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Author's Note:
This story is based on events that unfold right after Aahil discovers Sanam near Ibrahim Mansion and brings her home and accuses her of defection.
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"Ring of Fire!"
*"Love is a burning thing...And it makes a fiery ring...Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire.
I fell into a burning ring of fire...I went down, down, down as the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns...The ring of fire, the ring of fire!"
Was she really back? Was that really her standing in the dark? He stopped his car because he saw a women standing in his path. The light from the car fell on her face. Even though her face was turned away, he thought she looked familiar. Then she turned. Her face illuminated, and he saw HER. It seemed like an eternity since he had seen her. Even though it was only two weeks. Two weeks since she had disappeared from his life, without an explanation. Without a trace. Taking his will to live away with her.
Two weeks ago on the day of his Nikah to Sanam, he had thought himself the happiest and luckiest man alive. He had not been able to believe his luck! THIS women, who had seemed like a fantasy, was his reality. This time HE had chosen her, not Ammi. Yes last time he said "Qubool Hai" to her, he had chosen to accept her. But that situation had been anything but ideal, for both of them. That is why he had wanted them to marry again. This time choosing each other and being happy to do so. No external pressure, no feelings of being compelled. He had loved her even then, but he doubted she had felt the same. They had come a long way since then, and he wanted them to cement their relationship publically for good. That was his way of showing her how serious he was about her. He knew he had made mistakes with her in the past, especially when he had listened to Ammi when she said he could never be a good husband. How he had acted cold towards Sanam then, even though his heart was breaking seeing her confusion. Then finally, he had admitted to her that he loved her. Even though they both knew he did. He had said it in so many words at the Kohinoor launch. Yes, he had wanted this Nikah. It was supposed to be their "Full circle" moment!
But instead, what had he found when he went to see his bride that night? A total stranger. Aahil still reeled under the shock of that moment. For a second he had thought someone was playing a sick joke with him? Then when Ammi had told him that HIS Sanam had left, he had not believed her. He had thought it was some cruel lie. But then it had all added up. She had used a dupatta to climb out of the window to get out. Her phone was switched off. Not to mention, she had behaved oddly for the two weeks preceding the wedding. She had effectively run away from a lifetime commitment to him! Could she have made her rejection more clear? Then what was she doing here now? Why was she back? He looked at her face, and saw what seemed like joy appear on it, at seeing him. Then she stepped towards him, and started to run to him. To his arms? NO. He could not fall for this again. He could not fall for HER again. She can't come close to him. So he held out his hand. "Stop!" he indicated to her. She looked shocked, but she stopped. She tried to speak, but he stopped her from doing so. He couldn't listen to it. No he just couldn't give in. If she spoke, he might crack. If she came close, he WILL crack. No. No he can't! He HAD to keep his head about him.
So he pulled her by the arm and brought her home, and then declared to everyone that she won't leave the house, but will live in it as a servant. A "Mulazim". What she had been before. She tried to explain, but he didn't want to hear it. WHAT possible reason could she give for leaving on their wedding day? What was more important than HIM, and their day? No, he could not risk listening to her, because if he did, he will surly fall for it again! She will enslave him again. No, he could NOT let that happen. He saw the shock on her face, the disbelief at his stance. But he could not risk letting her see how much this was breaking him up inside. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew that now she was back, he just could not let her walk out of this house. He wanted to make her suffer. Make her feel the rejection that HE had felt when he realised she left. What better way to do that, than make her watch him accept this new Sanam? Make her think he has moved on?
He saw the hurt in her eyes, when he held the new Sanam's hand. As she turned to leave, he had called out to her, almost by reflex. "Sanam!"... But when she turned around, pretended that he was talking to the new Sanam. WHY was the pain in her eyes not making him feel better? WHY can't he get rid of the ache in his chest everytime he looked at her. "Why did you leave me Sanam? WHY?" he thought to himself. "When will this pain stop?" Aahil closed his eyes, as he heard the door close behind Sanam. He got up and left the room soon after. He could not STAND being in this room. It reminded him too much of the love he and Sanam had shared once. The love he THOUGHT they had shared. Was it all a lie? Had it all been a lie? Then WHY when she looked at him now, with those big brown eyes of her's, he could not help drowning in them again? WHY did her eyes look sincere? Why? Was she playing him again? Aahil felt like he was going crazy.
