him, I traveled almost all the world with him. He was my best friend and my confidante. I could say anything to him and he shared everything with me. And then you were born and it was like heaven on Earth for me. Those eight years were the happiest of my life Ali." She said with a lovely smile on her face that made Ali remember the pictures of the radiant bride she had on her wedding day.
"And then the sky fell down..one minute I am asking him to come home early as I wanted to go out for dinner…and the next minute I get a call asking me to identify the body of my husband whose car was crushed my an 18 wheeler." She was still now, too still Ali thought as he looked at her devastated face. Was I wrong in thinking that she was a s**t? Was she really faithful to my father when he was alive? He thought confused by the raw emotion on her face.
"They brought him home within an hour, brought him home to me but I couldn't see him, I don't even remember what happened past the fact that they carried his body inside in a coffin. That I couldn't see his laughing eyes and big hands. That I couldn't see his broad face and couldn't see the special way he looked at me when he came home from office. Then I all I remember is waking up in the hospital a week later when they had already buried him."
"I don't think I even thought about you in the coming days. I didn't even think about him. There was an emptiness in me. I didn't feel anything, I didn't feel it when my mother hugged me and constantly told me that the centre of my world was not coming back, that he was gone forever. I didn't feel it Ali. I just felt an overwhelming need to be alone, to be left alone to stare at the walls." Her silent tears had made her eyes red and puffy, but they were determined when they fell upon Ali who had silently sat on the chair again and was looking at her intently. Knowing that the most difficult part of this conversation was coming, she paused, giving herself time to compose. After a moment, she continued in a flat voice, betraying no emotion.
"People kept coming to offer condolences. Among them were your father's three friends. One thing led to another and I slept with three of them without even consciously deciding it. It was like sleep walking, I remember the details but I don't remember the beginning. They came to my room, for I spent most of my time there, I think one of them tried to give me a one arm hug, and it somehow ended up with us sleeping together." She paused and looked at her son, whom she loved with all her heart, and that heart ached when it saw the disgust on his face.
"That man must have told others of his mentality that I was easy prey, or that I was a s**t willing to do it, and two others gained the title of having slept with me." She said bitterly, and then said more quietly, "I am not excusing myself, Ali, it was more my fault then theirs. Men try to sleep with anything that moves, I should have been the strong one, but I wasn't. And then your grandmother heard about it somehow." She looked at Ali's stunned face. "Yes, she knows about it. You threatened that you'd tell it to her seven years ago Ali but the fact is she knows that I betrayed her son."
"She knows and she kept you here? She gave you everything you wished for? Maybe because she didn't want you to do it again!" he said vehemently having recovered from his shock.
She continued calmly, "On the other hand, she was the one who pulled me out of it. She came to my room after hearing it from one of her friends, you know how news like this travels in our circles. She told her friend that it was their personal matter, and the men should be ashamed for taking advantage of me." She smiled a little at the look of incredulity on his face—the face which reminded her so much of the man she had loved and lost.
"Then she came to my room. I was ready for her anger, but she simply hugged me and kept telling me that it's okay. She kept saying that Hasan would understand, and I broke down. It was the first time that I cried for him. The first time that I let all the anger and grief…and desperation out. I kept asking her to bring him back, she was crying too but she kept shaking her head and just held me."
"I screamed and raged for hours, Ali, and mama never once stopped me. She cried with me, and we both held each other. We were the ones who had loved him most, and I was stupid not to turn to her for comfort before that day. Maybe I would have avoided all that." Regret was clear in her voice, as she buried her face in her hands, sobbing quietly.
"Do you think dad would have forgiven you?"
"Yes," they both turned around at the firm voice. His grandmother was standing there. She had dupatta wrapped around her head, which meant she had just said prayer. Her face was lined with age but it was graceful. She had accepted old age instead of fighting it with the result that she looked younger than her sixty nine years. She was looking at Ali sternly, and he suppressed the sudden need to shuffle his feet.
"Yes he would have forgiven her, because he knew that she loved him with all she had. She had many proposals after Hasan died, and I wanted her to get married again. I wanted her to be happy as she had made my son happy. But she refused every single one of them. His memories were enough for her. And you begrudge her the three weeks when she was half out of her mind? I am disappointed in you Ali."
"No don't," Ayesha said, tears still falling down her cheeks, "He is right to hate me for that mama, he should hate me for that" She was sobbing now. Her mother in law moved towards her, and taking her face in her hands told her firmly.
"You have punished yourself for that past ten years. You have suffered enough, Ayesha. Hasan loved you and he would never resent you for trying to find a way to become alive again. He would not want you to punish yourself each and every day of your life!" saying nothing, Ayesha just held tightly onto the woman who had been her rock through all the happy and difficult times.
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