New FF: Humsafar - Khirad&Ashar Part 2 Upd 01/02

They say truth delivers and his revelation was her deliverance. Khirad felt something snap inside her; like a rope that she had tugged on for the entire time she had been married to Khizar. It came to her that this was the fleeing moment she had waited all her life. Instead of a cry of betrayal, a storm of relief washed through her. She gave a detached smile and looked at him heavy lidded with uneasy gratitude. Her body was loose and limp. And a sense of calm, made her slump back into the chair.

Her reaction shocked him, worried him even. But he couldn't bring himself to believe she was stable by any standards to unleash all that she was feeling inside. Undoubtedly he'd broken the line of trust that she'd come to believe existed between them and yet she had a sorry smile tremble on her lips. Watching her withhold herself in a sanctum and refusing to break down at a time like that, showed him how deep and irreparable her hurt was. He needn't verbalize the sense of guilt that was burning within him, she wouldn't understand, let alone forgive him.

"Get out", her voice sounded weak and hoarse, despite the trace of authority she claimed. A fresh bout of tears came running down her eyes. His feet dragged himself across the floor without a sound, but the falling shadows that swept past her as he crossed her chair, drew her eyes back to him.

"No wait" she said in a hurry, appearing lost in a sudden contemplation. Upon having reached a decision, she got off the chair and walked out of the door without another word or giving him a last look.

When he thought, she was indeed losing her sanity she came to a stop, abruptly in the hallway.

Turning around fully to face him, her face lit up with a strange joy, she mouthed a heartfelt "Thank you" and walked away.

Outside the cold Chicago air did nothing to freeze her thoughts that were all over, like a breaking dam and she desperately sieved through them to find any one pondering that would lead her back to Fizar. In reality, she hoped there was nothing...no remnants of her life with him, that would take her back to his door step. Two years were long enough to have indulged in a life that circuitously went around him and his needs, while he remained drawn to his old flame.

Her makeshift bun ran loose from the tremors that were shaking her body and her arms determinedly knotted them back into place. Wiping off the last of the tears that'd stained her eyes - that betrayed her lament for the past she no longer wanted any part of - she picked up her phone and called Shaheen; her only other acquaintance in America from her Hyderabad life.

"As-Salamu Alaykum Shaheen...Sorry for calling you this late...but I need a favor" Her voice was still tentative as she registered the implications of her impetuous decision - that was perhaps not rushed at all.

"Can you come and get me?...I have left home..." She paused, waiting for Shaheen to protest after recovering from the initial shock that was she was bound to experience once her words would sink in. When she didn't hear her react without a show of upheaval and instead return her greeting in a mildly confused tone, she thought it was time she clarified her earlier statement.

"I have left Khizar for good..."

Pain always calls for attention whenever it took hold. But even pain is discernible only to a point and beyond that threshold it was numbness alone. That night she was a living numb mass who wouldn't speak to Shaheen, as she steered the wheel casting quick worried glances towards her friend - Khirad - while she kept driving. Khirad simply stared out the window without so much as a word, with a visible detachment that Shaheenn was forced to entertain a bedeviling idea: of taking the car back to find Khizar and ascertain that Khirad was emotionally stable then; that the facts she'd shared in the due course of their last phone call had been true.

Soon after they reached home, Khirad went straight to bed and Shaheen thought it was best to take up the subject when she was clear headed; and what better way than a good night's sleep to gain some sanity - which she thought Khirad anyways lacked under the dulling hours of the night.

Sleep had a way of resolving things for her. She'd come to believe that sleep untangled those few knots that even her alert conscious couldn't. And when that night's slumber felt like years in the making, she woke up to a dawn gallantly streaked with the brightest lights...to a lucidity she felt robbed of all those years.

Shaheen came into the guest room with tea, right as she exited the bathroom and Shaheen gave her a small smile, greeting her by invoking the lord's name.

"I don't know where I would have gone, had it not been for you Shaheen" She spoke low while sitting down on the bed and tying her hair again into messy bun.

"Thank you" She said, reaching out to touch her arm, before taking in the tea cup in her hand.

"Don't bother Khirad..." Shaheen took a sip and keenly studied her face, looking for any trace of regret for her action's last night. But instead, she saw a resentment and something in the likes of a resolute that was on its way to becoming a grim determination. In reality, she wouldn't need all that to be etched on Khirad's face to read into her state of mind. She knew her friend had her own approach to fighting her troubles; although, if their lives in Hyderabad were anything to go by Khirad's troubles were already over. What was left for Khirad, was for her to set forth towards a new shore - put together a life that would enable her to do so. While Shaheen waited for some sign to begin a conversation that would cursorily address those plans, Khirad got off the bed and walked towards the bay windows, seemingly lost in the far horizon - as if she was looking for the land that lay beyond the Chicago blue waters of the Great lakes.

"If you don't mind, I want to stay her for some time Shaheen..." She began and hesitatingly turned in profile for her response.