The next few days went in a haze. He had taken to sleeping on Sanam's side of the bed, while new Sanam was sleeping on the couch. Most nights, he didn't even sleep. He just went to the terrace and waited there for hours. Looking at the sky. On the third night after he had come back home, he went to the terrace, and as he approached the balcony, he heard voices, and he stopped short near one of the columns close to the balcony and listened. As he looked ahead, his presence covered by the column, he saw Rehan with Sanam.
"Sanam...please don't cry. Everything will be fine. Aahil bhai is angry now, but he will listen to reason when he has come down off his high horse!"
"No Rehan. He hates me now. Have you not seen the way he looks at me? His eyes full of venom? The funny part is, I actually thought he would believe me!"
"You know, I am shocked at Aahil bhai! Woh yeh kaise kar sakthain hain tumhare saath?"
"Chorna Rehan! Let's talk of something else!"
"Seriously Sanam...how can we when..." Rehan started to say, when Sanam cut him off.
"Let's talk about you! How are things with you? How is work?"
"Work is good. The only good thing in my life right now! Let's not talk of my non-existent love life!" said Rehan with a sigh. Rehan had not wanted to bring up Suneheri with Sanam again, considering how upset she is right now. He didn't want to stress her out more, by telling Sanam that he had not been able to find her. Sanam always worried about the people she cared about, and she would worry about him, when she needed all her energy to worry about herself right now.
"Us and our sad love lives ha?" said Sanam with a laugh.
"Yes! We are sad aren't we?" said Rehan with a laugh.
"At least we are sad TOGETHER! I am so glad you're my friend Rehan!"
"Ditto Sanam! Always!" said Rehan as he held Sanam's hand and gave it a small squeeze. Sanam looked up at Rehan and smiled.
As he watched this exchange, Aahil could barely hear their conversation. He only saw that they seem to be very comfortable in each other's presence. They seemed to be back to their old camaraderie that he had noticed before his marriage to Sanam, and even after. The friendship that had felt like a hundred needles that pricked in his eyes at the time. Then when Rehan came back from Kohinoor, he seemed different. He seemed to be very supportive of his relationship with Sanam. But even after her betrayal of him, it looked like Rehan was on HER side? Maybe he still had feelings for her which he had suppressed because he knew HE loved Sanam too! But now that he had declared that he and Sanam were over...Maybe Rehan thought?...Aahil's thoughts trailed off. "No. No Rehan would not do that! Also, didn't he say he had a girlfriend? One that was "Just like Sanam?" Yes! Just LIKE Sanam, but she was NOT Sanam! Rehan had had strong feelings for Sanam once. What if now, if he thinks his coast is clear, they re-surface again? "No! NO. NO dammit!" thought Aahil. "Sanam is STILL MY wife!" he told himself.
"Yes Aahil, but in name only! After all, you yourself declared that you are no longer giving her the status of your wife?" Aahil told himself ironically. So now, the only formality remaining was for them to officially divorce, and their relationship would be over! WHY did that thought tear him up inside? Why did the idea of Sanam walking out of here once she was free of him, make him wince at the pain the thought provoked? He said he had forgotten her? That he had put her out of his heart and his mind! Then WHY did the thought of her leaving kill him inside? Aahil turned on his heel and left, as he could not bear to watch Rehan and Sanam in their friendly chat anymore. He then realized how alone he was. There was NO one that he could talk to! He could not even talk to Rehan, because he knew Rehan was on Sanam's side. He had NO one. No one at all. Ammi hated Sanam, and there was no point in talking to her. It only made him feel worse!
WHY had Ammi not come and talked to him when she realized that Sanam was missing from the wedding? Why had she just placed a random stranger in Sanam's place? Yes it would have been embarrassing when it was discovered that the Bride was missing? But surely, they didn't have to TELL the people there that? They could have said that Sanam had taken ill? Made up some story. Yes there would have been talk, but at least he would have been spared this fake marriage with a complete stranger. Someone he had not even consented to marry in the first place? He even wondered at the legality of this so called marriage? In his anger and pain at Sanam's defection, he had not thought of all that, but the truth was, he could quite easily have this marriage annulled, stating he was unaware of the identity of the Bride at the time of the Nikah!
