Chapter 4
Ayan and Humi were doing nothing more productive than watching DVD's when Zoya came around. Humi, in her advanced state of pregnancy, couldn't do much else. They were both lounging in the den, Ayan looking devastating in a snug, well-worn pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt that had definitely seen better days. Humi, in the meantime, looked miserable in a huge blue and white striped football jersey that Zoya knew had once belonged to Ayan, who was a capable Sunday afternoon player, and a pair of stretchy blue leggings. She was about the size of a baby whale. Zoya simply melted when she caught sight of her cranky younger cousin and once again resolved not to do anything to jeopardize her happiness and health. She dropped a kiss on Humi's cheek and one on the top of Ayan's head as she passed behind the sofa on which they were sitting. Ayan grinned up at her.
"Nothing exciting planned for today, sweetie," he informed cheerfully as Zoya sank down onto the other sofa. "I'm afraid we're feeling a bit out of sorts today, a touch grumpy, if you will. So we're staying in, in the hopes that it will improve our temper... ouch!" The last as Humi swatted him in the back on his head.
"Stop talking like that, you know it drives me crazy! I'm not a two year old throwing a tantrum, I'm the hormonal woman in her late pregnancy! So don't push me..." Ayan slanted a rueful gaze at his amused friend and mouthed a wisely silent "see?"
Zoya grinned before kicking off her shoes and dragging her feet up under her. She was dressed casually too, wearing an old pair of jeans and a bright blue t-shirt with a large, stylized butterfly printed on the front of it.
"What are we watching?" Zoya asked, leaning forward to help herself to a handful of the popcorn which was in a glass bowl on the coffee table.
"Some romantic thing that has Humi dissolving into tears every two minutes or so," Ayan shrugged dismissively, ignoring the way his wife was glaring at him over the top of her round little glasses. "God, the sacrifices I make to keep this woman happy," he groaned and Humi gasped in outrage.
"Well if you had your way, we'd be watching some macho jerk swear and punch his way through two of hours of relentless explosions, car chases and gunfire," she retorted and he grinned down at her.
"Your point being?"
"Aaargh!" She actually said "aaargh" and Zoya for the first time in a long time felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat. Ayan suddenly grinned before dropping one arm around his wife's narrow shoulders to drag her closer. He placed his other hand protectively over her stomach and Humi put up a token struggle before sighing contentedly and dropping her head onto his broad shoulder. Zoya watched them enviously for a few moments before trying to focus on the movie. She had thought Ayan was exaggerating about her cousin's response to the overly-soppy film but it was true, Humi sniffled on an average of every two minutes. Zoya was just managing to get somewhat absorbed in the plot when the doorbell rang. Ayan excused himself and jumped up to answer it.
Humi watched him go with a slight smile on her face. She was quiet for a while before shaking her head in exasperation.
"You know, if I didn't love him so darned much, I would probably have killed him by now," she admitted sourly and Zoya surprised herself by laughing out loud in response to her cousin's disgruntled confession. She couldn't believe that her sense of humor was still intact after the events of the last forty-eight hours.
Ayan made his way back into the room, looking uncharacteristically grim and all the laughter and light drained from Zoya's face when she saw who was standing behind Ayaan.
"What are you doing here?" She finally managed to choke out after a moment of shocked silence.
"I thought I'd join you all for lunch," he shrugged, nodding apologetically to a still gaping Humi.
"May I sit down?" He indicated toward the sofa Zoya was occupying.
"Yes, of course," Humi nodded graciously.
"No!" Both Ayan and Zoya all-but yelled at the same time as Humi. Asad smiled humorlessly before choosing to ignore their vehement rejections and sitting down beside Zoya. She shied as far away from him as she could but Asad chose to ignore that too. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his spread thighs with his large, masculine hands dangling down between his legs. He focused intently on Humi.
"How have you been, Humeira?" He asked gently. He was the only one who ever called Humi by her full name and Zoya could sense Ayan bristling.
"Fine thanks," Humi murmured, rubbing her hands over her stomach in an instinctively maternal gesture. "A little tired but I suppose that it's to be expected when you're lugging another human being around." Asad grinned, he actually grinned, at that and nodded.
"Indeed."