"Of course...It isn't a thing to ask. Even Tausif has gone to Hyderabad for a month..." Shaheen, at once, caught her slip and unknowingly she'd already numbered her days at her home. "Oops! Sorry Khirad..." She sounded sincerely apologetic and with that, she also gave away her helplessness "That wasn't meant to come out like that"

"No problem..." She looked down at the expensive china she was holding and her eyes trailed the last of the froth that tossed against the inner walls of the cup. If Shaheen could have her way, Khirad would be staying there with her for the rest of her life. But then there was Shaheen's shohar too and he didn't need to see things the same way as Shaheen did. Moreover, she wanted to live free for once, without having to be provided by anyone; without wanting to be taken care of as a chore, like the way a few people did: feeling compelled to work only to justify and to in-turn stay free of the guilt for the recompense they received. "One month is plenty time to find a place. I might even move out before that"

"Would you do one more favor?" Khirad asked after a while and Shaheen looked up from her tea.

"I need you to go back there and get all my stuff" Shaheen didn't answer and her eyes widened in surprise, as though the hard truth - that she'd left Khizar for good - were still taking its time to sink into her.

When Shaheen didn't answer, she continued, "Not everything, just my clothes and papers. There is a small amount in the bank as savings..." She turned to face Shaheen fully, "I will buy the rest of the stuff I need, using that"

"Are you sure Khirad?" Shaheen's eyes still held the same element of shock and concern as the previous night.

Pulling her dupatta as a shawl over her shoulders, she spun around to watch the calming waters again. "I'm certain...and I can tell you that, that is what Allah wants for me too"

It had been months, since he'd woken up to early light of the day and ages since without being rushed for a coffee by this side of the wall, that had floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked out to the lake. Without doubt, the privileged always missed out on the small pleasures of life and he hadn't been far from being becoming one of those truly under-privileged who had everything but enjoyed nothing at all.

Ashar had lived the prime of his life in that high-rise apartment that overlooked an endless, giant mass of azure waters that lapped the sides of the road he lived: Lake Shore drive. Though five years had been a long time, he'd hardly spent any time by that wall adoring the free excursion of nature he was offered with that heavy rent he paid. Throwing his brows up with a smile - that showed a mild embarrassment - unto himself, he raised his coffee cup in a toast to all of the daunting beauty that lay out there.

As he made a mental note to give attendance there before he made his way out to work every day, he noticed a woman dressed in a yellow flowing garment by the window that was diagonally a few floors down and opposite from his own. While he paused momentarily mid-way in his turn - as though stopped by an unknown hand - her hair spilled from her knot as a dark curtain over her face. He wanted to walk away - dismissing it as another morning person who'd long ignored the complimentary sights that came with the apartment stay - but he felt an unmistakable inertia take over his feet. Her hand reached out to the lock of hair right by the middle of her face and moved it behind her ears with a familiar grace which attuned him to an eerie awareness inside him. A name struggled to roll over his tongue, just as his mind cleared the last traces of a doubt and disbelief and raced back in time to a period left behind ten years ago...

"Khirad..." He recollected within that whisper, a cousin, a friend and something else...long forgotten.

While seated in his executive office, located on the 43^rd floor that overlooked the deluge of waters bordering the Chicago bay, he swiveled in his chair with his chin resting on his fist and contemplated the overseas call he would soon make in a few minutes. He was thoughtfully considering his choice of words he would use to enquire about Khirad.

Somehow the subject of Khirad and his aunt never came back following their visit to Hyderabad almost ten years ago. It had been a short trip that was made right after Khirad had called his dad, when they were drowning in hospital bills over his aunt being hospitalized for a heart condition. In short, it was a rescue trip to stabilize her family situation. They had all returned back to Karachi after a few weeks, bound tight from the endless gratitude Khirad's family had showed them. And in the years that ensued he had come to realize that his father's sisters' family was to be treated like the few unwanted relationships in their lives were: their presence simply known, but never acknowledged or genuinely cherished and forgotten in the din of everyday life. They didn't go back after that trip and a few short calls had come later to keep them informed about the affairs back in Hyderabad. But that had faded too with time and they lost touch, with the exception of his father perhaps - whom he knew furtively had his means of keeping an eye on them, if he'd ever chosen to. However, it was only a hunch he'd harbored, given that he always knew his father deeply cared for his only sister and her family.

If it weren't for Khirad or for the fragile honor she had kept up in the face of helplessness, he had no reason to remember the trip where he'd slept in a pigeon hole room and constantly cringed while using a broken toilet that had turned out to be his nightmare. That and perhaps the one time he'd observed her in the terrace without her knowledge, guilefully tucked behind the long coconut leaves that slopped over one corner of the roof, while he was gloriously smoking away a cigarette.

Strangely the distance he had put - in the form of time that had passed - between him and the memory had him seeing things differently. She'd come up with a bucket of clothes to dry them on the clothesline and had gone on doing just that, with his back to him, until a gust of pixie wind had made the dupatta - with which she'd covered her head - fall and pool around her neck. In the swift motion with which the cloth came down, it had disturbed her bun too and her hair had untied from the knot, slowly pulling itself out and had swayed to all sides in the undoing motion, before it finally spilled its length - just the way he'd seen that morning - as a shiny black cascade. Seconds later, she'd tied her hair back and as if her presence was a cue, a flight of pigeons had descended not far from her.