But the truth was, he had only accepted this "Con" Nikah, because he was too hurt to care about any of it. His Ammi said she did it to save their "Izzat!" But the truth was, there was hardly any Izzat left in the situation they were currently in! But he had to pretend to Sanam that he has accepted this 2nd marriage, just to let her see that he CAN move on without her. That he was not going to spend his life crying over her defection, over her fake promises, her fake love!
Aahil walked away from the Terrace, his head pounding. He walked down to the Poolside, and opened one of the cabinets near it. He took out a bottle of Whisky and just drank out of it for a minute. The neat whisky burned his chest, and for a moment it gave him relief. The physical pain was almost making the emotional hurt bearable. He just wanted to die! Just wanted to make the pain stop. He didn't know how long he was there getting drunk. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep on the sofa next to the pool.
Sanam walked close to the poolside, and then she saw him. Aahil was laying on the couch next to the pool asleep. A bottle of whiskey was lying next to the couch on the ground. It was around half empty. Sanam shook her head as she realised that Aahil was probably blind drunk.
"Oh Aahil..." Sanam whispered. "Yeh Aapne kya kardiya?"
She went close to him and bent to pick up the bottle. As she reached for the bottle, she felt a hand vice around her wrist.
"Sanam" said Aahil's voice. His voice was slurred and Sanam realised that he was not really in his senses.
"Aahil...let me put this away!" said Sanam, as she tried to pry her hand away from him.
"No dammit! You won't tell me what to do! I WILL drink. I will drink myself to death! What does it matter to you Sanam? Tume kya farak padatha hain, if I live or die?"
"How can you say that Aahil? I am your wife, of course I care if you live or die!"
"Really?" he laughed bitterly! "You CARE? Is THAT why you left on the day of our Nikah without a word? How you jumped out a window and ran away? Some caring!"
"Aahil...I TRIED to tell you, I had reasons...I had to..."
"REASONS?" said Aahil let go of Sanam's wrist and scrambled to his feet. He then turned and grabbed her by the upper arms. "You had REASONS? What reasons compel a women to leave the man she supposedly LOVES on their wedding day? Unless she didn't love him to start with?"
"Aahil...LISTEN to me, you don't understand!...you..." Sanam continued to say, when Aahil cut her off.
"No Sanam! YOU listen, and you're the one who doesn't understand! You LEFT me dammit, and there is NO excuse for what you did!"
"Aahil...I DIDN'T leave you!"
"What? You DIDN'T leave me? What the F**k are you talking about Sanam? Are you telling me that I "hallucinated" this whole thing? Of course you left me dammit! I went to you to celebrate what I thought was our wedding night, and I see a stranger sitting on our bed! How the HELL do you think that made me feel? You rejected me, and NOW I am rejecting you! Poetic justice don't you think?"
"I know how you feel Aahil, but you don't know what you're talking about!"
"NO? Maybe I don't! Maybe I'm drunk. But you will NEVER know how I feel Sanam! Never! But before I say something I REALLY regret, get out of here!" he said as he shoved Sanam away from him. Sanam turned around and ran from there, tears streaming down her eyes. As she turned the corner to walk towards the hall, Aahil turned around and picked up the bottle on the floor, and threw it into the pool.
"Dammit!" he said as he kicked the stool that was next to the sofa.
Rehan was watching this scene from the other side of the hall, and as Sanam ran towards where he was standing, he remembered another night months ago when he had witnessed a similar scene. He had thought Sanam and Aahil had come SO far since that night. But it seems they were back where they started. One thing is for sure, there was more to this situation than met the eye. Rehan knew that Sanam was not the sort of person to run from her wedding! WHAT was going on? He had to find out. As for this NEW Sanam that had entered the house...He could see his mother's machinations written ALL over it! If HE had known that she was going to do something like this, he would NEVER have let it happen. But on the wedding day, he had been as clueless as Aahil, and then he had left right after the wedding to see if he could look up Suneheri again. When he returned a few days later, he found this total mess!
But Rehan was determined. He was going to help Sanam. He was also going to help Aahil. Maybe what Aahil needed to come out of this "Revenge mode" that he was in, was a shock to his system! An even bigger shock than the one he had so far received. Yes, something drastic needed to happen, and happen fast.
To be continued.
*Lyrics derived from the song "Ring Of Fire" by Johnny Cash.
Songwriters: Merle Kilgore, June Carter, Lyrics Published by:SHAPIRO BERNSTEIN & CO. INC.
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