"Ayan, for God's sake, stop hovering and sit down," Humi snapped up at her still-glowering husband. "I would like to finish watching this movie sometime in this year! We're having lunch afterwards, Asad, I hope you don't mind?"
"Of course not," he said smoothly, leaning back and making Zoya feel incredibly claustrophobic as he crowded her with his large body.
"What are we watching?" Humi told him and Asad did an admirable job of concealing his grimace. Humi barely contained her own grin before hitting the play button. Ayan rejoined her on the sofa, sending periodic glares over at Asad, who kept his eyes glued on the screen and looked unfairly relaxed.
Humi dropped her head onto her husband's broad shoulder and resumed her occasional sniffling and Ayan, unable to remain furious for long with his wife draped across him dragged Humi close again and snuggled her up against him. His fingers interlaced with the hand she had resting on her stomach and Zoya felt like she was the only sane person in the room. Asad was sprawled out beside her, his shoulders and thighs brushed against her every time he breathed, the other couple was snuggled together like a couple of lovebirds and she, Zoya, felt like she was losing her mind!
She got up abruptly and left the room, heading blindly toward the kitchen, where she stood in the middle of the room taking in great gasps of air. She should have known that he would follow her even there because when she turned back toward the kitchen door, there he was, watching her and a looking splendid in his own version of casual wear; a pair of faded blue jeans and a black dress shirt with the top button open to reveal the strong, masculine column of his neck
"Why did you come here?" She asked on a whisper.
"I thought that we should spend some time together," he said with a gentleness that Zoya instinctively mistrusted.
"But I told you... I don't want to spend time with you," she said in a soft, bewildered voice. "I don't want to be anywhere near you!"
"Zoya..." he said, still in that same gentle voice, taking a cautious step into the room and Zoya backed up until she hit the fridge.
"The one place I had... the one place I could come and be myself," she shook her head, her eyes were wide and shimmering with tears. "And you had to take that from me too..." the tears overflowed and she desperately tried to blot them from her cheeks with the hem of her t-shirt.
He made a soft almost dismayed sound in his throat before moving so quickly that she barely had time to register it. One second he was still close to the kitchen entrance and the next he was right in front of her, sandwiching her between his body and the fridge. His large hands reached up to cup her face and his thumbs brushed roughly at the tears on her cheeks.
"Don't," his voice was low and gravelly and so thick that she could barely understand that one word. She raised her much smaller hands to his and tugged futilely at his hold, trying to get him to release her.
"I want to make things less difficult for us, Zoya..." he muttered uncomfortably, his face so close to hers that his breath washed over her
skin and raised goose pimples all over her body.
"Why now?" She challenged the ludicrous statement angrily, trying to ignore the effect his closeness was having on her very receptive body. Her soft green eyes snapped up at his through her tears. "Is it because I'm threatening to leave this marriage without giving you your precious son, is that it?" She dropped her hands down to his hard, broad chest and tried to push him away. He wouldn't budge.
"No," was all he said. "That's not it... because I know you won't leave."
"What makes you so sure of that?" She hissed and he was silent for a while before responding.
"The discussion we had yesterday," he eventually, reluctantly, said and she went limp against him, all the fight leaving her abruptly.
"So, if you're so sure I won't leave, what's this sudden need you have to spend your every waking moment with me?" She asked hollowly.
"We're married for God's sake... and we're like strangers! I know nothing about you!"
"Of course you know nothing about me," her voice was hoarse with the effort it took not to scream at him. "You're the one who decided, even before we got married, that there was nothing worth knowing about me."
"Well I've changed my mind," he didn't bother to deny her wild accusation, probably because it was true, instead dropping his hands down to her narrow shoulders to give her a little shake.
"Which once again begs the question of why... after eighteen months of marriage, why now?"
His hands fell from her shoulders before he shrugged with an air of disinterest which belied his urgency of just seconds ago.
"Why not now? Now's as good a time as any..."
he was back to being remote and icy and Zoya shuddered involuntarily.
"It's much too late, Asad," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her slender frame. "I may be trapped in this marriage but I want nothing to do with you! The very sight of you makes me sick to my stomach."
"There's a way out of this you know," he finally murmured.
"I know," his hooded gaze snapped back up to her face. "Have a baby, right? You want a son... and I'm the chosen incubator." She watched his face carefully but he betrayed not one iota of emotion other than a slight tightening of his jaw.