Even as he doubted the rosy tint his brain was craft fully giving the line of events that'd taken place, he was certain he could never be wrong about the blissfully indulging smile she'd given then. She'd run down immediately; perhaps to get some grains for the birds. But he'd escaped down the stairs, before she could make her way back up, for he distinctly remembered an elevated state of energy inside him. To him, it had appeared that he was plain nervous about getting caught.

Although he'd initially dismissed everything about the incident as inconsequential, he couldn't continue doing so when the memory had come back to him at the most unsuspecting times, over the next few years. He'd curiously turned to Google and researched enough on the human mind and memories.

There had been a million theories in the web, and when one school of thought had gone against each other, it was comforting to consider it as a malfunction at his end. And when some vague website confirmed that it wasn't always possible to determine why the brain treated a few memories differently, he felt unburdened.

It had also been what he was looking for; at times denial was far easier than acceptance and erringly - conveniently more so - he'd believed just that. A couple of years went by and he heard news of her being married off to a local college professor and then the memory had turned into a harmless token of his only lone encounter with his cousin...until that unsuspecting morning when fate had artfully dragged the troubling recollection into reality, recreating it with near similar details that had originally had him running from an insane thrum of tension.

His body shook with a small laugh as he found himself staring at his shoe when his mind turned to the present day. The long respite he'd gained from the suspension of the recurring flash of memory seemed at the verge of being destroyed. He was vaguely bothered now, that he was either seeing things - for the last he heard Khirad was still living in Hyderabad - or he was seeing Khirad in people, due to the one possessed memory.

He needn't overthink the morning as long as he could get that call going to his dad and so he did just that. Since, he didn't think his mom ever felt eagerly welcoming - besides he thought he also sensed an uneasiness in his mother - when it came to his dad's side of the family, he placed a call on his dad's cell phone instead of the home line.

"As-Salamu Alaykum Dad..." He said, impatiently waiting to get on with the conversation.

"Wa 'alaykum as-salam beta...how come you remembered me during your office times? Khairiyat?" He instantly heard a concern shade his earlier cheerful tone.

"Yes Dad...we spoke just last night. Remember?...But there was just something I wanted to tell you. I thought you would be happy to hear some news about your favorite niece" He paused to draw some emphasis and also to know if he could still get his hopes up for Khirad. There was a long silence that he hadn't expected, but eventually a response came through.

"Haan beta...Don't make me wait if it's happy news" Once again, he found his father's voice shake from a deep something that he never could trace, the few times his sister or Khirad came up and his father did what he did best - he masked it with a slithering laugh.

"I think I saw Khirad this morning. If I'm right...then she lives close to my apartment. What is weird is that I have never seen her there before" He ended with anticipation for his father to challenge that information.

"I don't know Ashar beta..." His father paused a second, obviously putting a show for him, "The last I heard, she was still in Hyderabad"

He knew just the thing to tell his father then, to bring out the truth. "Are you sure dad? I thought if it was indeed Khirad, I will go down and invite them over for a dinner at either my apartment or a restaurant" He ended, with a sly smile playing on his lips.

This time around, his father didn't speak for a longer stretch of the minute. "If you promise to be discreet beta" He could hear his father smiling as well "then I can tell you that she moved to Chicago with her husband two years ago, after he got an offer to teach in a small college there...community college?" He heard him questioning "but, if you chose to discuss this with others, then I would just tell you she is still in Hyderabad"

They laughed together, which was a rare event, given that he seldom had anything intimate to share with his father. "Now you tell me the truth dad? After I promise to reach out to her...Anyways, dad when was the last time you spoke to her? Do you know that she is still here?"

"Ashar beta..." His father heaved a heavy sigh, "There is nothing to hide anymore. I really don't ever call there...You know how your mom feels about them. It's a friend I know from close to their home in Hyderabad, who used to give me the inside information. Your phuphi and Khirad didn't know that he talked to me and he also passed away a year ago. May Allah bless his soul. So I can't give you the confirmation you are asking for"

He sat there thinking what he could do next before he went knocking on a stranger's door without being sure she would recognize him or ascertaining her presence there.

"Ashar beta...I would like it very much if you can go down there anyways and meet her..." He thought his father was going to cry, his tone pleading. "Think you are doing a favor to your old man"

"Dad...Of course..." He said, with a stronger hint of assurance and felt unexpectedly proud that he was finally getting to do something in return for all that his father had given him. "I will invite Khirad and all of her family home"

He hung up shortly after with an untold anxiety on his new summons...and spent the rest of the day pondering why somethings had become significant - and felt workable - now and not later or before.

u opened it here also ? 😳

What can I say? This forum to me felt like Humsafar's Maika than elsewhere... 😆

But I leave it to you, to make this FF feel like its welcomed here. 😉

Wow this is brilliant stuff..Can't wait to read more :)

glad to see this ff in PSF forums too😛

I do intend to make this thread as the main one. The next update will be posted here and only the link will be provided in FF thread.

Thanks so much for reading folks!