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He sits on the couch as though fixed there by some screw until he sees her walk in - back home and safe and sound. Worried sick, anxious, is breath caught in his throat - no coffee, no book, no invisible speck of dust on that table could take his mind off it. He just wanted Zoe back - in front of his eyes and hopefully in one-piece.
She looks at him as he apologizes to her in the coldest voice possible as he hands over a new I-Pad and cellphone to her - and those eyes fill up with tears. Tears that well up in her huge eyes because Asad continues to be the only person who can hurt her without trying. Tears because she no longer sees the man she saw at the burial ground. She goes back to his room to give the replacement gifts 'BACK'. She stands there with a 'main jaa rahi hoon' , wanting a reaction from Asad that is of pampering and care , and not a cold 'as you wish'.
Hmm... how do you explain something like that? Its unsaid, its incomplete , its wrought with some heavy duty emotion and you can see that things are no longer the same between them. Asad is well aware of his own heart's dilemma and he is no longer running away from it - not today at least if i can say. He is just programming himself to stay away from her and be a restrained cold ice cube to her. Its tough for him because he knows he has an emotional attachment with his New York Princess. He has to divide himself into two halves - a programmed self that is cold yet well-behaved with Zoe and an emotionally wrought person who is binding his heart with Zoe.
As for Zoe, her fixation, obsession with Asad and her emotional push-pull with Asad continues. The problem is not that Asad gave her a new cellphone and I-Pad. The problem is how he gave them and the words he said - that's what made her cry. If Asad had done the same with warmth and compassion , she would have been on the 9th heaven. Asad's lack of emotion and his absolute rejection of her as a human-being ( which is fake as we know) hurts her inside. She just wants to be 'accepted' by Asad as someone who is just as human as him. She can neither live with his cold attention nor can she live without it. She goes back to his room to give the gifts back - but how does she give them back? She is like a little attention-seeking child who wants to be hugged, cuddled and given the lollipop with love. The very fact that she says it twice - Main ja rahi hoon, it shows that she wanted Asad to stop her.
The fall on the bed showed a lot of obvious things. Both Asad and Zoe are aware of their chemistry and here Asad is aware of his sentiment towards her. Zoe felt the current and ran off like a rabbit while Asad settled himself - I should stay away from her. There was no awkward embarrassment for a change. Asad is not trying to run away from his feelings for Zoe, he is just trying to run away from her , in the hope, that sooner or later this post-trauma feeling phase will go away.
Zoe has no conscious realization of her feelings for Asad but her whole life revolved around him. If he is not reacting to her, she will make him react. She seeks his attention throughout - going to his room to give the gifts back and starting an animated conversation, demanding his attention on the pretext of explanation , knocking at his door until he opens it and she can fight with him, thinking of trapping Ayaan/Maryam so that she can again get on Asad's head. He makes her cry , he swears by bathing in savlon if she affected him, he hurts her and yet this woman is drawn to him like a bar magnet.
You cannot define what AsYa have as love. Its a lot more defining than that. To understand that , look at Asad's and Zoe's faces when he gave her the bag of replacement gifts. If slightly triggered, they would have burst into tears...
When Asad told Zoe in all practicality that nobody will be able to save her from Panchaayat this time, her innocent "Aap bhi nahiin?" was Zoe's unconscious and unshakable faith in Asad that he will be right beside her - in all weathers and all seasons.
P.S- All brownie points to Humzie today. Truly , truly, a woman of sense and substance.😳
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