"So what happens after I have this precious baby of yours? Who gets him after the divorce? You expect me to be nothing but a surrogate mother. I'm to bear him and you'll then take him away from me, right?"
She was aching to hear an affirmative from him, anything that would prove to her that he was the one who wanted the child and that she had misunderstood the conversation she had overheard between her husband and her father that morning.
"Of course I wouldn't take him from you," he shook his head, sending her heart plummeting. "I wouldn't be that cruel. Naturally you'd maintain custody," Zoya shut her eyes to shield her agony from him and she felt her scalding tears seep down her cheeks.
"How very... magnanimous of you," she whispered. "To be so desperate for something only to give it up in the end... you're so much more generous than I gave you credit for. How often would you want to see him?"
"I would naturally move back to India so I would probably see him two or three times a year. It is
what you want, no? Less contact with me?" She inhaled deeply and her brow furrowed.
"Two or three times a year? That was all the time he would want to spend with a child who was half hers? She opened her eyes and met his gaze squarely.
"Like I said before, you're being quite generous but it's all futile anyway because I have no intention of having a baby with you!"
"You're being very childish, Zoya," he admonished quietly.
"No, I'm finally making my own decisions. Up to this point in my life, everything has been decided for me... this marriage would never have happened if my father hadn't decided that you would make the perfect son-in-law. After that, the wedding date, the venue, the cake, where we would live... it was all you or my father. I couldn't even choose my own wedding dress," the last emerged in a small, broken voice which quavered with remembered disbelief and outrage. Her father had simply had the dress delivered to her room on her wedding day, no discussion and no choice.
"The only reason Humi was allowed to attend my wedding was because my father found it appropriate for my first cousin to be in the wedding party. If she'd been just a friend, I doubt she would have fit the bill."
"It turns my stomach to hear someone who's led such a privileged life whine on about how terrible her life is, you've been spoilt and you've had everything money could buy..."
"Except love, specifically my husband's love and my father's love... apparently I'm not quite worthy of that."
"You're feeling sorry for yourself and I'm getting sick of it."
"Yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself," she acknowledged bitterly. "And it's very liberating. In the past all I've done is accept everything you and my father have dished out... thinking it was my lot in life, even thinking I deserved it; if two such powerful men as you thought I wasn't worthy of love and respect, then who was I to differ? But I'm starting to realise that I'm not the one at fault here. I'm not the one with the personality defect... at least my motives for marrying you were honest; I stupidly believed I loved you. Yours were less than stellar, weren't they? They certainly had nothing to do with love."
"They had everything to do with love," he suddenly thundered, silencing her abruptly as she stared up at him in wide-eyed shock. "Just not love for you." She blinked up at him; her green eyes the only color in her deathly pale face.
"What does that mean?" She asked through barely moving lips. "Love for whom?" Was he referring to Mahek? If he really loved the other woman so much, why on earth marry Zoya? It made no sense.
"None of your damned business," he grated furiously, a muscle working frantically in his jaw.
"It never is," she finally nodded bitterly. "It has nothing to do with me, yet it affects every aspect of my life. You want something from me but you're unable to give me anything in return. Well, I've had enough of that, Asad. You want a baby but this is my body and so it's my decision to make..."
"I'm your husband..."
"No. You are not my husband," she interrupted in a voice thickened with hatred and tears. "You have never been my husband. A husband loves, honors and cherishes! A husband is a lover and a companion... Look into the next room if you want to see what a real husband is, because you
are no such thing!"
He reeled away from her, looking like a man who'd just been bitten by his favorite pet and she pushed herself away from the fridge to brush past him.
"Zoya, wait..." he grabbed one of her arms to prevent her from running off.
"I have to go, please tell Ayan and Humi that..."
"No," he interrupted gently. "You stay. This is your family, you are right this is your place and I should not have intruded. I'm sorry..." his eyes skirted away from hers as he made apology and Zoya's jaw dropped at his second apology in twenty-four hours. She felt certain that the world would grind to a halt at any moment.
"I will leave now... it is how it should be." With that he dropped her arm and walked out, leaving her to stare after him in confusion."
Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
Anupamaa
CID
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
Fan Fictions
4